Adult-perpetrated Animal Abuse: Development of a Proclivity Scale

There is a clear discrepancy in the reporting of animal cruelty complaints, prosecutions and convictions suggesting that any prevalence figures of abuse are significant under-representations. Therefore, it can be inferred that there is a large number of animal abusers who are unapprehended. Currently there is no validated tool that assesses the proclivity or propensity to engage in animal abuse amongst members of the general public. Such a tool would enable researchers to study individuals who may think like animal abusers or may be unapprehended offenders themselves. This paper presents the newly developed Animal Abuse Proclivity Scale (AAPS) and some preliminary findings. The results from our two studies show that: (1) the psychometric properties of the AAPS indicate that the scale is a highly reliable measure; (2) the AAPS relates to measures assessing offence-supportive attitudes and reflects the gender differences seen in the literature; and (3) the AAPS demonstrates cross-national validity. These findings support that the AAPS, similar to other offending proclivity measures, is a tool that can be used to examine the factors most related to animal abuse propensity. We discuss how the AAPS can contribute to future developments in theory and practice in the field

Groundwater animals

Groundwater animals are adapted to live in environments with no light and limited nutrients, They can provide insights into fundamental questions of evolution, ecology and biodiversity. They also have an important role to play in informing the reconstruction of past changes in geomorphology and climate, and can be used for characterising aquifers. The BGS is undertaking a systematic survey of selected areas and lithologies in the UK where groundwater animals have not been investigated. This is important because little is known about groundwater ecosystems in the UK despite the unique contribution to biodiversity made by these animals. Groundwater organisms are also thought to provide ecosystem services by means of their role in nutrient cycling and natural remediation of pollutants in the subsurface. They may also be useful indicators of human impacts on groundwaters

Killing animals

Though not often acknowledged openly, killing represents by far the most common form of human interaction with animals. Humans kill animals for food, for pleasure, to wear, and even as religious acts, yet despite the ubiquity of this killing, analyzing the practice has generally remained the exclusive purview of animal rights advocates.Killing Animals offers a corrective to this narrow focus by bringing together the insights of scholars from diverse backgrounds in the humanities, including art history, anthropology, intellectual history, philosophy, literary studies, and geography. With killing representing the ultimate expression of human power over animals, the essays reveal the complexity of the phenomenon by exploring the extraordinary diversity in killing practices and the wide variety of meanings attached to them. They examine aspects of the role of animals in human societies, from the seventeenth century to the present day: their cultural manifestations, and how they have been represented. Topics include hunting and baiting; slaughter practices and the treatment of feral and stray animals; animal death in art, literature and philosophy; and even animals that themselves become killers of humans.While many collections originate as a series of separately planned conference papers drawn together only by editorial fiat, the essays that comprise Killing Animals were regarded as parts of a larger whole from their inception. The result is a remarkably collaborative, cross-disciplinary work that includes eight individually authored chapters and a collectively written introduction. Rather than attempting to produce a single ethical understanding from their diverse views, however, the group aims instead to demonstrate the value of the wider academic study of the place of animals in human history. The conclusion to Killing Animals takes the form of a discussion among the eight contributors, with each expanding upon issues raised earlier in the book

Thin Animals

Lattice animals provide a discretized model for the theta transition displayed by branched polymers in solvent. Exact graph enumeration studies have given some indications that the phase diagram of such lattice animals may contain two collapsed phases as well as an extended phase. This has not been confirmed by studies using other means. We use the exact correspondence between the q --> 1 limit of an extended Potts model and lattice animals to investigate the phase diagram of lattice animals on phi-cubed random graphs of arbitrary topology (``thin'' random graphs). We find that only a two phase structure exists -- there is no sign of a second collapsed phase. The random graph model is solved in the thermodynamic limit by saddle point methods. We observe that the ratio of these saddle point equations give precisely the fixed points of the recursion relations that appear in the solution of the model on the Bethe lattice by Henkel and Seno. This explains the equality of non-universal quantities such as the critical lines for the Bethe lattice and random graph ensembles.Comment: Latex, 10 pages plus 6 ps/eps figure

Political animals

In the last few years the animal rights movement has grown out of all recognition. It's now an important political force that challenges our definition of the political

