From: IN%"Margret.Wulbers-Mindermann@hhyg.slu.se" "Margret =?UNKNOWN?Q?W=FClbers-Mindermann?=" 1-DEC-1996 08:49:22.53 To: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: References! Dear all, does anyone know about studies that deal with the maternal behaviour in primiparous sows AND/OR during their consecutive parities? Many thanks in anticipation! Margret Wulbers-Mindermann E-mail address: Margret.Wulbers-Mindermann@hhyg.slu.se From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 1-DEC-1996 18:40:29.61 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: ethology and conservation biology programs I am in the process of looking into grad schools that offer animal behavior (specifically wildlife), and conservation biology. Does anyone have any information on schools that offer this, or where I can find out? So far I have found about 4 schools that may have what I am looking for, such as Auburn University, but I am hoping that I can find something that is geared more directly toward these areas. Thanks in advance Colleen Moulton From: IN%"William_R_STRICKLIN@umail.umd.edu" 2-DEC-1996 09:00:49.49 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: semi-wild cattle Dear All: An edited book was published about 25 years ago on inbreeding (I believe with the titled "Heterosis") which I think would provide a general reference on the topic in question below. The contention is that one evolutionary strategy for inbreeding depression avoidance is for older males with seniority in a herd to not "prefer" to mate with younger females - thus limiting father-daughter matings. I can give anecdotical informational support to this theory. In a multiple-sire mating beef herd (about 100 cows) with three bulls (one approximately age 8 and two each about 4 years of age), the older bull would not mate with a yearling heifer while the younger bulls would aggressively compete for access to her. This also is based on some 25 years of memory. Ray Stricklin Department of Animal Sciences University of Maryland >Hallo everybody, > >does anyone know if there are mechanism in semi-wild cattle herds >with constant presence of an old bull to prevent matings with half >grown females? > >Best wishes > >Ute >******************************************************** >Dr. Ute Knierim >Institute of Animal Hygiene and Welfare >Veterinary School of Hanover >Buenteweg 17p >D-30559 Hannover >Tel +49 (0)511 953 8449 >Fax +49 (0)511 953 8588 >email uknierim@itt.tiho-hannover.de >******************************************************** From: IN%"chris@vrg.se" "Christian Kjellander" 3-DEC-1996 10:19:02.75 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Hi again! I have another question that i hope you have time to answere? Question 1 Many animals live in herds/flocks. It can be mammals, fishes, insects and birds. Which are the positive effects versus the negative effects for birds and insects to live in a flock. I already know the common reasons as: defend-reasons, protection of weaker animals, find food (if there are any others please add) negative - competition of food, ??? Please give examples. Question 2 Why is there a hierarchy/rank within flocks/herds. Please give examples. thanks in advance, Christian Kjellander chris@vrg.se From: IN%"Stephan.Duetzmann@t-online.de" 3-DEC-1996 10:20:37.92 To: IN%"Applied-Ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Ethology-Problem of an 17 year old german Hello I'm a new member of the Network, my name is Stephan Duetzmann, I'm 17 years old and I come from germany. I'm interested in this topic, because at the moment we are tought it in school. In my last test, my teacher asked the following question : There are two sorts of bees. (I can't remember their latin names) In a first experiment they had to find a cup of sugar-water. There was a big painted star beside the cup to help the bees to orientate additionaly to their orientation by using the sun. In the first trial both sorts learned the way to find the cup nearly in the same time and in the same way. In a second experiment there were more markers around to orientate. Both sorts learned faster to find the right way. So my question is : Can we speak in this case of classical condition or conditional appetency(I don't konw the right word, in german it is APPETENZ)? I think yes, because the bees associated the star and the other markers with that sugar water. I believe that they would also come back if there isn't a cup, but only the same markers. Or they would search for a cup, if they see the markers at another place. I wrote that down, but my teacher doesn't believe that! So it would be nice, if you could solve the disput. Stephan Dützmann From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 3-DEC-1996 17:13:51.15 To: IN%"chris@vrg.se" "Christian Kjellander" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hi again! On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, Christian Kjellander wrote: > I have another question that i hope you have time to answere? > > Question 1 > Many animals live in herds/flocks. It can be mammals, fishes, insects and birds. > Which are the positive effects versus the negative effects for birds and > insects to live in a flock. > I already know the common reasons as: defend-reasons, protection of weaker > animals, find food (if there are any others please add) > negative - competition of food, ??? > Please give examples. The only things I have to had to the positive reasons for flocking are the energy benefits of vigilance(not all the animals need to be alert for predators while feeding in a group..experimentally shown using starlings), an information center (related to where food is and where it is not), in birds flocking in V formation, the aerodynamics of this shape gives the birds behind the leader an "easy ride", group hunting, and "helpers-at-the nest" exhibited in Florida scrubjays. Some of the negative aspects of group living are high intraspecifc competition for food resources, mates, etc.(shown dramatically within groups of seals that have only one area to go to to breed, give birth, etc...also shown in the lek breeding of the grouse) , greater visibility to predators(the orapendula birds who all build globular nests in the same tree), disease(problem with ectoparasites in cliff swallows that live close together), and potential inbreeding problems (only in real small groups) > > Question 2 > Why is there a hierarchy/rank within flocks/herds. > Please give examples. > As far as I am aware, hierarchies do not really exist in the wild. Hierarchies are merely social terms that people have tried to apply to other animal species other than humans. In the terms that I believe you are asking about there are indeed cases where some animals in a herd have more power over others. But this is more due to the animals "on top" are those that are the strongest, most healthy, etc. In the lek breeding of antelope the males fight for the optimum breeding spots. The best males get the best spots in the middle of the lek. The females' preference of males also has a part in the distinction between the males. In apes as well there are members that have more experience and more pull than others. But none of what I have come across really qualifies as an hierarchy as we know it; where an individual or individuals have control of others even though they have no physical advantage over everyone else of the group, i.e. kings and queens coming into power due to family heritage. Hope this helps, Colleen Moulton > thanks in advance, > > > > Christian Kjellander > chris@vrg.se > > > > From: IN%"SCHMUTZ@sask.usask.ca" 3-DEC-1996 17:31:48.97 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Ph.D. Student Position Open Ph.D. Studentship available at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon beginning May, 1997. Person must have Master's or experience in livestock behavior measurement. The project would be part of a large cattle genetic study using a full-sib design. Calving begins Feb. 6, 1997 and runs through May. All calves are embryo transfer calves in recipient mothers and offspring of 5 bulls (145 calves). Maternal family sizes vary but 15 donors have calves. The Ph.D. student's goal would be to measure some behavior traits in all calves or yearlings and correlate similarity within families. Others in the group will be running 200 DNA markers for gene mapping studies of production and carcass traits. The project is funded jointly by Canadian Cattlemen's Association, Alberta Cattle Commission and NSERC. Canadians will be given preference but only amongst candidates with equal qualifications. For further information, please contact: Sheila Schmutz, Animal Science, U of S 306-966-4153 306-966-4133 fax From: IN%"chris@vrg.se" "Christian Kjellander" 4-DEC-1996 05:59:40.20 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Thank you for the answeres, Here are some answeres that i got. Thank you all! Yours sincerly, Christian Kjellander Question 1 Many animals live in herds/flocks. It can be mammals, fishes, insects and birds. Which are the positive effects versus the negative effects for birds and insects to live in a flock. I already know the common reasons as: defend-reasons, protection of weaker