The ‘Tea Break’ category are for fun, giving you a glimpse of what it’s like working in animal welfare science.
It’s been another busy week so it’s just a short post today. io9 have written an interesting article about a paper looking at whether or not cats enjoy music specifically written for them.
You can listen to some of the tracks here.
For once I really like io9’s reporting on this. So I took the opportunity to sample this with Athena.
You can see it on our Facebook page.
No post tonight – whyever not?
Perhaps FluffySciences is too busy planning a social media assault . . .
Who knows?
#StreetDog
It’s February, and what I have come to think of as contract renewal season. I’m reasonably confident of continuing the work I’m doing, which is split between coordinating the online MSc (mostly student wrangling, as I think of it), teaching and coordinating my two undergrad modules, miscellaneous knowledge transfer activities, and any bits of research I can stick my fingers into.
There’s a part of me that’s afraid of losing out on the research forever, and wants to get a postdoc. But it’s time for a confession: I hate the postdoc lifestyle. The uncertainty and enforced nomadicity wreaks havoc on my anxiety. So on balance, I’m happier to take on student wrangling and get to foster other peoples’ research in the best way that I can.
But the big news being circulated among my colleagues this week has been the news of Bristol University veterinary lecturer who was fired for not bringing in enough research money. Now if there’s anything guaranteed to send chills down the spine of an academic, its actually being judged on the merit of your work.
I’m being facetious. I feel very sorry for the lecturer in question, and the Epigram (Bristol Uni’s student paper) has a more detailed account of the disciplinary process brought against this lecturer. It must be deeply unpleasant going through several rounds of being told you must get more money or else.
We were asked, on our MOOC, how animal behaviour and welfare research happens – it’s a constant fight for funding and the numbers of graduates wanting to go into academia far outstrips the monies available. It is a hard, hard place to be in.
Of the five animal behaviour PhD students who were around when I started, three of us are teaching, one of us supporting academic innovation and business, and the fifth has a postdoc further from her home than she would like. I think we all enjoy what we do, and I don’t know that any of us would do anything different, but there are eight behaviour PhD students I can name in our office. There are probably more I can’t name.
There is always the work, there just isn’t always the money.
I don’t know how universities are supposed to do this, but I wish they’d figure it out.
The UK looks like it will be the first country to allow babies with the genetic material of three parents, with our MPs voting for the bill on Tuesday.
Now in the UK we also have a House of Lords, who also must approve the bill at a later date, and there’s no guarantee they will, but given the large majority of parliament members (382 to 182) it’s likely they will. It also has to be approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, a UK governmental organisation.
On Tuesday morning I was listening to Morning Call on Radio Scotland. It’s a fairly simple show, where people call in to give their opinions on any given subject. That, combined with the online reaction today, has had me and my colleagues thumping our foreheads against the desks repeatedly.
Buzzfeed has a great “Six Things You Should Know...” list that I won’t repeat here, but there are a few things we have to discuss …
Three Parent Babies is a Bit of a Stretch
Yes, this is a classic case of a catchy headline. The mitochondria, which you probably remember from high school biology, is essentially the battery of a cell. Long, long ago in our evolutionary past, back when we were simple collections of cells, mitochondria were simple single cell organisms capable of doing things our little cells weren’t. Namely powering things. So they were captured and made a part of larger cellular organism that was us. And the rest, as they say, is history.
But it’s because of this that mitochondria have slightly interesting and unique DNA, a separate part of our genome that codes for our mitochondria. Some organisms have managed to get rid of all of the mitochondrial DNA, and others have got weird mutations in there, we’ll come back to that later.
The important thing to note is that ‘three parent baby’ simply takes the mitochondrial DNA from one genome, and the rest of the DNA in the traditional method (for a given definition of ‘traditional’, in a test tube, under the stars, wearing leather, wearing lace . . . ) comes from the two parents.
