If the animal protection movement were to anoint an official cartoonist, it would most likely have selected Gary Larson and his iconic "The Far Side" cartoon series. From early in the 1980s, it was virtually impossible to attend an animal protection conference without seeing a...
The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) welcomed new legislation signed by the Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum, at the end of 2024, including reforms to the national constitution, enhancing animal protection. Among the reforms is Article 4, which states, "Mistreatment of animals is prohibited. The Mexican...
As discussed in a three-part series of articles in WellBeing News, the world regularly overlooks the devastating impact of human conflict on non-human animals and the environment. The tragic loss of human lives and families and the destruction of homes and cities capture our attention....
Jonathan Birch is a philosopher at the London School of Economics who has dedicated significant time and effort to studying sentience and how to identify sentient beings or systems reliably. He was the lead author of a report that advised the UK Government on the...
Book review of Cowpuppy by Gregory Berns, published by Harper Collins, 2024 As in the immortal film classic about the rescue of Elsa the baby lion, where the opening scenes cover the struggle to persuade the motherless cub Elsa to drink milk to survive, Gregory Berns also...
Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher widely regarded as the "father" of the modern "Animal Rights" movement. However, as a Utilitarian, Singer does not agree with rights-based philosophical arguments. Like Jeremy Bentham, who argued that the criterion placing animals on the moral scale was their...
Author David M. Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D., loves intellectual challenges. Previously, he wrote an article on whether or not animals can commit suicide, which has been downloaded over 44,000 times from the WellBeing International Studies Repository since its publication in late 2017. Now, the author has shifted...
The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger & Planta Sapiens by Paco Calvo with Natalie Lawrence Recently, two important books were published -- a year apart – and centered on the same topic: reviewing the accumulating scientific evidence that plants can and should be perceived as sentient...
Jane Goodall at 90: Celebrating an Astonishing Lifetime of Science, Advocacy, Humanitarianism, Hope and Peace; Edited by Marc Bekoff & Koen Margodt Jane Goodall will turn 90 in early April 2024. This book consists of 90 memories or comments ("candles" as termed by the editors) by...
At the end of 2015, a new academic journal, Animal Sentience, was launched with internationally renowned cognitive scientist Dr. Stevan Harnad as its Editor-in-Chief. The journal, published by WellBeing International, provides a moderated forum where invited experts debate challenging and controversial ideas relevant to the...
