Social, Spacing, and Cooperative Behavior of the Collared Peccary, Tayassu tajacu

Social behavior of the collared peccary was studied on the lower, eastern slopes of the Mazatzal Mountains, Arizona. The social unit in this species is a cohesive herd, in which small inter-individual distances are maintained. Two conspicuous acts, one olfactory and one auditory, functioned to maintain close spacing. Social interactions were brief but tended to synchronize the activities of animals and also to bring them closer together. Amicable and neutral actions occurred far more frequently than agonistic interactions. Most agonistic behavior did not involve physical contact. Cooperative nursing, predator defense, and feeding occurred; all adults were tolerant of young, and males showed little overt competition over estrous females. The absence of sexual dimorphism, the 1:1 sex ratio within social groups, and the small, precocial litters in this species suggest an evolutionary history of pronounced sociality. Kin selection possibly was important in the evolution of social behavior in peccaries

Interactions among Dogs, People, and the Environment in Boulder, Colorado: A Case Study

From September 1995 to April 1996 we studied interactions among dogs, people, and the environment in Boulder, Colorado. Data on behavioral disturbances by off-leash dogs who were accompanied by a person were collected with respect to dog-dog and dog-human interactions, dog-wildlife encounters, dogs trampling vegetation, and dogs entering and disturbing bodies of water. A questionnaire also was administered. Behavioral data showed that off-leash dogs generally did not travel far off trail, that when they did it was for short periods of time, and that they rarely were observed to chase other dogs, disturb people, chase wildlife, destroy vegetation, or enter bodies of water. Results from analyses of the questionnaire (skewed toward non-dog owners) showed that dog owners and non-dog owners agreed that people were more disruptive to the environment than dogs and that unruly people were more problematic than unruly dogs. We conclude that the well-being and interests of dogs should not summarily and dismissively be compromised when dogs and people attempt to share limited space that can be used by all parties for recreational purposes. Indeed, a higher percentage of people reported that the quality of dogs’ experience of the outdoors would be compromised more than their own enjoyment if dogs could not walk off-leash in areas where this is currently permitted. The methods used and the results from this case study can serve as a model for other locations in which dogs and people compete for limited spatial resources

Compassion as a practical and evolved ethic for conservation

© The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The ethical position underpinning decisionmaking is an important concern for conservation biologists when setting priorities for interventions. The recent debate on how best to protect nature has centered on contrasting intrinsic and aesthetic values against utilitarian and economic values, driven by an inevitable global rise in conservation conflicts. These discussions have primarily been targeted at species and ecosystems for success, without explicitly expressing concern for the intrinsic value and welfare of individual animals. In part, this is because animal welfare has historically been thought of as an impediment to conservation. However, practical implementations of conservation that provide good welfare outcomes for individuals are no longer conceptually challenging; they have become reality. This reality, included under the auspices of "compassionate conservation," reflects an evolved ethic for sharing space with nature and is a major step forward for conservation

Multispecies methods, technologies for play

School of Desig

Moral Dilemmas for Artificial Intelligence: a position paper on an application of Compositional Quantum Cognition

Traditionally, the way one evaluates the performance of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system is via a comparison to human performance in specific tasks, treating humans as a reference for high-level cognition. However, these comparisons leave out important features of human intelligence: the capability to transfer knowledge and make complex decisions based on emotional and rational reasoning. These decisions are influenced by current inferences as well as prior experiences, making the decision process strongly subjective and apparently biased. In this context, a definition of compositional intelligence is necessary to incorporate these features in future AI tests. Here, a concrete implementation of this will be suggested, using recent developments in quantum cognition, natural language and compositional meaning of sentences, thanks to categorical compositional models of meaning.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, Conference paper at Quantum Interaction 2018, Nice, France. Published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11690, Springer, Cham. Online ISBN 978-3-030-35895-

(Certified) Humane Violence? Animal Production, the Ambivalence of Humanizing the Inhumane, and What International Humanitarian Law Has to Do with It

The chapter draws a comparison with the self-certifying of production methods as ‘humane’ or animal-friendly in the labelling of animal products—that is, according to companies’ own self-imposed codes of conduct. It likens the idea of humanizing animal slaughter, factory farms, and other forms of production to the notion of humanizing warfare. Like international humanitarian law (IHL), animal welfare law is marked by the tension inherent in its attempt to humanize innately inhumane practices. Given these parallels, the analysis of animal welfare law might benefit from existing insights into the potential and limits of IHL. Both areas of law endorse a principle of ‘humanity’ while arguably facilitating and legitimizing the use of violence, and might thereby ultimately perpetuate the suffering of living beings. The implicit justification of violence percolating from the IHL-like animal ‘protection’ laws could only be outweighed by complementing this body of law with a ius contra bellum for animals

The Maternal Personhood of Cattle and Plants at a Hindu Center in the United States

Religious experiences with sacred nonhuman natural beings considered to be “persons” remain only vaguely understood. This essay provides a measure of clarification by engendering a dialogue between psychoanalytic self psychology on one side and, on the other, religious experiences of cattle and Tulsi plants as holy mothers at a Hindu cattle sanctuary in the United States. Ethnographic data from the Hindu center uncover experiences of sacred maternal natural beings that are tensive, liminal, and colored with affective themes of nurturance, respect, and intimacy, much like psychoanalytic maternal selfobjects. Devotees protect cattle and ritually venerate plants because these actions facilitate a limited experiential grounding of religiosity on what is perhaps the most fundamental of all relationships, the relationship with the mother, within a theological worldview that somewhat embraces nonhuman natural beings in both doctrine and practice

Familiarity bias and physiological responses in contagious yawning by dogs support link to empathy

In humans, the susceptibility to yawn contagion has been theoretically and empirically related to our capacity for empathy. Because of its relevance to evolutionary biology, this phenomenon has been the focus of recent investigations in nonhuman species. In line with the empathic hypothesis, contagious yawning has been shown to correlate with the level of social attachment in several primate species. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have also shown the ability to yawn contagiously. To date, however, the social modulation of dog contagious yawning has received contradictory support and alternative explanations (i.e., yawn as a mild distress response) could explain positive evidence. The present study aims to replicate contagious yawning in dogs and to discriminate between the two possible mediating mechanisms (i.e., empathic vs. distress related response). Twenty-five dogs observed familiar (dog’s owner) and unfamiliar human models (experimenter) acting out a yawn or control mouth movements. Concurrent physiological measures (heart rate) were additionally monitored for twenty-one of the subjects. The occurrence of yawn contagion was significantly higher during the yawning condition than during the control mouth movements. Furthermore, the dogs yawned more frequently when watching the familiar model than the unfamiliar one demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlated with the level of emotional proximity. Moreover, subjects’ heart rate did not differ among conditions suggesting that the phenomenon of contagious yawning in dogs is unrelated to stressful events. Our findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning is modulated by affective components of the behavior and may indicate that rudimentary forms of empathy could be present in domesticated dogs