“what are your thoughts on animal testing?” would be an example of an open-ended question.

A Lamarck After My Own Heart

Zoological Ramblings

birdandmoon:

Are you ready to GET RIPPED? Meet the Powerful Owl!

This week’s comic was made with help from researcher Nick Bradsworth and his colleagues at Deakin in Australia. Learn more on twitter @urbanpowerfuls.

YourWildCity.com | Patreon

How does your food really impact endangered species?

Increasingly people are looking for ways to reduce the environmental impact of their food and consumption habits, whether that’s through reducing meat intake, or eliminating plastics from the home, or something else entirely. But without only using sustainable sources, it can be hard to know where your product came from, and what it’s actual impacts are. Perhaps the soybeans you eat and drink come from land that used to be rainforest? Maybe that glass water bottle you’re using instead of buying bottled water was made in an industrial area that was carved from vital habitat?

A new technique has now been developed allowing us to identify threats to wildlife caused by the global supply chains that fuel our consumption. The picture above (credit below) shows the worldwide species threat hotspots caused by final consumers in the USA, but the developers of this technique have also created a series of maps from other parts of the world using6,803 species of vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered marine and terrestrial animals as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and BirdLife International.

Anthropogenic (human-induced) threats to biodiversity are heavily driven by  deforestation, overfishing, overhunting and climate change - and these are often caused by incursion into natural habitats for economical reasons. Clearly showing threats on these and similar maps allows an opportunity for everyone involved - starting with producers and ending in consumers, but also including governments and conservationists - to focus solutions and mitigations on these targeted biodiversity hotspots.

An excellent EurekAlert! report can be found here.
The paper explaining methods and showing a variety of incredible maps is here.
Image Credit: Global hotspots of species threat linked to consumption in the United States | Moran & Kanemoto, 2017 | via Nature ecology & evolution

Feral Cats now cover over 99.8% of Australia’s land area

Cats became introduced to Australia in (or soon after) 1788, brought over on European ships. Since then, they have had severe impacts on Australian biodiversity, and are the likely causes of the extinctions of most of the 30 native mammal species since this European arrival.

Researchers collated 91 previous studies to estimate the density and coverage of feral cats in Australia, and determined there are around 2.1 million feral cats during harder times, and up to 6.3 million cats just after periods of heavy rainfall when more prey is around. In particular, cat densities are higher on islands, especially small islands, and in arid or semi-arid regions, but only following wet periods where densities can increase in these areas from 0 cats per km-sq, to more than 1.5 per km-sq (see image below).

What’s concerning is that cat densities are the same both inside and outside protected areas like national parks, which indicates these areas alone do not offer protection to native wildlife without additional conservation strategies.

And although here in Australia we have a lower feral cat density than in North America, Europe and Great Britain, our native wildlife have a greatly reduced reproductive output and are highly susceptible to novel predators, putting the risk of loss to feral cats, and the subsequent loss of biodiversity, much higher.

What can you do?

Even pet cats have a severe impact on our native wildlife. Each cat can take 5-30 animals a night, according to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, but are active hunters even during the day. If you have a cat, it is vital to keep it inside at all hours of the day. To ensure your cat’s health and welfare, it is important to feed it a proper diet (including meat products) as recommended by your veterinarian, and to maintain a good level of interaction and environmental stimulation (toys, scratch posts, etc.) for them during the day.

Density of feral cats increases after rain because there is a higher density of prey, allowing the support of a higher population - so cats breed. Cats are both induced and spontaneous ovulators, and females can have up to 3 litters a year (150 kittens over their breeding life!). It is essential that you spay or neuter your pet cats (a veterinarian will also tell you this is better for their health!) so that if they do escape, they cannot breed.

There is a lot Australia has to do to reduce the threat of feral cats - but remember, you have a role to play as well.

You can read the published paper here.
You can also read the press release via EurekAlert! here. 
Photo: Feral Cat | Kunal Mukherjee via Flickr | CC BY-SA 2.0

Adding the finishing touches on a paper about to be submitted, which means making diagrams super eye-catching! I’m not an artist, sadly, but I think this little toad will do in a pinch.

My father has been getting on my ass about my cats. They're both clawed and despite many toys, 2 cat trees and 6 cardboard scratchers their claws tend to be rough on furniture and my skin. My father says I'm wasting money by putting soft paws nail caps on them & that they should be declawed. He even said that soft paws are damaging! Am I doing the right thing?

