Guest articles on Animal Sentience
Our modern scientific interest in studying animals’ emotions and mental processes is allowing huge progress in understanding animals to be made. Animalsentience.com will provide special guest articles and interviews with leaders in the field.
April 2010
Christian Attitudes to Animals
Compassion in World Farming thanks Dr David Grumett of the University of Exeter for this most interesting paper, Christian Attitudes to Animals, which examines Christian tradition for its resources to support improving the treatment of farm animals by humans.
About the author
David Grumett
David Grumett is Research Fellow in Theology in the University of Exeter, UK. He has recently completed, with Rachel Muers, a major research project on theology and food funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and is author of Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet, published by Routledge.
David is also editor of Eating and Believing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Vegetarianism and Theology (T&T Clark, 2008). This more specialized collection includes contributions examining the relationship between Christian beliefs and food practices, the impact of non-Christian perspectives on Christian practices, and the significance of ethical views of meat-eating for emerging Christian theologies of food. For more information about David’s publications, visit his website.
November 2009
Horses: Their Behaviour, Mental Abilities and Welfare
Our second guest article was kindly written for us by Heather Pickett, and draws together extensive research on the cognitive abilities of horses, their behaviour and implications for their welfare in captivity. Her article looks at a wide range of areas, from animal welfare and behaviour studies, to physiology and tests of learning and memory.
Horses are extremely sensitive to the body language of their peers
Horses are extremely sensitive to the body language of their peers, as well as those displayed by the humans in contact with them. They have excellent memories; successfully able to negotiate a maze for several months after learning the route. In many studies they have demonstrated the ability to solve advanced cognitive challenges involving categorisation learning and concept formation; for example it appears that some horses can understand that a 3-D object can be represented by a photograph.
This article provides us with a great insight into the capacities and preferences of these amazing animals. It clearly shows the disparity between the needs of a gregarious and highly intelligent animal, and the environment with which they are often provided. Horses who are stabled alone and fed a high concentrate diet often develop stereotypic behaviour such as weaving or pacing, due to their frustrated natural instincts to roam as a herd and forage.
Many farm animals are housed in environments that also do not recognise their sentience, leading to destructive behaviours and poor welfare. We hope that continuing research into these areas will support the irrefutable need for reform in our practices.
About the author
Heather Pickett
Heather Pickett is an animal welfare consultant engaged in freelance research and writing, primarily within the not-for-profit sector. Heather holds a BSc (hons) in Environmental Biology and a Masters in Restoration Ecology from the University of Liverpool. She has also completed a short course in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law at the University of Cambridge and a number of practical training courses in animal handling and management.
She has expertise in animal behaviour and welfare science, animal welfare law and a wide range of welfare issues affecting farmed, laboratory, companion and wild animals. She worked as a researcher for Compassion in World Farming for six years (2002-2008) and has a particular interest in the welfare of farmed animals and issues of humane and sustainable food production. Heather can be contacted at pickett@animalwelfareresearch.com
March 2009
Neuroscience and Animal Sentience
Our first guest article is on Neuroscience and Animal Sentience from Dr Eleanor Boyle, looking at the scientific evidence for animal sentience.
Scientific research is increasingly demonstrating that many animal species have the capacity for sentience and thereby experience emotion, pleasure and pain.
Studies from a range of disciplines have offered anatomical, behavioural and evolutionary evidence supporting the argument for animal sentience. Comparative neuroanatomy has demonstrated that many species possess the nervous system structure and physiology for emotion. Behavioral studies have shown that all vertebrates and even some invertebrates respond to potentially emotional or painful situations suggesting at least phenomenal awareness and aversion. Evolutionary and psychological research has emphasized the adaptive value of emotion, of pleasure and of pain for motivation and for survival.
Scientific evidence increasingly supports the notion that humans and other animals are on a spectrum of capabilities and that humans have opportunities and even imperatives to recognize animals’ potential for emotion, for pleasure and for pain.
About the author
Eleanor Boyle
Eleanor Boyle is an educator and writer focussing on issues of sustainable and compassionate food.
Eleanor holds an honours B.A. in Behavioural Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia. She has recently also completed a Masters in Food Policy from City University in London. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Eleanor has been a college instructor for almost 20 years. With her husband, Harley Rothstein, she co-authored the book Essentials of College and University Teaching: A Practical Guide. Eleanor has also worked as a full-time journalist, and has published articles on a range of topics including the need for public policy and education for better food systems.