animals, find food (if there are any others please add) negative - competition of food, ??? Please give examples. Question 2 Why is there a hierarchy/rank within flocks/herds. Please give examples. Hi Christian. I will try and answer your questions based on what I know. To answer question #1 Many of the bird mammal and fish species that congregate in flocks herds or schools respectively are prey species. Two reasons for this behaviour that I favour are a) a carnivore may be fooled into thinking that the herd school or flock is one big entity and thus to big to attack and or b) by congregating in such huge numbers they are ensuring that at least some survive attack. The primary role in nature being the survival of the species Question #2 Heirarchys exist in herds or flocks to a) ensure that only the fit breed and therefor pass on the genes that are best suited to survival and the second reason is basically for the benefit and well being of the flock or herd. Everyone knows the rules and knows who to follow. If you get an opportunity to watch a wild wolf pack you will see what I mean. Hope this helps and your comments would be welcome. John ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is very difficult to answer simply to this question. The reason is that there are so many different aspects making the context very complicate, and then it is almost impossible to reply without writing a large volume. It is not by chance that social behaviour is one of the most studied aspects of animal behaviour. I see that you already know the principal advantages and disadvantages for living in group. Generally speaking I could only add that "prey" species (generally herbivorous) tend to live in group in order to get better protection from predators (generally carnivorous), while "predator" species tend to live as single individuals or in small/temporary groups. You can see a parallel with the trophic levels you can learn in ecology: "prey" species are generally herbivorous, ie are consumer of the 1st trophic level and then are numerous, while "predator" species are obviously carnivorous, ie are consumer of the 2nd or 3rd trophic level and then are much rarer. You ask for examples: in vertebrates think of ducks, geese and swans (prey, numerous, and live in groups) vs birds of prey (predators, a few individuals, and live in couples); similarly in mammals (ungulates vs feline or canine predators) or in arthropods (bees or ants vs. other typical predator species) or in gastropod molluscs (periwinkles vs predators like Muricidae). This is a much simpler question, although there are obviously complex details. In a few words I can say that hierarchy is necessary for maintaining the group cohesion, since the social rank says each individual what is its "place" within the group. When the individuals recognize each other's rank it is no more necessary to establish the relative position, ie rank and role, at every meeting. How generally the rank is established? Through aggressive encounters, ie ritualized combats. Thus, once the hierarchy is structured the aggression level among the group is greatly reduced (this is a very great advantage). Nevertheless, not all flocks or herds are hierarchically structured; think, for instance, to the huge herds of wildebeest (or White-tailed gnu) (Connochaetes taurinus) or the wintering flocks of finches (family Fringillidae) formed by several different species that gather together for wintering. They simply live together but are independent, "using" other individuals for a better detection of predators and/or food. I hope this was of help in clarifying. Sincerely, Davide Csermely -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Answere 1, The only things I have to had to the positive reasons for flocking are the energy benefits of vigilance(not all the animals need to be alert for predators while feeding in a group..experimentally shown using starlings), an information center (related to where food is and where it is not), in birds flocking in V formation, the aerodynamics of this shape gives the birds behind the leader an "easy ride", group hunting, and "helpers-at-the nest" exhibited in Florida scrubjays. Some of the negative aspects of group living are high intraspecifc competition for food resources, mates, etc.(shown dramatically within groups of seals that have only one area to go to to breed, give birth, etc...also shown in the lek breeding of the grouse) , greater visibility to predators(the orapendula birds who all build globular nests in the same tree), disease(problem with ectoparasites in cliff swallows that live close together), and potential inbreeding problems (only in real small groups) Answere 2 s far as I am aware, hierarchies do not really exist in the wild. Hierarchies are merely social terms that people have tried to apply to other animal species other than humans. In the terms that I believe you are asking about there are indeed cases where some animals in a herd have more power over others. But this is more due to the animals "on top" are those that are the strongest, most healthy, etc. In the lek breeding of antelope the males fight for the optimum breeding spots. The best males get the best spots in the middle of the lek. The females' preference of males also has a part in the distinction between the males. In apes as well there are members that have more experience and more pull than others. But none of what I have come across really qualifies as an hierarchy as we know it; where an individual or individuals have control of others even though they have no physical advantage over everyone else of the group, i.e. kings and queens coming into power due to family heritage. Hope this helps, Colleen Moulton, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2, And access to mates, for example, in marmosets some adult members don't reproduct until the alfa male or female dies or leaves the group, although they can copulate (there is a innibition of ovarian cycles in submissive females); in this case, dispersion is not advantageous because are not disponibility of news territories, mates or/and resources. Vanner Boere vanner@guarany.cpd.unb.br -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you all! If anyone would like to add then please go ahead. Christian Kjellander chris@vrg.se From: IN%"CHolm@ZI.KU.DK" "Holm, Christine {ZI-APB}" 4-DEC-1996 06:57:00.99 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" "applied-ethology-error" CC: Subj: RE: Ethology-Problem of an 17 year old german Dear Stephan, I think you are right. This looks like a classical conditional learning experiment. The founder of modern ethology, Tinbergen and his co-worker Kruyt did an experiment in 1938 with a digger wasp (Philanthus triangulum). It nests in a hole in the ground, and while it was in its nest, the experimenters put a ring of twenty pine cones around the nest hole. When the wasp came out it noticed the cones and orientated itself for 6 seconds and then left to forage. When it came back it headed straight for the ring of cones. Unfortunately Tinbergen and Kruyt had moved the cones to another place where there was no nest... This happened 13 times, and each time the wasp would not go back into its nest until Tinbergen put the cones around it. I think this situation is similar to your bee-experiment. It is an example of the kind of learning we call conditioning. The story is described in Tinbergens book "The study of instinct" (Clarendon Press 1951). I am not familiar with the term appetitive conditioning, but I suppose you could call it that since searching for the nest is appetitive behaviour and we are talking about a conditioned behaviour. I am a PhD-student at the University of Copenhagen. I study the calling behaviour of Blackbirds. I enjoyed receiving this letter from a possible future colleague! Keep up the good work! Best regards Christine Holm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Christine Holm, M. Sc. Ph.D. student Dept. of Population Biology ----------------------------------- University of Copenhagen Time flies like the wind Denmark Fruit flies like bananas Tel. +45 35 32 12 93 ----------------------------------- E-mail: cholm@zi.ku.dk Fax: +45 35 32 12 99 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ---------- >From: applied-ethology-error >To: Applied-Ethology >Subject: Ethology-Problem of an 17 year old german >Date: 3. December 1996 15.36 > >Hello I'm a new member of the Network, my name is Stephan Duetzmann, i'm 17 >years old and I come from germany. I'm interested in this topic, because at >the >moment we are tought it in school. >In my last test, my teacher asked the following question : >There are two sorts of bees. (I can't remember their latin names) In a first >experiment they had to find a cup of sugar-water. There was a big painted star >beside the cup to help the bees to orientate additionaly to their orientation >by using the sun. >In the first trial both sorts learned the way to find the cup nearly in the >same >time and in the same way. >In a second experiment there were more markers around to orientate. Both >sorts >learned faster to find the right way. >So my question is : Can we speak in this case of classical condition or >conditional appetency(I dont konw the right word, in german it is APPETENZ)? >I think yes, because the bees associated the star and the other markers with >that sugar water. I believe that they would also come back if there isn't a >cup, >but only the same markers. Or they would search for a cup, if they see the >markers at another place. I wrote that down, but my teacher doesn't believe >that! >So it would be nice, if you could solve the disput. > >Stephan DFCtzmann From: IN%"102234.510@CompuServe.COM" "Sabine Van den Weghe" 4-DEC-1996 14:14:31.56 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" "INTERNET:applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: reproductive performance, loose housed vs confined dry sows Dear Jim, I am working in Germany at an institution which provides mainly scientificly and advisory based information to both scientists, advisors, people in administration and farmers. I am quite interested in your work that you mentioned in response to an email request. Is it possible to obtain the report you emntionned? That would be very kind. My institution, KTBL, has recently published a book called - free translation - : group housing in sows - chances of electronic feeding system. Actually the title is not to well chosen since in the book we present basicly management and housing requirements in the group housing of dry sows and in addition a number of in europe discussed group housing systems in lactating sows and some examples of individual farrowing pens with free movement for the sow are rpesented. In case you know s.o. who knows german language we might exchange our papers. Thanks for your attention greetings from Sabine Sabine Van den Weghe Kunratorium fuer Technik und Bauwesen in der Landwirtschaft - KTBL Bartningstr. 49 D-64289 Darmstadt Tel. +49-6151-7001-149 FAX +49-6151-7001-123 email: 102234.510@compuserve.com From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 5-DEC-1996 04:31:27.70 To: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies > On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, Christian Kjellander wrote: > > > I have another question that i hope you have time to answere? > > > > Question 1 > > Many animals live in herds/flocks. It can be mammals, fishes, insects and birds. > > Which are the positive effects versus the negative effects for birds and > > insects to live in a flock. > > Question 2 > > Why is there a hierarchy/rank within flocks/herds. Colleen Moulton's answers to this were good, except for the following. > As far as I am aware, hierarchies do not really exist in the wild. This is a myth, started as far as I know by Gartlan (1968) and Rowell (1974), which resurfaces now and again. There are hundreds of studies which have demonstrated hierarchies in wild populations - my own on red deer as just one example. In fact it is clear that Colleen is aware of this: > In the terms that I believe you > are asking about there are indeed cases where some animals in a herd have > more power over others. But this is more due to the animals "on top" are > those that are the strongest, most healthy, etc. In the lek breeding of > antelope the males fight for the optimum breeding spots. The best males > get the best spots in the middle of the lek. The females' preference of > males also has a part in the distinction between the males. In apes as > well there are members that have more experience and more pull than > others. Those are pretty fair descriptions of hierarchies, as anyone who has worked in the area uses the term. However, Colleen seems to want to limit the term hierarchy to a much narrower sense: > But none of what I have come across really qualifies as an > hierarchy as we know it; where an individual or individuals have control > of others even though they have no physical advantage over everyone else > of the group, i.e. kings and queens coming into power due to family > heritage. This idea of hierachies ONLY referring to arbitrary convention is new to me. Perhaps other people have also had this approach, which might partly explain the perpetuation of the myth? But there are many objections: (a) this is not the general understanding of the term hierarchy, (b) it is not tenable, because while a king or queen does not hold power by virtue of their physical strength they do so by their alliances, armies and so on, which is an amplification of the sort of processes which must have gone on in pre-human society, (c) even by Colleen's definition there are primates which have hierarchies, with individuals achieving status because of their mother's rank. > Hierarchies are merely social terms that people have tried to apply to > other animal species other than humans. There is an element of truth here, because the hierarchy as such is not generally perceived by the animals (although some primates may have a fair idea of relative social status). The individual animal knows which others it can dominate and which others it should avoid, and it is only the human observer who organises all the relationships into a neat order. So why is there a hierarchy? Because individuals recognise each other, identify which others they can beat and which will beat them or engage in actual competition and then remember past encounters. The function of dominance is that they gain whatever advantages are available while avoiding the risk and cost of competing with others they can not beat. In terms of proximate causes, it feels good beating someone else up or reminding them that you could do so if you wanted to! Best wishes Mike Appleby mappleby@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk From: IN%"SBXNG@sbn3.phes.nottingham.ac.uk" "Nigel Goodwin" 5-DEC-1996 05:57:50.67 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Hierarchies - "cascade" displacements? > So why is there a hierarchy? Because individuals recognise each > other, identify which others they can beat and which will beat them > or engage in actual competition and then remember past encounters. > The function of dominance is that they gain whatever advantages are > available while avoiding the risk and cost of competing with others > they can not beat. In terms of proximate causes, it feels good > beating someone else up or reminding them that you could do so if you > wanted to! This raises a point about an observation I have made which I welcome comments on. I'm involved in a project looking at hierarchies of farmed red deer, and I have noticed a feature of the dominance interactions which I've not seen described by anyone else. Individuals in the middle of the hierarchy sometimes get involved in what I call "cascade" displacements, in which A displaces B, and within a few seconds B displaces C. In human terms, it's as if B is upset by being beaten up, and immediately goes and takes it out on C, who she knows from previous experience is subordinate to her. This fits in with Mike Appleby's comment that "it feels good beating someone else up", so in this sense it's an ego boost for B after losing to A. I just wondered if anyone has described this phenomenon in more scientific terms! Nigel Goodwin From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 5-DEC-1996 06:25:16.09 To: IN%"SBXNG@sbn3.phes.nottingham.ac.uk" "Nigel Goodwin" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hierarchies - "cascade" displacements? Dear Nigel > Individuals in the middle of the hierarchy sometimes get involved in > what I call "cascade" displacements, in which A displaces B, and > within a few seconds B displaces C. In human terms, it's as if B is > upset by being beaten up, and immediately goes and takes it out on C, > who she knows from previous experience is subordinate to her. > I just wondered if anyone has described this phenomenon > in more scientific terms! Yes, I'm sure that most people who work on hierarchies have seen this, although offhand I can't think of a reference except my own description in a New Scientist article (10th January 1985, pp16-18). I was talking about intransitive triads (and the fact that these are not as surprising as they first seem): 'I saw COC4 threaten Talcon while Pointed was nearby. And red deer stags are like humans in this respect: if they are threatened they look for a subordinate to threaten in turn. So Talcon threatened Pointed, Pointed threatened COC4 and the three actually ended up chasing each other in a circle.' It's good to hear that you have firmed this up with more frequent observations in captive animals. Mike From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 5-DEC-1996 06:38:09.82 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies I think that Professor Signoret only sent this to me, but he obviously meant it to go to the net so I shall forward it (and then reply). Dear all, Another way of considering hierarchy could be a way of solving in a non violent way the conflicts. In fact why not to consider the hierarchy among domestic cattle as something equivalzent to the code of politeness in human: please do go the first at this door , please take the best place at table, and be served before me... Is it necessary to use a term as hierarchy and to associate it with violenbce and oppression. A stable hierarchy in a group of cattle where