A Gateway To Eugenics
One of the strangest comments I’ve heard in relation to this news is that it means we’re a step closer to eugenics. This is, in some ways, deeply insulting to the families of those who are suffering from mitochondrial diseases. To want to be free of disease does not equate to eugenics.
In humans, mitochondria are inherited directly from the mother. You’ve heard of Mitochondrial Eve? The reason we have her is because our mitochondrial DNA doesn’t get recombined and altered in the same way as the rest of our genome. Like the Y chromosome, it is an excellent way of doing forensic genetics. Both of them remain greatly unchanged throughout our evolutionary history, and we can track back to a conceptual Mitochondrial Eve and Y Chromosome Adam. However, I’ll point out that these aren’t real people. They’re simply the earliest ancestor we’re all related to – which changes as our population changes over time.
But it’s this phenomenon, the conservation of this DNA, that allows us to swap them out in this fashion. The DNA inside the mitochondria is so useless to the rest of the body they can be exchanged very easily. So you see, we’re still many, many years and innovations away from selecting the genes we want and engineering our babies. This procedure is feasible, and safe, because mitochondrial DNA is so protected, and usually inconsequential in a genome.
Why Do We Need It?
Because mitochondrial diseases are horrific things. The mitochondrial DNA is special, yes, separate from the rest of the DNA, yes. But it also mutates, as all DNA does, and it doesn’t have much of a way of repairing itself or realising that its damaging its body. Symptoms include Multiple Sclerosis style diseases, loss of eyesight, loss of hearing, dementia, neurological problems, an inability to exercise, diabetes, poor growth, heart disease, gastrointestinal disorders . . . and each one of these things are a SYMPTOM of the disease, not the disease itself.
We can eradicate this disease, easily, while maintaining a person’s right to reproduce. If you fear that because you’ve seen one too many B movies about Frankenstein . . . you just show me how much work I have to do.
Finally I have to say something about the “Science has gone too far” style comments, and “humans have evolved to their current state, we shouldn’t meddle”. In so many cases, comics can communicate more about science than any of my blogs. To those people I say . . .
It is a positive tragedy that Skymall has filed for bankruptcy. As a scientist, flying all over the world, Skymall is sometimes the best distraction you can find – and I have long been fascinated by their products for pets. I love gadgets and I love animals, so I’ve often been compelled to search Skymall for their oddest products, such as . . .
A Yard of His Own
A Yard Of His Own
Summary: An astroturf block you can use indoors, complete with fire hydrant and bucket to collect pee.
Animal Welfare Perspective: Well, I wouldn’t recommend it as a substitute for walking, and I wouldn’t recommend allowing your dog to urinate or defecate in your house (it’s your dog’s house too and they don’t like making a mess where they live) but I imagine if you had a very old dog and a very large house and liked cleaning astroturf this could be a bit of a boon for you. Are you going to pay $280 for your dog? Well, we all love our dogs!
Doggy Hood
Summary: What can I say? It’s a raincoat for your dog – with a hood so they don’t get rain on their head. Now as someone who has fostered a greyhound, I am well aware of how sensitive some dog breeds can be to Scottish weather, but it’s well worth reading the stuff Alexandra Horowitz has written about the subject.
Animal Welfare Perspective: If your dog is truly a freak who hates the rain on his ears, he’ll hate having his hearing and vision obstructed even more. Just . . . no. Not even with ten amazing colours.
‘
Moving On – Pets At Home
Summary: Not long after I’d taken those photos of Skymall, it was time for the Christmas decorations going up. The Christmas aisle at Pets At Home, after I’d got Athena, really surprised me. I’d never noticed them before (never had much cause to go into Pets At Home at Christmas time!). Weirdest of all, I felt the urge to buy Athena presents! And I still do every time I go past a pet aisle.
What does all this mean? Well definitely that there’s some research to be done in the field of consumerism and human-animal bonds! An MSc project for someone perhaps?
Scotland’s been abuzz with the story of Kai, the Shar-Pei cross abandoned at Ayr railway station with a suitcase of his belongings. Buzzfeed has more information here.
