May 02, 2023 Wild Birds: Human & Animal Welfare, Environment, and Global Sustainability
Wild birds are important for their contributions to ecosystem health and human well-being. Critical ecological roles provided by birds include insect and rodent control, plant pollination, and seed dispersal. Wild birds have also captivated humans for millennia, and today, the avid birder or “twitcher” is...
Apr 16, 2023 The Socialization of Willie B. – Part 2
In graduate school at the University of California at Davis, I specialized in primate socialization and attachment disruption when animals were separated from their mothers at an early age. I was as prepared as anyone to evaluate Willie B’s prospects for socialization, but his future...
Jan 18, 2023 A Participant’s Reflections on the Montreal Biodiversity (COP15) Conference
As the director of Animal People, I had the opportunity to attend the second part of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference – also known as the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP 15. COP 15 was convened in Montreal in...
Jan 05, 2023 An Immense World by Ed Yong
Such an Array of Umwelts Ed Yong’s 2022 instant classic, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, delves into the senses of our animal cousins, including sight, sound, pain, smell, touch, vibrations, electric fields, and magnetic fields, and explains for the...
Dec 06, 2022 The Well-Being Nexus
Progress following the Passage of the 2022 Animal Welfare, Environment and Sustainable Development Resolution at the UN Environment Assembly In March of this year (2022), the UN Environment Assembly passed a Resolution (EA.5/Res.1) that requested the Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi,...
Nov 10, 2022 The Nexus Between Animal Welfare, Environment, and Sustainable Development
The Nexus between Animal Welfare, the Environment, and Sustainable Development was the focus of a Resolution (sponsored by six African states and Pakistan) passed by consensus at the Fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) in March of 2022. The Resolution requested the United Nations Environment...
Oct 03, 2022 Advocacy & Funding for Farmed Animal Welfare
Campaigns focusing on farmed animal welfare are relatively recent events of global animal advocacy, even though the UK animal protection movement is frequently identified as being launched when Richard Martin introduced his Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act in 1822. However, farmed animal advocacy only began...
Jun 19, 2022 Wildlife Centers and Living in Harmony with Nature and Pelicans
The Wildlife CenterNestled in a high-density population area and abutting an international airport resides the South Florida Wildlife Center (Center), founded 53 years ago with a mission to rescue, rehabilitate, release and educate. The Center occupies a secluded tree-covered 4.1-acre site with a 1.2-acre "jurisdictional...
Jun 19, 2022 New Technology, Better Science, and Fewer Animals
The concept of developing “alternatives” to laboratory animals in biomedical sciences is usually considered to have been launched by the1959 book, Principles of Humane Experimental Technique by William (Bill) Russell and Rex Burch. Russell and Burch did not explicitly use the term “alternatives.” They discussed...
Jun 19, 2022 The Mind of the Bee
A journey into the alien mind of an insect Bees were once thought to be cleverly designed biorobots that can construct elaborate comb architectures, have labor divisions, and nest climate control. But all this engineering and complex behavior was considered to be delivered by reflex machines...