Anthrozoology Blog

 I think that using animals in science is a mixed topic as it has helped in finding out if cures and medicinesare safe for people to use or not and making sure they work which is not always a very concerte way of finding out stuff like that in my opinion as some things may work in humans but not in animals or vise versa. The main reason why animals are used in science in the first place is because animals are biologically simialar to people and are also likely to get the same dieseases that people could get as well (American Physiological Society, n.d). Because there are genetic alteration technologies avalible it has led to an increase in using genetically altered animals (NC3Rs, n.d).  Scientists will use animals if it is unethical to test people and there are no other alternetives (American Physiological Society, n.d). The environment the animals are kept is is very important, there are many guidelines set in place to be met for a specific type of species used in a laborato...

Animals have been used for agriculture for a very long time and they have been used in agriculture for working the farmland and providing fertilizer for crops. They have also been used for meat and dairy for food production. 40% of global land is used for raising livestock (Heggie, 2019). The plant diet of livestock is about 86% of grass and leaves (Heggie, 2019). According to National Geographic, the average American eats about up to 222 pounds of meat every year (Heggie, 2019).  Most degradation of the environment is occurring because of animal agriculture (Conzachi, 2024). 65% of the nitrous oxide in the world is produced from animal agriculture, and uses up to 70% of land for animal agriculture (Conzachi, 2024). in conclusion, I think that the use of animals in agriculture is not a very conducive main source of food for the main food supply of the planet and plants are more productive to use in agriculture than animals. Heggie, J. (2019, March 18).  The future of livestock...

 I think that we kind of have taking compainion animals for granted and that many compainion animals have become stray animals likely due to people not wanting them anymore so they dump their pets out on the street so that the people don't have to bare the costs of keeping pets when they find out they can't afford to keep their pet anymore. For example in Massacuthess a big housing crisis had impacted animals such as horses and dogs as bigger animals cost more and have more restrictions then animals like cats (Gibson, 2024).  In New York City the city's biggest animal shelter has had to contend with 3,200 dogs that were abanndoned which from 2022 was up 41% (Gibson, 2024). In competitive housing markets stricter rules that ban or limit pets have been made by landlords, these rules have effected mostly both large dogs and certian breeds of dogs (Gibson, 2024). In the United States and Canada about 40% to 50% of animals in shelters get euthanized, and most of these animals ar...

 I'm sure everyone has seen at least some form of wildlife in thier life from squrrirls running in the trees to birds flying above in the sky. There is also a sense awe that many people feel when they see a form of wildlife for the first time like when someone sees a fox or a deer in person, this likely triggers wildlife inspired awe, because the person experiencing it may create emotional experencies as important memories (Hicks & Stewart, 2017). This kind of sense of awe is thought of as attempted accommodation to overwelming emotional human interactions with wildlife (Hicks & Stewart, 2017). Many people also have different views on wildlife and those different views are called wildlife value orientations, these are values and beliefs with wildlife as the main topic (Gross, 2019). there are two main types of these value orientations: mutualism and domination, mutualism is the belief that humans and animals are equal and the same while domination is the belief that humans ...

 SeaWorld is known for its captive orcas, but they don't have the best animal welfare for their orcas as the tanks the orcas have been kept in have been barren and almost no source of enrichment for the orcas is provided, or at least that's what it looked like the last time I went to SeaWorld. Since the realese of the documentary Blackfish which talked about a enormous captive killer whale at SeaWorld named Tilikum and the three deathes that were caused by the orca, SeaWorld attendence had dropped by one million vistors (Walter & Verissimo, 2023).  Tilikum had had a history of aggression and stereotypical behaviors which orcas don't show in the wild, only in captivity. this was brought on from post tramatic stress dissorder from spend almost all his life in captivity (Walter & Verissimo, 2023). Three years after the realese of Blackfish, SeaWorld ended its orca breeding program in 2016 (Walter & Verissimo, 2023).  Recently SeaWorld has announced plans to redes...

The depictions of animals in media in my opinion are very confusing and depending on the type of media presented can be either helpful to the animals presented in the media or can harm them, the content of media revolves around pop culture though it's not always accurate (Harris, 2020).  Some forms of media can help raise awareness about the animals presented in the media and get people to care about the animals. Most media tends to anthropomorphize animals, which means giving them human-like behaviors and characteristics (Harris, 2020).  But there are other forms of media that can not help people's perspectives on animals and actually harm those perspectives like how anthropomorphism can present misinformation that is not true about the animals this is particularly true with carnivores who are all not a risk to people despite what media can present kinds of false info like that (Harris, 2020). And in conclusion, I just think media depictions of animals are both good and bad f...