There are different approaches to wolves and wolf management in the United States of America (USA), depending on the state. Ted Williams, a longtime writer on fish and wildlife conservation, has recently written about the killing of wolves in the Northern Rockies states. Whether or not you agree with Williams' criticisms of the state governments and the Federal authorities for their approach to wolves, he brings his usual acerbic pen to the discussion of wolf management. He criticizes Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming for resurrecting "America's tradition of persecuting wolves."
When the UK (United Kingdom) voted to leave the European Union (EU), one of the consequences would be the loss of legislation on various issues covered in existing EU laws. The UK government had to pass new laws covering the many items in EU legislation that would no longer apply to the UK, including the statement in the EU governing treaty that animals were sentient. The Conservative Government had promised to address the complicated range of legislative gaps, including the declaration that animals are sentient beings, that would be precipitated by the UK's departure from the EU via new omnibus legislation. As expected, the very complicated omnibus EU-departure legislation did not address all the "gap" issues. In particular, the issue of animal sentience was omitted. This omission prompted public dismay that animals would no longer have the protection of the EU declaration that they were sentient beings and led to a campaign calling on the Government to correct the omission. The Government promised to do so and eventually developed an Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill to take the place of the EU language. On April 28, 2022, the United Kingdom (UK) Government bill stating that animals are sentient received Royal Assent from Queen Elizabeth, meaning that the bill is now an Act, the law of the land. What does this new law mean in practice?
There has been a tension between the European Union's ban on the marketing of cosmetics that have been tested on animals (passed in 2013) and the directive mandating the development of safety data for industrial chemicals (passed in 2007). This tension has now come out into the open as the European Chemicals Agency has requested a company to perform animal tests on two chemicals that are used only in cosmetics.
This year's World Happiness Report 2021 unsurprisingly looks at how the world is faring under the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim of this year's report was two-fold – to look at the impact of the pandemic on the structure and quality of people's lives and, second, to evaluate how governments have dealt with the pandemic.
The South African government published a report by a High Level Panel on the future of its policies to protect wildlife, support local communities and provide for sustainable use. The panel recommended halting lion breeding operations to produce body parts and for canned hunting and also recommended that South Africa should not urge CITES to establish a legal trade in ivory. The report represents a substantial shift in the management of wildlife in the country.
Animal feeling or sentience appears to have been particularly important in driving animal welfare policy upgrades. In the past twenty-five years, various governments, including the European Union, have passed legislation proclaiming that animals are sentient. There are now efforts to understand which animals are sentient and what should be done about those that appear to be able to feel pain and pleasure. The Animal Sentience journal is now planning to examine the extent of sentience in invertebrate phyla.
A relatively recent saying, attributed to many different people, is that "prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." In contrast, Peter Drucker, the global management guru, is quoted as saying that "the best way to predict the future is to create it." One way to "create" the future is to persuade people at all levels (whether leaders or ordinary members of the public) to drive demand that creates change. The current pandemic is projected to cost between $8-16 trillion according to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Given this cost estimate, perhaps it is time to call on individuals to flex their consumer and political muscles to push for greater progress in some other critical areas.
Today in the USA, total income for private animal protection organizations is around $2.44 billion or just under $8 per capita. However, there are large variations in this figure from one state to another ranging from Colorado at the upper end (around $13 per capita (DC is actually higher at $16‐17 per capita but a lot of money comes in from the outer suburbs in Maryland and Virginia) to a low of around $2 per capita in Utah (note: national groups like Best Friends are not included in the income numbers for each state). If every state were as successful as Colorado, then the animal movement would be bringing in $4 billion a year (almost double its current income). In fact, there are signs that the animal movement could have the potential to raise even more than this. San Francisco, for example, raises over $30 per capita on dog and cat sheltering, rescue and sterilization and Marin Humane Society (across SF Bay) spends over $20 per capita. At the other extreme, there are counties in the US that spend $1 or less per capita on animal sheltering and rescue.
The politics of farm animal advocacy from the 1960s in Europe, the USA and Canada up to 1995 are described and discussed. The report includes sections on terminology, legislative developments, the Massachusetts farm animal referendum, family farms, changing public attitudes, biotechnology and BST, and policy implications.
Why is the public so sensitive about the use of a few tens of millions of animals in research when they do not object to killing hundreds of millions of pigs and cows and billions of chickens for our meat diet? Why is animal research considered so bad despite the public's high opinion of science (and scientists)? Perhaps it is the image of the scientist as an objective and cold individual who deliberately inflicts harm (pain, distress, or death) on his (the public image is usually male) innocent animal victims that arouses so much horror and concern. This paper does not address the accuracy of this image but rather intends to examine its psychic roots in modern society as well as some of the central themes that appear time and again in the debate. Such themes include cruelty, innocence, suffering, and human benefit.
The history of the intensification of animal agriculture is briefly reviewed together with the developing animal protection reaction to such intensification. The role of philosophers in the growth of the animal protection movement is discussed as well as the changing attitudes of the general public towards animals and animal protection.
NOTE: Segments of the report below have already been published as part of the Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy report on the pit bull terrier issue in 1988 titled Dog Aggression and the Pit Bull Terrier, edited by A. N. Rowan. The report was developed out of a workshop held at Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine on July 17, 1986. The workshop was developed after Dean Franklin M Loew suggested in June of 1986, that the Tufts Center for Animals should organize a workshop to explore the growing furore over "pit bull terriers." The city of Lynn in Massachusetts had recently passed an ordinance restricting pit bull ownership and other cities and municipalities were considering similar legislation. Breed-specific legislation has seldom been reported to have been accompanied by a reduction in dog bites. Those individuals who want to have an aggressive dog simply switch to another breed (in Lynn, a local veterinarian reported that the number of pit bull terriers in his practice fell but the number of rottweilers increased to take the place of the pit bull terriers.
In the early 1970's a surge of articles in the lay and scientific press brought the burgeoning problem of pet overpopulation to the attention of the American public. The spark for this concern appears to have been an article by Carl Djerassi (who was prominent in the development of oral contraceptives for humans) and his colleagues in the unlikely forum of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Djerassi argued that an efficient means of birth control was also required for the pet population (Djerassi et al, 1973). In 1974, following Djerassi's article Alan Beck, in an address to city officials described the metamorphosis of the dog from "man's best friend to a source of social, medical and political concern". In the same year, an editorial in the journal Science, (Feldman, 1974) claimed that the increasing number of unwanted and stray dogs were a cause of pollution, property damage, and danger to public health. Articles on it is issue appeared in many popular magazines, including Time, Esquire and Mad Magazine, and irresponsible pet ownership was implicated as one of the main causes of the wholesale destruction of unwanted animals • In general, the cat population was overlooked except by Robert Schneider (1970) who, in a study of pet population dynamics in two Californian communities, pointed out that the problem of overproduction in the more fecund feline population was even more acute than that in the canine population.