The SSPCA has taken him in and the attention his story received has meant he has literally hundreds of homes offered to him. I’m sure his story will have a happy ending, the SSPCA are spoiled for choice, they’ll find him a good home, I am sure. The SSPCA are also fixing his eyes (the eyelids are turning inwards, meaning his eyelashes scratch his corneas – a simple surgery to fix), so he’ll find his new home, with good health.
But the ‘why’ of the story truly confuses me. If you’re giving up an animal, why not take it to a shelter? What pride stops you from taking a clearly loved animal to where you know it will be safe? Or is it some way of trying to take it back at the last minute? To return in half an hour to collect the dog you’ve ‘forgotten’, except someone makes the final choice for you? Again, Buzzfeed has an account from the alleged abandoner. I don’t buy it at all.
But the story has raised an interesting side issue. Kai was sold on Gumtree, and quite a few people have come out to say that this is why buying and trading animals online is a bad idea.
I’m not sure I agree.
In some ways, Athena was traded online. My friend Leigh was fostering Athena and her siblings and posting photos of them on Facebook. I remember, distinctly, being curled up under a thin sheet in Bellevue, Seattle, very hungover and trying to ignore the snores of my fellow geeks around me. I saw a picture of Athena cuddled up with one of her sisters. She was the cat of my idle fantasies. You know when you picture yourself as a ‘grown-up’, in a Victorian farm house with a green aga, copper pots hanging in the kitchen, a kitchen island with a sofa on one side of it . . . in my version of that classic middle class dream, there was always a little silver tabby cat sitting on the kitchen island, watching the goings on. While I had been looking for a cat for a year, seeing the perfect kitten in a picture prompted me to message Leigh and the rest is history (history currently sitting on my knee waiting for an opportunity to catch at my earring again).
What’s the difference between Athena’s story and Kai’s? Both were spotted over the internet, after all.
The difference is duty of care. Leigh and the shelter she volunteered for had duty of care of Athena, and when I messaged them hungover, fragile and on the other side of the world, I was still vetted by Leigh. I have every confidence that she would never have recommended me to the shelter if she didn’t believe I could take care of Athena. In fact, in our early days, Leigh had more confidence in me than I did!
This is perhaps where the comparison between Athena and Kai falls apart completely. Athena is lucky enough to have been under the care of people who saw pet owning as a responsibility her whole life. We don’t know what Kai’s owners were thinking. We don’t know what brought him to Ayr Station, although we may wish he had been relinquished in a more responsible manner, and we may wish his previous owners had taken more responsibility for passing him on.
None of these problems come from the medium by which he was traded.
Now if you were to ask me if dog licensing would have helped, there you might find me sympathetic.
Some great news this week – the joint SRUC and University of Edinburgh submission to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework was ranked as number one (in research power) in the UK for agriculture and veterinary sciences. There’s a lot of very happy and excited people here this morning let me say.
Check out the press release here!
And now have a picture of a kitten 🙂
FluffySciences is now just over a year old! It feels much older for some reason. We average 13 views a day and July was the biggest month. Most people find us on google by searching ‘FluffyScience Blog’ so if that’s you, come like us on Facebook and never get lost again!
(One person found us by googling “i want a small fluffy animal which is easy to look after and id tame what would you recommend“. The answer to that question is really “No animal is really easy to look after, they all require the appropriate food, shelter, care, etc., and I would do a considerable amount of research prior to buying or adopting any animal. With that being said, with a little bit of financial outlay fish can be extremely rewarding (you must get an appropriate tank though, no bowls), and if you can devote the space to them guinea pigs are very fun.”)
The most popular tag is the companion animals tag, with Athena following along behind. I’m surprised at how popular Chronicles of Athena is! I will try to keep it up.
The most popular post, interestingly enough, was Badger Fortnight: TB which totalled 183 visitors. Followed by The Black Dog at 178 and Ritual Slaughter & Animal Welfare at 150. This is quite gratifying as they were all posts which took a lot of work – and all posts which are talking about real animal welfare science. In fact all the posts which broke 100 visitors were what I would consider to be animal welfare science posts. That’s encouraging, even if they are more difficult to write!