food is distributed on the surface of the pasture ensures a peacefull life. Why not! J.P. Signoret J.P. Signoret INRA/CNRS URA 1291 Comportement Animal F 37380 NOUZILLY Tel (33).02.47.42.79.62 Fax (33).02.47.42.77.43 e-mail : signoret@tours.tours.inra.fr I would agree that dominance is a non-violent way of solving conflicts, but not with the implication that this is altruistic. I don't think we can regard a cow as saying 'Let's not argue about this: I'm feeling generous so you're welcome to go first.' But we can certainly see that she gains an advantage by not bullying a certain subordinate every time they meet and by allowing a dominant to go through a narrow gap first rather than getting into a fight which she knows from experience that she will lose. In fact some of the code of politeness in humans which Professor Signoret describes ('please do go the first at this door, please take the best place at table, and be served before me... ') is clearly dominance-based (although of course not all of it - some is altruistic or cooperative): the boss is polite to you and serves you first as a way of showing she is in charge. There are animal examples too: Zahavi describes birds in which the top-ranker feeds those of lower rank. Mike Appleby From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 5-DEC-1996 12:10:02.80 To: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies I am finding this discussion on heirarchies very intriguing to say the least. A year ago I may have agreed with all of you, but from my experiences and from the lessons of a pretty "radical" teacher, I now must disagree. One of the main themes of his class (Environmental Politics and Political Theory) is that one of the biggest reasons for the environmental problems we have today is the way the world is viewed...by all of us. I am not sure if any of you have read Murray Bookchin's(a social ecologist) __Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future___(1990) (if you havent I strongly suggest it), but I feel the need, in light of this conversation, to share a bit of it with you. Please excuse its length but I had a hard time figuring out what to leave out of his discussion on the "hierarchies and domination in nature" " ...social ecology re-examines the entire concept of domination, be it in nature and society or in the form of 'natural law' and 'social law'. What we normally call domination in nature is a human projection of highly organized systems of _social_ command and obedience onto highyl idiosyncratic, individual, and asymmetrical forms of often mildly coercive behavior in animal communities. Put simply, animals do not 'dominate' each other in the same way that a human elite dominates, and often exploits, an oppressed social group. Nor do they 'rule' through institutional forms of systematic violence as social elites do. Among apes, for example, there is little or no coercion, but only erratic forms of dominant behavior. Gibbons and orangutans are notable for their peacable behavior toward members of their own kind. Gorillas are often equally pacific, although one can single out 'high status', mature, and physically strong males among 'lower status', younger and physically weaker ones. The 'alpha males' celebrated among chimpanzees do not occupy 'status' positions within what are fairly fluid groups. Any 'status' that they do achieve may be due to very diverse causes. "One can merrily skip from one animal species to another, to be sure, falling back on very different, asymmetrical reasons for searching out 'high' versus 'low status' individuals. The procedure becomes rather silly, however, when words like 'status' are used so flexibly that they are allowed to include mere differences in group behavior and functions, rather than coercive actions. " The same is true for the word 'hierarchy'. Both in its origin and its strict meaning, this terms is highly social, not zoological. A Greek term initially used to denote different levels of deities and, lare, of clergy...., the word has been mindlessly expanded to encompass everything from beehive relationships to the erosive effects of running water in which a stream is seen to wear down and 'dominate' its bedrock. Caring female elephants are called'matriarchs' and attentive male apes who exhibit a great deal of courage in defense of their community, while acquiring very few 'privileges', are often designated as 'patriarchs'. An absence of an organized system of rule--so common in hierarchical human communities and subject to radical institutional changes, including popular revolutions--- is largely ignored. " Again, the different functions that the presumed animal hierarchies are said to perform, that is, the asymmetrical causes that place one individual in an 'alpha status' and others in a lesser one, is understated where it is noted at all. One might,....,place all tall sequoias in a 'superior' status over smaller ones, or, more annoyingly, regard them as an 'elite' in a mixed forest' hierarchy' over 'submissive' oaks, which , to complicate matters, are more advanced on the evolutionary scale. The tendency to mechanically project social categories onto the natural world is as preposterous as an attempt to project biological concepts onto geology. Minerals do not 'reproduce' the way life forms do. Stalagmites and stalactites.....certainly do increase in size over time. But in no sense do they gorw in a manner even remotely corresponds to growth in living beings. To take superficial resemblances, often achieved in alien ways, and group them into shared identities, is like speaking of the 'metabolism' of rocks and the 'morality' of genes. " This raises the issue of repeated attempts to read ethical, as well as social, traits into a natural world that is only _potentially_ ethical insofar as it forms a basis for an objective social ethics.Yes, coercion does exist in nature; sodoes pain and suffering. However, _cruelty_ does not. Animal intention and will are too limited to produce ethics of good and evil or kindness and cruelty. Evidence of inferential and conceptual thought is very limited among animals, excpet for primates, cetaceans, elephants, and possibly a few other mammals." From: IN%"richards@hula.net" 5-DEC-1996 12:31:56.17 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: groups and hierarchies - horses From personal observation in herds of domestic horses, dominance hierarchies are usually dynamic, rather than static. For example, Josephine, the herd matriarch, will always pick which flake of hay shen wants (separate flakes for each horse are spaced along the fence). She will choose one, and the other horses will avoid that one. 5 minutes later, she decides to try Red's flake (second position in the hierarchy). Red moves away and goes to Jack's flake. Jack pins his ears, but otherwise leaves peacefully, and ambles over to Shar's flake. Shar (oldest gelding, and low man on the totem pole) goes to Desiree's flake (youngest mare), who allows him to share with her, thus leaving one flake unattended. This process continues until all hay is consumed. I have often left an extra flake, but this does not alleviate the constant shuffling over the piles of hay. At the water trough, Josephine again assumes the highest position in the herd hierarchy. However, if a stranger walks along the fence with an apple, Red will occasionally chase Josephine away. Jack may try to challenge Red (and will 'lose' the confrontation most of the time, but occasionally 'wins'). Upon night feeding though, Josephine will go through the gate into the barn dead last, standing well back and allowing the whole herd to go to dinner before her. Red will always go first, even if someone challenges him. Over time, it appears that there is a recognized matriarch within the herd, but specific circumstances allow for a certain amount of fluidity (at least within this one herd). FWIW, Dawn From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 5-DEC-1996 12:33:24.90 To: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies MIke Appleby wrote: > > There is an element of truth here, because the hierarchy as such is > not generally perceived by the animals (although some primates may > have a fair idea of relative social status). The individual animal > knows which others it can dominate and which others it should avoid, > and it is only the human observer who organises all the relationships > into a neat order. I agree that it is the human that organizes these relationships into a neat order. But the question is, what basis do we have for this "orginization" and what right do we have to organize them in the first place? All we have to go on is our knowldege of hierarchies in our society. Whose to say that has any bearing on the workings of an animal's community? > > So why is there a hierarchy? Because individuals recognise each > other, identify which others they can beat and which will beat them > or engage in actual competition and then remember past encounters. > The function of dominance is that they gain whatever advantages are > available while avoiding the risk and cost of competing with others > they can not beat. In terms of proximate causes, it feels good > beating someone else up or reminding