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why-animals-do-the-thing:

fat-and-nerdygirl:

bettieleetwo:

jossisgod:

why-animals-do-the-thing:

Hell yes you’re doing the right thing. Declawing is mutilation (because it’s literally amputating a joint on each toe) and cats are often in pain their entire lives. Soft paw nail caps are expensive and a pain and the cats might think they’re annoying, but they’re by far the better choice. Props to you for standing up to him about it. 

^THIS^

oh God, just do a little research on declawing and see the horror stories! Most vets these days won’t even do that anymore! My jerk co-workers son took his doberman in and said he wanted his tail docked and ears clipped and the vet was like, we don’t do that anymore. It’s unnecessary and mutilation.

I am pro-declawing as long as the vet is good. I have three healthy, lovable fur babies and they are all fixed and they don’t have front claws (Their back claws are still in tact) they are all indoor cats with no danger of getting out doors (If they were out door cats hell yeah they’d have all their claws)

My eldest cat is almost 15, she has had NO health problems for a cat her age, her paws are perfect she has had no pain in them. Same with my other two babies.

My vet did stitches and we used the special litter. Contrary to what you’d be led to believe declawing is a common surgical procedure done under anesthesia and if done correctly, there will not be any lasting effects. It is just like any other surgery: there are some risks from the anesthesia and blood loss, but most of the times and if done by a competent veterinarian, there are no lasting effects from the surgery. Contrary to some opinions, declawing is not likely to drastically change their behavior or personality, nor does it necessarily predispose him to future behavioral problems. On the other hand, it creates a more rewarding experience between cat and owner because you don’t have to scold kitty all the time for clawing inappropriately.

Another pro-declawing is when rough-housing between kitty and another pet results in a scratched cornea and the risk of the other pet (my dog) losing an eye. The choice for the owner then becomes either to declaw or give up a cherished and loved pet, so it is pretty obvious here what the most humane choice would be. A person that decides to declaw his/her cat should not be vilified, instead encouraged to give the cat a home and love as long as the cat lives. 

If you check the internet, you can find one of those sites about the “horrors” of declawing a cat. They have pictures of an actual surgery of declawing a black cat. I have two things to say… Despite many warnings of how graphic the pictures are, there is not much blood to see. This proves that the declawing surgery is not as bloody as described, and even when the pictures where taken by an anti-declaw vet tech which most likely attempted to make the surgery look a gory as possible. Second, I can see where all the horror stories come from. This surgery was done very poorly. Using a nail clipper to remove the claws is a procedure that is not done very often anymore. It can leave bone splinters behind and the possibility of nail regrowth. The procedure done most often involves an incision behind the claw and continuing against the bony structure until the last digit falls away from the paw using a scalpel (called disarticulation method). This method does not break any bone and insures that no bone splinters are left behind and that there is no possibility of nail regrowth.  You can see  that the claw is removed carefully and would only remove the claw along with the distal phalanx (the bone where the claw is attached to) as shown on the picture below. In the pictures presented in the anti-declaw website part of the middle phalanx is being crushed.

The above is an image of what actually declawing looks like.

Declawing is also recommended to be done to cats before they turn 2 years of age and to be done the same time as spay/neuter. Some vets also put an anesthetic block in their paws so they won’t feel pain when they wake up. And they heal very quickly! It is recommended also by vets that you only remove their front claws because the back ones are important in their grooming and god forbid if they did get outside.

So yes, declaw your kitty @lepetitselkie just make sure you research your vet first to find out what kind of procedure they do. Just like with any surgical choice the doctor is key.

It is NOT hard to do some damn googling people!!!!

It takes a hell of a lot to piss me off to where I respond to it in public, but this, this actually makes it hard to engage a civil fashion. Especially because you also had the gall to send a pretty condescending note about how I should do research before I consider myself an expert. Here’s the thing about academic and practical knowledge - it’s often far more complex than what people find on a google search. So, let’s break this down for you because I know a hell of a lot more about this than what comes from ‘just google’. In fact, if you actually took the time to do a couple google searches, the first thing you’d find is that declawing is considered animal cruelty and banned in at least 22 countries.

Okay, so there’s two different topics to dig into here: the science and the ethics. Let’s start with the science, because that’s easier to break down while I try to stop raging internally.

Here’s a much more detailed image of what the inside of a cat’s paw actually looks like, because the one embedded above leaves out some rather important details.