We usually get about 4 comments per month – and I’d love to hear more about what you think and what you want from the blog. So do comment, do like us on Facebook, and I wish you all a very happy festive season. We’ll be back after Hogmanay with more.
Science, being the awesome beast it is, recently landed a ten year old probe on a comet. My laptop is three years old and it’s already beginning to groan and whine.
But you’ve probably heard and seen the commotion over one of the scientist’s shirt, which was a gaudy, loud, and featured many half clad ladies on it. On Twitter, a wit said this:
And thus began a Twitter storm of epic proportions as ever. On the one side, those who (rightly) feel that the posit03ion of women in STEM fields is a tenuous one and needs direct action, the other those who (rightly) feel that what a scientist wears has little to do with their achievements or even their attitudes to other people.
I was asked by some of my friends what I felt about the issue being both a scientist and a dyed in the wool feminist.
Before I commit my words to the internet it’s important to recognise that my opinions on this are based on my own ethics, my own experiences and they might not necessarily reflect that of all feminists, all women or all scientists – but I also believe my opinion is the right one, hence the fact it’s mine (hey – this is pretty much exactly like animal welfare ethics!)
I think it’s a storm in a teacup. The guy wore a dumb shirt, a woman rolled her eyes, and suddenly we’re onto the death threats. Why is this the default position of the internet? I think it’s sad that the guy was reduced to tears in his apology, I think it’s horrific the tweeter’s life was threatened for pointing out a very real problem. It is frankly ridiculous to say that a shirt overshadowed the accomplishment of the human race. Humans are more than capable of carrying two or more issues in their heads at one time.
Really the only person who address this with any degree of clarity was my guiding light, Hadley Freeman. In her style column she says:
There are so many signifiers of sexism in the world and the science world that to attack a man for his shirt feels a little bit like fussing at a leaky tap when the whole house is under a tidal wave . . . There is a difference – and I concede, the difference may be fuzzy in some cases – between enjoying the weird fantasy-world depiction of women, and seeing actual women as sex objects. Taylor has the right to wear whatever pig-ugly shirt he likes, and people have the right to be outraged by it. But when that outrage leads to a grown man weeping on TV, perhaps we all need to ask if this outrage is proportionate. My God, I’m a fashion bitch and even I don’t want to make anyone cry over my comments about their clothes.
But as it’s the run up to Christmas, there is a silver lining. My wonderful STEM field compatriot has her HauteDog Couture shop on Etsy. We’ve decided at our next meet up we’ll wear dresses made of that shirt material. HauteDog Couture is amazing. Check it out.
FAO INGEN GMT
Re: Welfare Audit Isla Nublar Resort
Welfare Audit of Isla Nublar Resort, Executive Summary
The findings within are the final and mandated recommendations from this audit board and are summarised here.
Dear Mr Hammond,
Thank you for allowing our assessor access to the Isla Nublar resort for the requested welfare audit of your animals.
As discussed, we used a modified version of the Welfare Quality protocol for your animals, although we recognise that the background to the behavioural measures we have adopted is necessarily missing given the unique nature of your livestock. In spite of this, our assessor is confident that the report is full and comprehensive.
1.1 Introduction
The protocol we have chosen investigates different measures of animal welfare, namely:
We investigated different measures over the five welfare domains, namely:
The full findings, along with scores, are provided in the attached report. In this executive summary we would like to draw your attention to a few key areas.
2.1 Animal Nutrition
Overall we your facility received a ‘Good’ score for its work on animal nutrition. For herbivorous animals you show particular attention to providing natural forage and different foraging opportunities. This is particularly notable in your mixed herbivore environments where different aspects of the ecosystem are utilised.
Animal based measures (Body Condition Score) were considered to be good for the herbivores with no obese or very thin animals found within the herds. Hands-on scoring was conducted for several animals, although the assessor concedes she was perhaps ambitious in trying to BCS the brachiosaur.