them that you could do so if you > wanted to! There is some truth to this statment of why there is a hierarchy. Problem is, that this is the reason why there is heirarchy in_ human_ societies. This is based on how our thinking and feeling processes work. We may think " hey, I know I can beat him/her up " and feel some sort of security about it. But I find it ridiculous to apply our human feelings of insecurity and/or violence onto other animals. We are able to acknowledge the fact that not all humans have the same opinion. For example, it would be silly of me to assume that just because I like the taste of jelly and mayonaise sandwiches, everyone must. And I am sure people would think that I was crazy if I thought that everyone did. But for some odd reason most people seem to be unable to use that same analogy towards animals. If you cant assume that the next person feels the same way as you do about something, how can you assume that a member of another _species_ will? I find it highly unlikely that an animal in the wild is concerned about who he/she has power over. They have a hell of a lot more to worry about. Besides that, I dont believe that any wild animal would waste their precious energy on beating up another animal just because they can. Sincerely, COlleen Moulton From: IN%"AMALLEAU@APS.UoGuelph.CA" "Anne Malleau" 5-DEC-1996 12:37:48.69 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: JAAWS Journal Hello! I would like to order a sbscription to the new journal coming out in January (JAAWS), but unfortunately I have placed my form in a 'safe place' and can't seem to locate it. If anyone knows of the address and the person I send my money order to, I would gladly appreciate it. Thanks in advance, Anne Malleau Dept. of Animal & Poultry Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1 amalleau@aps.uoguelph.ca From: IN%"elmer@north.nsis.com" 5-DEC-1996 13:25:53.19 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: society development As a producer and an observer of animal behavior in dairy and beef,I think the best way to watch societal development is when producers who are on a pasture based/tie stall operation;first turn their cows out in the spring.It takes roughly a week for the pecking order to be established,then you know if you've watched them who the boss cow(or cows)is;who the designated driver is;who will be the follower;the heat detector and any other individual characteristics as they determine. From: IN%"PLXCMLN@pln1.life.nottingham.ac.uk" "CHARLOTTE.M.L.NEVISON" 6-DEC-1996 03:52:56.40 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Introducing myself and comments on hierarchies Hi all, I have been reading the mailing list for some weeks now with great interest, and finally have been prompted to reply (and introduce myself!) by the discussion on hierarchies. I am currently doing a PhD on the assessment of welfare in several strains of laboratory mice. I am approaching this by building behavioural profiles for each strain, and interpreting what they do in the context of what natural selection has designed mice to do, whilst bearing in mind the potential effects that artificial selection may have had. In addition to behaviour I am investigating physiological and pathological parameters which may relate to welfare. In my observations of these different strains it appears that some still have an obvious hierarchical structure within a cage environment, yet others appear not to. (Initially hierarchies have been assigned using aggression scores). I have a few very speculative ideas about why this may be, which would have arisen as an `accidental' consequence of artificial selection in the development of each strain (each strain can be traced back to the same original source). I would welcome any input on this! Regarding `polite' society in cows, I wonder if perhaps in the domestic situation (where resources are plentiful) there is less of a need for firm hierarchy? I have thought about this in my mice, but cannot explain why it occurs in some strains but not in others. Regarding the Nigels comment on red deer: > Individuals in the middle of the hierarchy sometimes get involved in > what I call "cascade" displacements, in which A displaces B, and > within a few seconds B displaces C. In human terms, it's as if B is > upset by being beaten up, and immediately goes and takes it out on C, > who she knows from previous experience is subordinate to her. I have observed similar occurences in previous work I have done on laboratory rats. It does not appear to occur in mice however. The hierarchy seems much more fluid in rats than in mice. I wonder if perhaps it acts as some sort of coping response, and is reflected in the animals physiology? Regards, Charlotte. From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 6-DEC-1996 03:59:43.09 To: IN%"AMALLEAU@APS.UoGuelph.CA" "Anne Malleau" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: JAAWS Journal Anne > I would like to order a sbscription to the new journal coming out > in January (JAAWS), It's now not due out until October (and the first issue will be dated Jan 98). Mike Appleby From: IN%"D.B.MORTON@BHAM.ac.uk" 6-DEC-1996 04:47:23.94 To: IN%"AMALLEAU@APS.UoGuelph.CA", IN%"kshapiro@CAPACCESS.ORG", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: JAAWS Journal Dear All, Youy can find out more by contacting Kenneth Shapiro T/F 301-963-4751 David M. >> I would like to order a sbscription to the new journal coming out in January (JAAWS), but unfortunately I have placed my form in a 'safe place' and can't seem to locate it. If anyone knows of the address and the person I send my money order to, I would gladly appreciate it. Thanks in advance,Anne Malleau Dept. of Animal & Poultry Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1 amalleau@aps.uoguelph.ca<< Prof.David.B.Morton | Janet: D.B.Morton@uk.ac.bham Biomedical Science and Ethics | Internet: D.B.Morton@bham.ac.uk The Medical School | University of Birmingham | Birmingham | Tel: +44 - (0)121 414 3616 B15 2TT, UK Fax: +44 - (0)121 414 6979 From: IN%"Heeler@aol.com" 6-DEC-1996 06:08:42.10 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Hierarchies - "cascade" displacements? In a message dated 96-12-05 10:28:51 EST, you write: >Individuals in the middle of the hierarchy sometimes get involved in >what I call "cascade" displacements, in which A displaces B, and >within a few seconds B displaces C. In human terms, it's as if B is >upset by being beaten up, and immediately goes and takes it out on C, >who she knows from previous experience is subordinate to her. > >This fits in with Mike Appleby's comment that "it feels good beating >someone else up", so in this sense it's an ego boost for B after >losing to A. I just wondered if anyone has described this phenomenon >in more scientific terms! I would too. I see it all the time in dogs, sheep, and horses. My own anecdotal take on this is that every animal wants to feel comfy with his status, no matter where on the hierarchy he finds his comfort. When he feels his status has been compromised from above, he tries to reinforce it by reinforcing submissive behavior from those below him so he can keep his place in the hierarchy.. If you think the wind is going to blow your house away, you don't fight the wind. You build a stronger foundation. Anyway, I too, would appreciate the chance to learn something more scientific about this. Cheers, Margie From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 6-DEC-1996 06:41:07.88 To: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: hierarchies Colleen Moulton wrote: > Mike Appleby wrote: > > > > There is an element of truth here, because the hierarchy as such is > > not generally perceived by the animals (although some primates may > > have a fair idea of relative social status). The individual animal > > knows which others it can dominate and which others it should avoid, > > and it is only the human observer who organises all the relationships > > into a neat order. > > I agree that it is the human that organizes these relationships into a > neat order. But the question is, what basis do we have for this > "orginization" and what right do we have to organize them in the first > place? Discussion of our 'right' to do this seems misplaced. We are not seeking to change the animals here - just to understand them... > All we have to go on is our knowldege of hierarchies in our > society. Whose to say that has any bearing on the workings of an animal's > community? > > > > > So why is there a hierarchy? Because individuals recognise each > > other, identify which others they can beat and which will beat them > > or engage in actual competition and then remember past encounters. > > The function of dominance is that they gain whatever advantages are > > available while avoiding the risk and cost of competing with others > > they can not beat. In terms of proximate causes, it feels good > > beating someone else up or reminding them that you could do so if you > > wanted to! > > There is some truth to this statment of why there is a hierarchy. > Problem is, that this is the reason why there is heirarchy in_ human_ > societies. This is based on how our thinking and feeling processes