Okay, so what you’re looking at here is the cross-section of a toe with the claw retracted. Cats walk digitigrade, meaning that their weight is borne entirely on the toes rather than on the internal bones of the foot. The last bone that the claw is attached to is called the distal phalanx (plural: phalanges). You’ll notice that there are two tendons and an elastic ligament attached to it. For a cat to be declawed, that bone must be removed, which means all three of those connective tissues must be severed.  That’s going to impair mobility even after it heals (tendons work because of their attachments) and that’s incredibly painful.

Here’s an image of a cat’s paw actually bearing weight. Notice how, because cats walk digitigrade, literally all of it’s weight is on the distal phalanx? Cats walk with all of their weight on the bone that declawing removes. Look at the position of the middle phalanx - it’s perpendicular to the ground and not in an orientation to bear weight comfortably in the slightest. When you declaw a cat, that’s the bone they’re left to put all their weight on and it’s understandably uncomfortable. It’s possible to help cats adjust by leaving part of the distal phalanx in the paw, but that a) means cutting the bone in half and having it heal and b) risks claw regrowth out of the bone and through the extant soft tissues.

At one teaching hospital, between 50%-80% of cats had post-surgery complications. Numbers from other studies vary - the ones cited on the declawing wikipedia article provide a decent sample range, and the complication rates were: 24%, 53%, 1.4%, 82.5%, 51.5%, 80%. All over the place. Reported medical complications include: pain, hemorrhage, laceration of paw pads, swelling, reluctance to bear weight on affected limb, neuropraxia (transient motor paralysis), radial nerve damage, lameness, infection, abscess, tissue necrosis, wound dehiscence, incomplete healing, protrusion of 2nd (middle) phalanx, claw regrowth, scurs (growth of deformed claw segments), retention of flexor process of third phalanx, chronic draining tracts, self-mutilation, dermatitis, lethargy, palmigrade stance (walking on wrists), chronic intermittent lameness, chronic pain syndrome, flexor tendon contracture, and cystitis (stress-associated bladder inflammation).

Long-term lameness is common, but also understudied. One review of related studies reported long-term lameness in 1% of cats, but another with a different sample size and source found that 13.6% of cats showed at least mild lameness long after healing (source).

Chronic pain in declawed cats is incredibly hard to assess. It hasn’t been well studied, cats are cryptic (quiet) when in pain, and most owners are notoriously bad at accurately identifying or reporting behavior in cats that indicates pain. That doesn’t meant that we have evidence that most declawed cats aren’t in pain - there’s just literally no data. We do know that there are frequently observed avoidance/pain behaviors such as walking oddly, not stepping on litter or similar surfaces, paw shaking, and paw biting that correlate highly with cats who have been declawed. Claw growth and arthritis from being declawed are obviously painful chronically.

Okay, so there’s your science. Now let’s talk ethics. In fact, here’s an anecdote for you.

My father’s toenails destroy bedding like little demons. No matter what he does, how much he clips them, how short they are, his toenails will inevitably shred the bottoms of sheets pretty quickly. It’s annoying as hell and my mother keeps mending the sheets or buying new ones when it gets too bad. Now, tell me, should she have the last joints of his toes amputated because it’s an inconvenience she doesn’t want to deal with? Of course not. She knew when she married my father that it would be something that came with the territory and she accepts that fact. Sounds stupid, right?

Voluntary onychectomy is, when simply put, the amputation of a cat’s weight-bearing digits for the convenience of the owner. Most people cite the reasons they declaw cats as behavior problems (scratching furniture) or aggression towards humans. Both of these problems are entirely resolvable through management and/or appropriate training with a little bit of effort on the part of the owner(s).

When you declaw a cat, not only do you put it through an entirely unnecessary, painful, and potentially traumatizing procedure, you forever remove from it the ability to engage in all of it’s natural behaviors. The simplest natural behavior is just walking on it’s feet correctly. Evolution creates certain physical structures for their specific efficacy and when you lop off your cat’s toes for your own convenience you forever force it to walk in a way that is unnatural for it. You also remove it’s ability to scratch, climb and stretch.

I do not believe that people should be allowed to have pets if they are not prepared to handle what comes with them. Scratching and using their claws for communication are natural behavior for a cat and therefore should be assumed as part of the price to pay for the luxury of cohabitating with one. If you’ve accidentially encouraged claws-out aggressive play or if you’re pushing your cat so far past it’s comfort zone that it keeps scratching you, that problem is entirely on you. If you’re declawing your cat because you prioritize the state of your furniture over the cat then you don’t deserve the luxury of getting to own a cat. If you need to mutilate an animal to make it fit into your life, don’t get the goddamn animal.