Animals and Objectivity

Starting from the assumption that Kant allows for the possible existence of conscious sensory states in non-rational animals, I examine the textual and philosophical grounds for his acceptance of the possibility that such states are also 'objective'. I elucidate different senses of what might be meant in crediting a cognitive state as objective. I then put forward and defend an interpretation according to which the cognitive states of animals, though extremely limited on Kant's view, are nevertheless minimally objective

Unveiling the Nexus: The interdependence of animal welfare, environment & sustainable development

On 2 March 2022, the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted the Animal Welfare - Environment - Sustainable Development Nexus Resolution. In this resolution, UNEA acknowledged that animal welfare can contribute to addressing environmental challenges . UNEA further acknowledged animal welfare\u27s contribution to promoting the One Health approach and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. To understand these links, UNEA requested the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to analyse and produce a report for the next convening of UNEA on the nexus between animal welfare, the environment, and sustainable development. Unveiling the Nexus: The interdependence of animal welfare, environment & sustainable development illuminates the value of an animal welfare perspective for addressing the drivers of environmental challenges and sustainable development. It highlights important links between animal welfare and biodiversity, climate change, pollution, health, food security, and livelihoods. This assessment, undertaken by the World Federation for Animals, aims to support those developing and contributing to the UNEP Nexus report. It aims to provide stakeholders with a basis to further explore why improving animal welfare is essential for the environmental and development community

The spatiotemporal characteristics of 0–24-Goal Polo

Global positioning systems (GPS) have recently been shown to reliably quantify the spatiotemporal characteristics of Polo, with the physiological demands of Polo play at low- and high-goal levels also investigated. This study aims to describe the spatiotemporal demands of Polo across 0–24 goal levels. A player-worn GPS unit was used to quantify distance, speed and high-intensity activities performed. Data were divided into chukkas and five equine-based speed zones, grouped per cumulative player handicap and assessed using standardized mean differences. Average distance and speed per chukka increased in accordance with cumulative player handicap, with the magnitude of differences being trivial–large and trivial–very large, respectively. Differences between time spent in high-intensity speed zones (zones 4 and 5) show a linear increase in magnitude, when comparing 0 goal Polo to all other levels of play (Small–Very Large; 6–24 goals, respectively). High-intensity activities predominantly shared this trend, displaying trivial–large differences between levels. These findings highlight increased cardiovascular, anaerobic and speed based physiological demands on Polo ponies as playing level increases. Strategies such as high-intensity interval training, maximal speed work and aerobic conditioning may be warranted to facilitate this development and improve pony welfare and performance

Introduction : Viewing animals

The introduction to this special issue of Worldviews goes back to the first European encounters with the New World as a way of opening up a discussion about the nature of viewing animals. I argue that, just as the Europeans transformed this New World into a recognisable one in the sixteenth century, so too do we constantly transform the natural world that we view. The process of comprehension is offered as classification followed by observation, then representation, and all of these elements of our engagements with animals take place, I argue, in particular contexts: historical, geographical, cultural, intellectual. The critic "reading" animals, and reading human observations of animals must take these factors into consideration when thinking about the act of engagement

The spatiotemporal characteristics of 0–24-goal polo

Global positioning systems (GPS) have recently been shown to reliably quantify the spatiotemporal characteristics of Polo, with the physiological demands of Polo play at low- and high-goal levels also investigated. This study aims to describe the spatiotemporal demands of Polo across 0–24 goal levels. A player-worn GPS unit was used to quantify distance, speed and high-intensity activities performed. Data were divided into chukkas and five equine-based speed zones, grouped per cumulative player handicap and assessed using standardized mean differences. Average distance and speed per chukka increased in accordance with cumulative player handicap, with the magnitude of differences being trivial–large and trivial–very large, respectively. Differences between time spent in high-intensity speed zones (zones 4 and 5) show a linear increase in magnitude, when comparing 0 goal Polo to all other levels of play (Small–Very Large; 6–24 goals, respectively). High-intensity activities predominantly shared this trend, displaying trivial–large differences between levels. These findings highlight increased cardiovascular, anaerobic and speed based physiological demands on Polo ponies as playing level increases. Strategies such as high-intensity interval training, maximal speed work and aerobic conditioning may be warranted to facilitate this development and improve pony welfare and performance