The science blogger Joe Hanson has uploaded a video on ‘how to read science news’. I definitely recommend watching it. His first two points pertain to aspects of journalism that very few people get – print journalists do not choose Read more…
Earlier this year I entered FameLab 2014, a competition where scientists speak for about 3 minutes on a topic of their choice. The scientists have to be engaging, to speak in an understandable manner, and most importantly – they have Read more…
This week I helped out at a training course helping veterinary inspectors understand the EU legislation on the welfare of chickens. Animal welfare research informs the legislation which goes on to protect the welfare of the animals. This is assessed Read more…
For the next two days I will be helping out at this training session for better training for safer poultry food. Looks like a very interesting session and I look forward to telling you all about it
If you live in the UK or US you’re running out of excuses not to watch the documentary Blackfish. It’s had a cinematic release and been shown on the BBC, as well as being available on iTunes.
For the uninitiated, Blackfish is the story of an orca who recently killed its trainer at SeaWorld. As a result, SeaWorld trainers were prohibited from entering the water with the animals.
When I’m not slaving away over a hot computer screen and working on my next paper, I am a bit of a film geek. In fact I wrote the first draft of this post before heading to my monthly film pub quiz (we lost). Blackfish is a truly brilliant documentary. It takes you an emotional journey, is beautifully structured, and paints the orca, Tilikum, as a flawed, sympathetic character. I love it as a film.
But we’re scientists! Let’s take a critical look at the concept of keeping orcas in captivity. As I have access to scientific papers, I decided to do a short review of the literature. When talking about science I think it’s important to cite your sources (and no doubt I’ll say this many times in future) so I will link to papers. Unfortunately some of them, if not most, will be behind a paywall.
I wrote this post over a number of days, but it’s certainly not an exhaustive literature search. This is the kind of literature search I’d do if someone asked me what I thought of orcas in captivity.
So what did I find out?
It is with great sadness that we mourn Nelson Mandela today. He was a great man, very brave, very strong. We must care about our fellows before we can claim to care for the animals we share our planet with.
Today the AWIN project released five online learning objects on their Animal Welfare Hub. I have to confess an ulterior motive to sharing these: I had a hand in creating them. The Animal Welfare Hub requires registration, but it’s free Read more…
I’m an ethologist who works in animal welfare science. We’re often thought of as the fluffy scientists who spend a lot of time cuddling bunnies, but we also do some fascinating science on the side. I want to help people Read more…