work. > We may think " hey, I know I can beat him/her up " and feel some sort of > security about it. But I find it ridiculous to apply our human feelings > of insecurity and/or violence onto other animals. ...and the major tool in understanding is actually studying the animals. As part of that study, I see one red deer stag go out of his way to kick another which is lying down, forcing him to stand, and then walk off, clearly gaining no immediate concrete advantage. I know a number of facts about control of aggression, for example that testosterone tends to promote it and that involvement in aggression in turn tends to increase aggression - in other words that there tends to be positive feedback on aggression. I can speculate on the long-term advantages -the function - of the stag's action (re-inforcing the dominance relationship now, while it is cheap to do so, may have a pay-off if there is a food shortage tomorrow) but if I am interested in motivation I want to know how the stag felt about his action. We say that he is hungry when he eats and we say that he feels aggressive when he kicks another. That isn't projection of human feelings (although I did phrase my description of the animals' feelings in a rather snappy way before) - it seems a reasonable model for how the behaviour is controlled. Having worked with these animals the best way I can explain such actions is that they do them for an 'ego-boost' (as Nigel also said). To take Colleen's position in full seems to go back to the idea that we can never understand anything about animals and should be rigid behaviourists. Part of the issue (which also relates to Colleen's other message) is that your view of dominance and hierarchies depends to a great extent on which species you have worked on. I grant that for many species, particularly primates, the simple picture of an aggression-based hierarchy is a gross over-simplification or even wrong. But I still maintain that in many species it is useful. For red deer stags, individuals fall into three categories - the top ranker, the bottom ranker and the rest. The top ranker never has to look behind him to see who is coming: he knows he is dominant! It does make a difference to life in the group how many others you are dominant to, and for us to work out a hierarchy is a good way of looking at that. > I find it highly unlikely that an animal in > the wild is concerned about who he/she has power over. Well, concerned may be the wrong word. They don't have to think about this consciously, but that doesn't mean that this isn't an issue for them. > I dont believe that any wild > animal would waste their precious energy on beating up another animal just > because they can. Again, the word 'just' is misleading here. There may well be a function - as discussed above. But they certainly do beat each other up! Mike From: IN%"CROWELL-DAVIS.S@calc.vet.uga.edu" "Sharon Crowell-Davis" 6-DEC-1996 07:33:26.84 To: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hierarchies - "cascade" displacements? It happens in horses, too Sharon Crowell-Davis > Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 12:23:24 +0000 > From: Mike Appleby > Subject: Re: Hierarchies - "cascade" displacements? > To: Nigel Goodwin > Cc: applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca > Organization: Edinburgh University > Priority: normal > Dear Nigel > > > Individuals in the middle of the hierarchy sometimes get involved in > > what I call "cascade" displacements, in which A displaces B, and > > within a few seconds B displaces C. In human terms, it's as if B is > > upset by being beaten up, and immediately goes and takes it out on C, > > who she knows from previous experience is subordinate to her. > > I just wondered if anyone has described this phenomenon > > in more scientific terms! > > Yes, I'm sure that most people who work on hierarchies have seen > this, although offhand I can't think of a reference except my own > description in a New Scientist article (10th January 1985, pp16-18). > I was talking about intransitive triads (and the fact that these are > not as surprising as they first seem): > 'I saw COC4 threaten Talcon while Pointed was nearby. And red deer > stags are like humans in this respect: if they are threatened they > look for a subordinate to threaten in turn. So Talcon threatened > Pointed, Pointed threatened COC4 and the three actually ended up > chasing each other in a circle.' > > It's good to hear that you have firmed this up with more frequent > observations in captive animals. > > Mike > ********************************************** Sharon L. Crowell-Davis DVM, PhD Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists College of Veterinary Medicine University of Georgia Athens, Georgia 30602 706-542-8343 FAX 706-542-0051 Email crowell-davis.s@calc.vet.uga.edu If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? T.H. Huxley On Elementary Instruction in Physiology From: IN%"kshapiro@CapAccess.org" "Kenneth Shapiro" 6-DEC-1996 08:35:43.52 To: IN%"D.B.MORTON@BHAM.ac.uk" CC: IN%"AMALLEAU@APS.UoGuelph.CA", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: JAAWS Journal JAAWS can be ordered through Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 10 Industrial Ave. Mahwah NJ 07430-2262 1-800-9-BOOKS-9, refer to #665 ORDERS@ERLBAUM.COM Ken Shapiro coeditor On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, DAVID B. MORTON wrote: > Dear All, > > Youy can find out more by contacting Kenneth Shapiro > T/F 301-963-4751 > > David M. > > > >> > I would like to order a sbscription to the new journal coming out > in January (JAAWS), but unfortunately I have placed my form in a 'safe > place' and can't seem to locate it. If anyone knows of the address > and the person I send my money order to, I would gladly appreciate it. > Thanks in advance,Anne Malleau > Dept. of Animal & Poultry Science > University of Guelph > Guelph, Ontario > N1G 2W1 > amalleau@aps.uoguelph.ca<< > > > > > Prof.David.B.Morton | Janet: D.B.Morton@uk.ac.bham > Biomedical Science and Ethics | Internet: D.B.Morton@bham.ac.uk > The Medical School | > University of Birmingham | > Birmingham | Tel: +44 - (0)121 414 3616 > B15 2TT, UK Fax: +44 - (0)121 414 6979 > From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 6-DEC-1996 10:53:21.40 To: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies I am beginning to realize that my initial statemnt that MIke refuted is being quite misread. I do believe my statement was that as far as I knew, hierarchies did not exist in _nature_. Most of what is being given as examples of hierarchies are within domesticated or enclosed animals. This is not nature by any means. These animals are not in those groups by choice and they are not in that environment by choice. Using examples of "hierarchies" in enclosed animal groups to support a belief that hierarchies exist in nature is rather absurd. The aggressive behaviors of certain "leaders" of the groups may well be examples of stereotypies in these animals, as a result of some sort of suffering. Suffering being, as Marian Stamp Dawkins defines it, is any prolonged situations of hunger, boredom, pain, or frustration. Is it possible that the confined deer that just goes ahead and kicks another is just acting out of boredom? I am not sure of where MIke's deer were (in captivity or wild...although if they were in the wild I would be interested in knowing how you were able to keep such tabs on them) although even if they were in the wild, the acts of aggression may have been just sporadic events; as Mike was quite happy to hear of a _captive_ example to support his observation. How a captive example can be used to support something witnessed in the wild seems a little strange to me. My statement about these animals having more to worry about than to waste their energy on picking on other animals was refuted, but again by examples of confined animals. COnfined animals dont have the worry of finding food or wasting the energy they get from it, because we supply it FOR them. The horses can afford to fight over flakes of hay because they know more is coming later on. THe one horse that seems to be the "matriarch" of the group may be the one most frustrated with her surroundings and has taken to messing with the other horses as a way of relieving her frustration. Any repeated behavior that does not have an abvious function (one flake of hay is no different than another, there is no benefit for her to fight over someone else's flake of hay), can be considered to be a stereotypy; often indicating some underlying patholgy or welfare problem. I'm not saying that these animals ARE suffering from some kind of pathology or anything the like, but that perhaps these observed "hierarchies" are actually jstu the way these animals deal with being bored not because they are the dominant member of the group. I think that using an example of cows in my first message was a poor choice, and I apologize for that. I hadnt expected a long discussion on this :), so I didnt really think out what I was using as an example. When I said that heirarchies dont exist in nature I was referring to naturally occurring groups of animals that were not in any form of human confinement. The