Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy
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The UK Badger Cull: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
No full textIn England, so often dubbed a nation of animal lovers, close to 177,000 native badgers, a protected species under UK law, have been shot under license since 2013, ostensibly to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. There is no doubt that bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a severe problem for cattle, farmers, and taxpayers. In 2021, over 72,000 herd tests, covering more than 9 million individual cattle, were performed across Great Britain. Almost 39,000 reactor cattle and their direct contacts were slaughtered under the compulsory test and-slaughter program. More than 3.500 new herd incidents of bovine TB were recorded in 2021, and nearly 9% of cattle herds in the ‘High-Risk Area’ covering the West and South-West of England were affected and subject to movement and trading controls. The cost to the taxpayer of bTB testing and compensating farmers over the past decade is estimated to be more than £500 million (US$630 million). A typical bTB breakdown costs a farmer many thousands of pounds, not forgetting the associated disruption to their herds and businesses.
However, the licensed killing of badgers as a means of controlling bTB, introduced in 2013, has been steeped in controversy, with veterinarians, epidemiologists, animal welfare experts, farming representatives, politicians, government scientists, officials, and the wider public arguing over the ethics and effectiveness of the policy
Overcoming inertia to deliver sentience policy commensurate with sentience science
No full textRowan et al’s target article makes clear that meaningful change in policy and practice to protect animals has failed to progress in lockstep with scientific understanding of their sentience and needs. The underlying causes for inertia in political and practical progress for animals in the UK context are multi-faceted and complex, including economic forces; lack of cross-departmental accountability for animal welfare; and challenges where it suits conservation scientists to dismiss or downgrade the impacts of management decisions on individual animals. All of these influences and more must be understood and addressed if we are to deliver meaningful and timely protections for sentient animals
No need for certainty in animal sentience
No full textThis commentary supports Crump et al.’s (2022) point that where risks to welfare are severe, strong evidence of sentience is sufficient to warrant protecting welfare. Crump et al.’s eight criteria for sentience are also useful. Flexible decision-making (5) and flexible behaviour (6) are consistent with Ng (1995). The concession that the “no-need-for-sentience” proposition is unnecessary also strengthens the importance of the target article’s conclusions
Sentience and the science-policy interface
No full textI contrast my picture of the relationship between the science and policy of animal sentience with that of Marian Stamp Dawkins, who thinks “the science of animal sentience and the politics of animal welfare should be kept separate” because they involve irreconcilably different standards of evidence. On my alternative picture, (i) the science of animal sentience, like any other empirical science, delivers evidence but not certainty; (ii) this evidence allows us to make better practical decisions, both within and outside science and (iii) the quality standards we apply to the evidence should be high in all contexts, including the formulation of public policy
Pain sentience criteria and their grading
No full textOn the basis of the target article by Crump and colleagues, we suggest a more parsimonious scheme for evaluating the evidence for sentience. Since some of the criteria used by Crump et al. are not independent and some are uninformative we exclude some criteria and amalgamate others. We propose that evidence of flexible learning and prioritization, in conjunction with relevant data on brain organization, is sufficient for assigning pain-sentience to an animal and we suggest a scoring scheme based on four criteria
Emotional component of pain perception in the medicinal leech?
No full textCrump et al. have provided a series of criteria to assess animal sentience that is focused on the perception of pain, which is known to have both sensory and emotional components. They also provide a qualitative scoring system to assess data that address the eight criteria and apply this paradigm to decapod crustaceans. The criteria laid out have the potential to be applied to other invertebrates typically thought to have sensory response to tissue damage, but no emotional component to pain perception
Animals may be more reliably emotional than humans
No full textDespite considerable advances in the study of animal sentience, reluctance to credit non-human animals with emotional capacities persists. I argue that this reluctance is untenable in light of (evolutionary) theory and empirical evidence. Humans may differ from animals in their ability to reflect on, reason about, and deliberately regulate their emotions. If anything, however, this implies animals’ emotional displays provide a more valid and reliable window into their internal states than do humans’, whose displays may be strategically altered. Any signs of pleasure or distress thus constitute direct readouts of animal wellbeing. It is time we start treating animals accordingly
Is Time with Pets Good for our Cardiovascular Health? The surprising results of 129 studies on dogs’ effect on human health.
No full texthttps://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/sc_herzog_comphealth/
The well-studied health benefits (of pet ownership) are claimed to be much greater than the research results actually support. For example, it is claimed that a beloved dog will lower a person’s blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, calm anxiety, and even make it easier to interact with other human beings. A recent systematic review indicate that the physiological effects of interacting with a pet may not be as strong as is commonly reported
Dog Ecology and Demographics in Several Areas in the Philippines and Its Application to Anti-Rabies Vaccination Programs
No full textUnderstanding dog population dynamics plays a vital role in planning both rabies and dog management interventions. Establishing a human to dog ratio and an understanding how the urban/rural nature of the community might affect the overall dog population estimate provides an easy-to-use reference to estimate approximate dog populations in a range of communities. A total of 10,664 households were interviewed in 10 locations in the Philippines (2017 and 2018) to understand the dog population variations among the urban, semi-urban and rural areas. Epicollect5 and OSM tracker applications were used to conduct household interviews using a predesigned fixed set of questions. All answers were recorded directly using mobile phone applications. The survey results showed that for every 1000 humans, there are 256.3 dogs in rural areas, 213.8 dogs in semi-rural areas, 208.7 dogs in urban areas and 170.0 dogs on small islands of the Philippines. We estimate a total dog population in the Philippines of 23.29 million dogs (CI 95%, 22.51–24.07 million). Based on the survey findings from Quezon City and Cebu City, targets, resources allocations and vaccination approach were adjusted for the anti-rabies vaccination program at two locations in 2018, which lead to a 3- to 4-fold increase in the total number of dogs vaccinated in each city compared to previous years
Sentience and sentient minds
No full textMy commentary builds on Rowan et al.’s (2022) comprehensive review to address the question ‘what do we mean by sentience?’ It suggests how we might recognise degrees of sentience within the animal kingdom, ranging from primitive sensations such as hunger and pain to more complex emotions that determine quality of life