I have said this a million times and I will say it again:  If you want a pet whose welfare you are willing to sacrifice for your own ease of care, you are not responsible enough to own any living creature. As sentient beings who make the conscious choice to take on the care and welfare of a living creature (or six), it’s an ethical imperative that we provide the highest quality of welfare possible even no matter what the expense or time investment required.

It’s entirely possible, as we’ve shown numerous times on this blog, to use planning and appropriate management to eliminate the irritations that come with a cat having and using claws. Cats can be trained to play without hurting, humans can learn to read cat body language, claws can be clipped or dremeled as an entirely positive experience, and soft-caps can be applied. All it takes is time, dedication and forethought.

So, @fat-and-nerdygirl, it is for all of the above that I am appalled that you are actively advocating for unnecessary declawing procedures. This girl does not appear to have any of the severe medical conditions that would make it vaguely acceptable to consider declawing for her safety. It’s simply that her cats are being cats - that’s the only problem. You’re advocating she put her pet through an unnecessary surgery for basically no reason when she’s already found a much more appropriate solution and is implementing it correctly.

More importantly, I am pissed that you are spreading misinformation while advocating for accurate research. Many of your ‘facts’ are flat out wrong. Nail-clipper declaws are still incredibly common, awfully enough. Declaws do not always heal fast - most studies report lameness still present after 8 days and sometimes even up until two weeks after surgery. Just because a voluntary procedure is common does not mean it is good for the animals or ethically okay.

Now, look, I understand. You have four cats who have been declawed and at the moment they don’t appear to be having any issues. It sounds like you did do your research to find someone to do the surgery whose skills and techniques would provide the highest rate of success for your cats. I’m not going to attack your choice to declaw them because at this point it would be moot and I don’t know what your reasons were for making the choice at the time you did. I understand how, after putting four animals through that procedure, it can be incredibly hard to hear newer research come out that indicates that declawing isn’t great for them and questions the ethics of doing so. That’s rough on any pet owner, wondering if you made the right choice for the animals whose care you’re entrusted with. That’s enough to cause anyone to defend their choices more heavily - it’s a pretty common type of cognitive dissonance. But please, please stop spreading misinformation and backing it up with phony requests for ‘better research’ and misleading diagrams. I’m glad your cats are doing well post-surgery, and I sincerely hope they reach the ends of their lives without any complications surfacing.

Not all cats will be as lucky as your four cats.

Some cats will be declawed and forever live walking on bones that were never meant to be in contact with the ground or support weight that way. Some cats will develop claw shards or infections or arthritis. Some cat owners will be devastated to find out that they caused their babies to suffer by choosing what has been touted by peers as a ‘simple, safe, elective surgery’.

Help me stop that from happening to more animals and their humans. Stop spreading misinformation and defending an archaeic solution to the problems that arise when humans are lazy about caring for the animals they take into their homes.

Hi! I'm interest in doing a career similar to yours(I want to focus on social structures in complex mammals like elephants) and I was wondering if you had any advice for how to get there? Many colleges I have talked to (in the US) don't really know what I mean when I saw wildlife research/zoologist so I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find a mentor/pathway to take. Thank you for your time!

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lirio-dendron:

Hello! So, it sounds like you are applying for colleges to get your bachelor’s degree right now? I should mention first that, to do research in animal sociality/behavior, you’ll need at least a master’s degree. That means you’ll be looking at 2-3 years of graduate school minimum after you get your B.S. Your first step where you are now, then, is to pick a college major that is either biology or similar but slightly more specialized, such as zoology or ecology. Not all schools have these more-specific majors; if you end up going to a school that doesn’t have these majors for money or other reasons, that’s ok! A biology major will perfectly suffice for the graduate programs you’ll be interested in. However, schools that have a zoology/ecology major will probably have more opportunities right on campus where you can get research experience. 

And that is your next step: get some research experience under your belt before you graduate from undergrad. Once you’ve been in college for a semester or two (get a handle on those studies first!), start asking the professors in your biology classes if anyone is looking for undergraduate research assistants or volunteers. It’s not uncommon for them to announce opportunities like these to their classes on their own, but they may also know if other faculty members are looking. I highly suggest finding a lab to work/volunteer for and sticking with it for a year or two; this looks great when you’re applying to grad schools and you’ll have at least one person to write recommendation letters for you. Also investigate research internships outside your university; for example, REU internships are really prestigious and get you great research experience. There may be more local internships for you to apply for as well. Ask your professors, and search online. 