difficulty with arguing my point is that it is very hard to study a group of wild animals without altering their behaviors, either by your presence or by confining them. Most studies that have been done on hierarchies in animals has been performed on captive animals; which I really dont see as a proper way to determine whether heirarchies occur in nature or not. Colleen Moulton From: IN%"AMALLEAU@APS.UoGuelph.CA" "Anne Malleau" 6-DEC-1996 10:54:42.48 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: JAAWS Dear All, Thanks to everyone who replied to the message I posted yesterday concerning the JAAWS Journal (Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science....or something close to that). For those interested, subscription queries can be sent to: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 10 Industrial Ave Mahwah NJ 07430-2262 1-800-9-BOOKS-9, refer to #665 ORDERS@ERLBAUM.COM I was also informed by Mike Appleby that the first journal would be DATED Jan 1998, but not RECEIVED until Oct 1998. Thanks again, Anne Malleau Dept. of Animal & Poultry Science University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1 amalleau@aps.uoguelph.ca From: IN%"serpell@vet.upenn.edu" 6-DEC-1996 14:22:04.96 To: IN%"AMALLEAU@APS.UoGuelph.CA" "Anne Malleau" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: JAAWS Dear all, A slight correction is due here: > >I was also informed by Mike Appleby that the first journal would be >DATED Jan 1998, but not RECEIVED until Oct 1998. The first issue will be available in Oct **1997**, although dated Jan. 1998. Thanks, James Serpell ___________________________________________________________________ NB: PLEASE NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: serpell@vet.upenn.edu ___________________________________________________________________ School of Veterinary Medicine, Dept. of Clinical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 3900 Delancey Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6010. USA. Tel: (215) 898-1004 Fax: (215) 573-6050 From: IN%"Heeler@aol.com" 7-DEC-1996 10:43:26.97 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies In a message dated 96-12-06 20:04:36 EST, you write: >. Most of what is being given as >examples of hierarchies are within domesticated or enclosed animals. This >is not nature by any means. Many social animals have been observed in the wild extensively, and their social behaviors well documented. Lions, wolves and African hunting dogs, are only a few examples. Cheers, Margie From: IN%"mplonsky@uwsp.edu" "Plonsky, Mark" 7-DEC-1996 15:41:57.81 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "'applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca'" CC: IN%"fcosta@datares.com" "'fcosta@datares.com'" Subj: dogs & contagious diseases Hi Folks, I recently received the following query. I know that there a number of you on the list that are more qualified to answer this than I. If you do reply, please do so to the list as well as to the person who mad the query (fcosta@datares.com). Thanx. >----- Mark Plonsky, Ph.D. 715-346-3961 wk ----- >----- Psychology Dept. 715-346-2778 fx ----- >----- University of Wisconsin 715-344-0023 hm ----- >----- Stevens Point, WI 54481 mplonsky@uwsp.edu ----- ----- http://www.uwsp.edu/acad/psych/mphome.htm ----- >I have a strange question for you. I am hoping that you can help point >me in the right direction. I am a dog trainer from NYC and I think I >might have caught (germ) something from a dog. I am trying to find out >how I can go about finding more info or someone that is familar with >humans possibly catching a disease or infection from a dog. > >I have a slightly swollen lymph node on the left side of my neck. I have >been through 5 doctors here in NYC and they can not come up with >anything. They did not even consider that getting something from a dog >was a possible cause of whatever it is that I have. All of my tests have >been normal: blood work, Ultrasound of the neck, a CT scan of the neck >showed that the lymph node was very slightly larger that the rest. Other >that that it was normal. They think I am a hypochondiac, which I am not. > >Any help is greatly appriciated, >John (fcosta@datares.com) > From: IN%"robin@coape.win-uk.net" "Robin E Walker" 7-DEC-1996 19:52:31.01 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: IN%"fcosta@datares.com" Subj: dogs and contagious diseases Good Question! We might be dangerous people to ask! I am hell at the bedside..so be warned Jose....veterinary officers after all were traditionally the last off the battle field from shooting the poor horses. However I do not (on the information you divulge) find myself approaching you with my revolver behind my back and the words"hey Jose just look at that sunset...out of the window there!" on my lips. You are right that we can be "invaded" by infectious organisms from other animals. These organism most often will not reproduce the full animal disease in us. But they can get an a "foothold" briefly. People working around cattle for example can be infected with "foot and mouth disease". In 1963 the Belgian Government Minister of Agriculte caught foot and mouth disease or a transient temporary form. [Much merriment in veterinary and journalistic circles] When we handle dogs with frankly pus filled eyes and ears and skin sores we MUST wear gloves and take great care not to contaminate ourselves. Particular care is always taken with post-mortem material but often we are careless with living organisms In 1966 my wife (a veterinarian) attended a miniature poodle with purulent orifices and performed an autopsy whihc established that the dog had been septicaemic with a staphylococcal organism. We believe that at some time in the cause of her work she mangaged to contaminate herself, who knows how but absentmindedly rubbing ones' eyes or inserting a finger into the nose whilst deep in thought, are typical "primate" sort of things to do! What? With a few days she had huge abscesses erupting on her buttocks and a lot of very busy lymph glands all over. She was septicaemic. The staphylococcus matched up and mercifully antibiotics were swiftly effective. Now Jose come here till I tell you,,and SIT! Your node resembles my son James' (22 years) node in location and every respect that you describe. WE have been through a similar anxiety about this becaue absolutely always in such an event someone knows someone who has a little lump in August and died in December! What everyone forgets is that 5 million people had an overworked overreactive lymph gland (which got injured doing its job!!) in the same month and had the Christmas of their lives! Life is something of a trapeze act..at times you have got to trust the "catchers" and the net "stringers". As a behaviourist you also need to know that there are people who get "phobic" about their dogs! The commonest form is smell phobia (kakosmia) "doctor my dog has this smell)..so beware of "dogs make my lymph nodes lumpy" phobia. On balance Jose I suggest you "chill out". Enjoy your dogs. After a lifetime with animals I would rather be kissed by a passing black labrador than a strange human being at a party! Besides...you would'nt want me appearing at your cotside with my hand behind my back..now would you? R.E.Walker From: IN%"Kate.Littin.1@uni.massey.ac.nz" "Kate Littin" 7-DEC-1996 23:19:29.73 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "applied-ethology" CC: Subj: flogging the hierarchy debate Hi, the great hierarchy debate has prompted me to respond also. I'm fairly new on the list too... i study stress in chickens, in particular the faecal measurement of corticosterone and the measurement of social and ACTH induced corticosterone responses using faecal corticosterone. Being a lowly MSc student, i just wanted to make a short comment amidst the differing ideas that have been voiced... having recently read a fair swag of Robert Sapolsky's work studying free-living (!!!) Olive Baboons (which i guess many must be familiar with), it surprises me that his work has not been mentioned in this discussion. Is he out of favour? In various books and papers, he discusses displaced aggression (a relatively subordinate male will show aggresion to a subordinate if he receives agression from a dominant male) where it may be a coping mechanism (on the basis of different cortisol responses to darting in males that exhibit this behaviour). He also discusses a number of other physiological and behavioural variables with relation to different types of dominance that are probably relevant to this discussion for anyone who is interested. While his work cannot prove the existence of a hierarchy per se in this species, much less in other species, it nevertheless provides interesting ideas regarding some physiological and behavioural functions and causes of apparent rank or hierarchy systems in other aniamls. I hope this is of interest to someone... Kate Littin. ================================== = Kate Littin = = Dept. Physiology & Anatomy = = Massey University = = Private Bag = = Palmerston North = = New Zealand = = ph +64 06 3504251 = = Kate.Littin.1@uni.massey.ac.nz = ================================== From: IN%"Heeler@aol.com" 8-DEC-1996 