However your carnivorous animals have less options and there was a disturbing management strategy of providing extra feeding opportunities to provoke behaviours that might excite your guests. This is not an adequate nutritional strategy.
It is also necessary to mention, although not part of the welfare audit, that live feeding of vertebrates is illegal in many countries including the one INGEN is registered in. The goat does not have the option of avoid the T-Rex, and this is not considered a humane death. The environmental enrichment provided to the T-Rex through hunting may be provided through other means.
Note: Hands-on Body Condition Scores were not performed on the Velociraptors, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dilophosaurus, Pteradons or Compsognathus.
2.2 Animal Health
Overall your facility rated a ‘Poor’ on Animal Health.
This score was primarily due to the management-based measure of ‘Number of Veterinary Staff’. You appeared to have minimal veterinary staff at any one time, in fact the assessor encountered only one. The assessor would like it noted that this professional seemed overworked and that this may well be a potential source of welfare challenges – this veterinary staff member seemed unable to recognise pupil dilation, and it is entirely possible some species have been misidentified, namely velociraptors.
In addition, there were high incidences of disease such as bumblefoot and colic, some of which seemed to go unidentified by said veterinary member of staff. There was also little provision for recuperation away from the visitors eyes. In fact one diseased animal was recuperating still on the main trail (the assessor notes that having such a delineated route through the park may be unwise regardless due to the possibility of small breakdowns stopping the entire tour).
As a corollary there was an unacceptable level of mortality in the velociraptor pen due to aggression (see 2.4)
2.3 Animal Environment
Overall your facility received an ‘Excellent’ score for environment which was considered to be varied, extensive and with plenty of opportunities for behavioural enrichment.
2.4 Animal Behaviour
Overall your facility received a ‘Poor’ score for Animal Behaviour, based principally on the animal based measures (namely >50% mortality rate due to aggression in the velociraptor pen) and management measured (namely enforced human interaction after hatching, enforced all-female groups).
2.4.1 Mortality Rate
We feel it is important to highlight within this executive summary the mortality rate in the velociraptor pen which is a deeply worrying indicator of poor welfare and must be addressed immediately.
Of 8 initial animals, a further dominant female was introduced who induced aggression related fatalities on 6 of the others, resulting in a 67% mortality rate in the velociraptor pen purely down to aggression. Not only is this a terrible welfare issue, but the assessor was confused as to how this was allowed to continue from a return of investment perspective, as the group appeared to be stable before the introduction of the dominant female. In the instances of extreme aggression, the dominant individual could have been separated from the group or indeed culled, presenting the majority with better welfare. This mortality rate can therefore be attributed to poor management decision, lack of facility to separate the animals, and lack of animal supervision.
It should be noted that much of the animal monitoring was done remotely, and this may be a contributing factor to many of the welfare challenges.
2.5 Animal Affective State
Qualitative Behavioural Assessment was used to assess affective states of your animals. However, due to the relative lack of experience the assessor had with your type of livestock, and the relatively few members of your staff which appear to have experience with the livestock, this score was not recorded.
In general, the assessor found the animals to be agitated and excitable.
2.6 Management of Facility
The level of automation, while impressive, had few redundancy measures and left the animals vulnerable to being unsupervised. The near-complete evacuation of the facility when a storm arrived raises serious questions as to the contingency planning should a fence go down.
Staff were generally lacking in training and safety procedures for animal handling. Again the velociraptor protocols must be highlighted.
3.1 Conclusions
Overall there were several elements of the welfare audit which caused great concern, of which we highlight the lack of staff, staff training, and contingency planning for behavioural issues. These three issues need urgent addressing.
In the end, Mr Hammond, after careful consideration I have decided not to endorse your park.
J. MacKay M.Sci Ph.D.
I am very excited about Jurassic World coming out soon. I wanted to set a task like this for one of my classes but I didn’t think the external examiners would ever let me get away with it – so here it is!