One additional thing: make sure you take at least one statistics class in undergrad. I’d also really encourage taking a programming language class, especially in something like R or Python. This will put you a step ahead of the pack, and knowing these is becoming more and more essential for ecology & behavior research (I use R every day, and really wish I’d started picking it up in undergrad!). 

A lot of this is a few years down the line for you, but it can’t hurt to start thinking about it. Sorry it went a bit long. Hopefully this helps, and feel free to ask follow-up questions!

World’s most adorable set of goggles invented

Also, scientists discover flaws in flight research

Obi the parrotlet has been fitted with a custom set of goggles to allow him to safely fly through a laser sheet that illuminates nontoxic, micron-sized aerosol particles. As Obi flies through it, he disrupts these particles with his wing movements, allowing Stanford researchers to generate a detailed record of the vortices created by the flight.

Why? The goal of was to compare very commonly used models in the literature to figure out how much lift a bird, or other flying animal, generates based off its wake. These models and methods are incredibly important, as scientists use them to interpret the airflow generated by flying animals to understand how they support their weight during flight. In addition, these results are commonly referenced for work on flying robots and drones inspired by the biology of these animals.

Previous predictions state that animal-generated vortices remain relatively frozen over time, like airplane contrails before they dissipate. Researchers here found that vortices created by wingbeats actually break up within two or three flaps, and much more violently than expected. It highlights some challenges in designing flying robots based on animals, and suggests the need for new models in future.

Watch the researchers talk about the process (and catch some shots of Obi doing his thing!) - 

You can also read the Stanford media release here.
Photo: Obi the parrotlet wearing protective goggles | Eric Gutierrez

Human food disrupts bear hibernation

I’ve posted before about the dangers of bears having access to and being encouraged to take food from humans, particularly in North America (remember when 7 bears were euthanised in Montana in 2012?), because it’s not only bad for the health of the bears and other local wildlife, but can actually be an outright death sentence for them.

Well, a new article published in Journal of Zoology examines the hibernation and denning patterns of brown bears in Slovenia, where bears are extensively fed corn throughout the year for hunting purposes and to divert them from human settlements.

Startlingly, this availability of anthropogenic (human-source) food not only shortens hibernation times by 45% in females and 56% in males, but also caused bears to abandon their dens 61% of the time during winter to move to one of these feeding sites.

Bears are facultative hibernators, which means they go into hibernation during times of cold or food stress. So it might sound good for the bears that they don’t need to go through this process as much, but essentially this extends the period in the year that people come into contact with bears (increasing the potential for human–bear conflicts and human-caused bear mortality). In addition, bear reproduction is linked to energy reserves post-hibernation, so an increase in foraging on anthropogenic food likely artificially inflates bear reproductive rates and densities, possibly increasing the need for culling.

The study adds more evidence for the use of caution when turning to supplemental feeding in wildlife management strategies.

The article is published online here.
You can read the full media release here.
Photo: By  M. Krofel | Journal of Zoology | via Eurekalert

aisling07:

@People who majored in zoology and have a career/ knowledge of one: I’m a little lost in life right now. My entire life plan revolved around me majoring in forensics and becoming a forensic pathologist but that plan fell through when I saw what really goes down at the examiner’s office. I recently changed my major to zoology since its something that genuinly interests me but I have only a vague idea of where to go. I don’t want to be a vet but I want to do some sort of field research. What should I be looking for?

Hi there!

One thing I can absolutely recommend is looking into graduate programs at your current college, and others in the area, and seeing what opportunities are available for future research projects you may be able to apply for (you can also look into undergrad research opportunities). Some professors/lecturers will offer positions into pre-existing projects, and others will invite you to approach them and pitch your own idea.

In any case, the key here is finding someone to be a supervisor/adviser for graduate studies, because usually colleges and universities require you to have a concept and adviser for your dissertation before you can be given the position in the course.

Alternatively, if graduate studies aren’t your jam (they can be lengthy and expensive), you could have a browse on employment websites for positions available for new graduates. I’m not American, so I don’t know if indeed.com is a reputable website, but whatever good equivalent website is a great start. NOt only will this provide options for positions that provide field work and research work, but it will also give you ideas for what extra study like a Masters or PhD might be prerequisites for research jobs that interest you in your area.

In any case, a career’s adviser/student centre at your college should be your first port of call, as they will be able to direct you to the best places to find all this information.

Best of luck!