06:08:42.94 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: dogs & contagious diseases In a message dated 96-12-07 19:23:05 EST, you write: >>I have a slightly swollen lymph node on the left side of my neck. I have >>been through 5 doctors here in NYC and they can not come up with >>anything. They did not even consider that getting something from a dog >>was a possible cause of whatever it is that I have. All of my tests have >>been normal: blood work, Ultrasound of the neck, a CT scan of the neck >>showed that the lymph node was very slightly larger that the rest. Other >>that that it was normal. They think I am a hypochondiac, which I am not. Have they considered Lyme disease? If you've been working with dogs who might have harbored deer ticks, that's a possibility. The human Lyme test is very unreliable, and MD's in Lyme country often treat for it even if they don't have all the clues. Have you had any treatment for this? Margie in Westchester From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 9-DEC-1996 03:50:50.97 To: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: hierarchies Dear Colleen, You wrote: > I am beginning to realize that my initial statemnt that MIke refuted is > being quite misread. I do believe my statement was that as far as I knew, > hierarchies did not exist in _nature_. > Most studies that have been done > on hierarchies in animals has been performed on captive animals; which I > really dont see as a proper way to determine whether heirarchies occur in > nature or not. I repeat my earlier statement that there have been hundreds of studies showing hierarchies in the wild - my own on red deer and the one on baboons mentioned by Kate Littin among them. Read any textbook on behaviour for other examples. The reason that members of this net aren't springing out of the woodwork with other examples is doubtless that this is an applied-ethology group in which most people work on captive animals. This discussion simply wouldn't be taking place on the Ethology network. Mike From: IN%"Frank.Odberg@rug.ac.be" "Frank Odberg" 9-DEC-1996 04:17:09.49 To: IN%"robin@coape.win-uk.net" "Robin E Walker" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"fcosta@datares.com", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: dogs and contagious diseases I remember the story of a farmer whose herd had to be destroyed several times until they discovered he carried brucellosis and reinfected each new lot. He was not outspoken ill but always felt tired. About our ministers: well, it's cheaper to select them that way than by IQ tests... Prof.Dr. Frank O. Odberg University of Ghent Dpt. of Animal Nutrition, Genetics, Production and Ethology Heidestraat 19 B-9820 Merelbeke Belgium tel: +32-(0)9-2521941 fax: 5304 From: IN%"Frank.Odberg@rug.ac.be" "Frank Odberg" 9-DEC-1996 04:18:53.96 To: IN%"robin@coape.win-uk.net" "Robin E Walker" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"fcosta@datares.com", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: dogs and contagious diseases I remember the story of a farmer whose herd had to be destroyed several times until they discovered he carried brucellosis and reinfected each new lot. He was not outspoken ill but always felt tired. About our ministers: well, it's cheaper to select them that way than by IQ tests... Prof.Dr. Frank O. Odberg University of Ghent Dpt. of Animal Nutrition, Genetics, Production and Ethology Heidestraat 19 B-9820 Merelbeke Belgium tel: +32-(0)9-2521941 fax: 5304 From: IN%"Paul.Koene@ETHO.VH.WAU.NL" "paul koene" 9-DEC-1996 06:22:11.30 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: ...no subject... Dear applied-ethology networkers, Information about the 5th Poultry Welfare symposium for network users. The deadline for submission of abstracts for the poultry welfare symposium on 7-10 june 1997 is nearing (1 januari 1997). This is an announcement to attend you to this deadline and to inform you that everything is in progress according to plans. If you missed the first and second announcement of the symposium and you want to receive further information or a copy of the second circular, please ask me by e-mail to send you the requested information or ask Mrs. Kentie by mail. Generally, correspondence and inquiries about abstracts, registration form and accommodation form should be addressed to the organising committee. Please forward all correspondence ON ORGANISATIONAL MATTERS To: Mrs. H. Kentie (registration and accommodation) International Agricultural Center (IAC) Section OCC PO Box 88 6700 AB Wageningen, the Netherlands Telephone +31 (0)317 490111 Telefax +31 (0)317 418552 ON SCIENTIFIC MATTERS To: Dr H.J. Blokhuis Institute for Animal Science and Health (ID-DLO) Edelhertweg 15 P.O. Box 65 8200 AB Lelystad Telephone +31 (0)320 238238 Telefax +31 (0)320 238050 E-mail H.J.Blokhuis@id.dlo.nl To: Dr P. Koene (abstracts) Department of Animal Husbandry / Section Ethology PO box 338 6700 AH Wageningen, the Netherlands Telephone + 31 (0)317 482896 Telefax + 31 (0)317 485006 e-mail paul.koene@etho.vh.wau.nl From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 9-DEC-1996 08:44:04.91 To: IN%"James.Murphy-Amazona.Society@worldnet.att.net" "James Murphy" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Ethology Network Address Dear James > Greetings: Please advise me the internet address of the Ethology network. > I work with domestically raised house parrots and currently there is an > unquestioned 'truth' in parrot behavior that if the parrot is above your > eye-height or head height, it is dominate and difficult to control and it > below this level, submissive. The general idea is to keep your parrot below > this level to maintain control and dominance. I am not familiar with ANY > behavioral system in which relative height is biologically hard wired into > the system and forms the bases for interpersonal relationships. Your > comments are greatly appreciated. > James J. Murphy > Avian Biologist, > Editor: Amazona Quarterly > Tl:(206) 847-1314 > Fax: (206) 847-0833 > Washington, USA Sorry, I don't have it. Perhaps someone else can help. I hope you will excuse my forwarding your enquiry to this net where people may also be able to help. This is certainly reminiscent of hen behaviour where people working in aviary systems with birds above head-level get fed up of being pecked on the head. Folk will be getting fed up with my name by now. Does anyone know of a cure for positive feedback of email involvement? Mike From: IN%"serpell@vet.upenn.edu" 9-DEC-1996 09:29:15.43 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: hierarchies Dear all, Mike Appleby is (of course) correct. Most ethologists would regard this discussion of hierarchies as terribly old hat. If high rank confers competitive advantages on those who hold it (and it often does) then animals will compete aggressively for social status just as they will compete for food, mates, etc. Likewise, if beating up your immediate subordinates for no apparent reason means that they will be less likely to challenge your authority at some point in the future, then it pays to beat them up from time to time. This is the essence of despotism. Although there has been valid discussion in the literature concerning the usefulness of the 'linear dominance hierarchy' as a construct for explaining all aspects of mammalian (chiefly primate) social organization (see Bernstein, 1981. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 4: 419-57), no-one has seriously argued that natural animal populations do not form rank hierarchies. The evidence that they do is overwhelming. Charlotte Nevison's observations of hierarchies (or a lack of them) in different strains of mice are interesting, and are borne out by studies of dogs. Scott & Fuller's (1965, Genetics & Social Behavior of the Dog) work demonstrated the development of stable dominance relationships in some breeds (Basenjis and Fox terriers) but not in others (Cocker spaniels and beagles). Dewsbury's (1990. Animal Behaviour, 39, 284-9) somewhat controversial findings on the inheritance of social dominance in deermice is also relevant, although it is still unclear precisely what phenotypic attributes are inherited. Taken together, however, these findings suggest that there is considerable individual variation in the propensity to compete for high social rank and that some of this variability has a genetic basis. The fact that variation exists also suggests that, under some circumstances, individuals who do not compete aggressively for social rank may be at a selective advantage. James Serpell ___________________________________________________________________ NB: PLEASE NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: serpell@vet.upenn.edu ___________________________________________________________________ School of Veterinary Medicine, Dept. of Clinical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 3900 Delancey Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6010. USA. Tel: (215) 898-1004 Fax: (215) 573-6050 From: IN%"PLXCMLN@pln1.life.nottingham.ac.uk" "CHARLOTTE.M.L.NEVISON" 9-DEC-1996 10:04:20.67 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Corticosterone measurement. Hi Kate wrote: > i study stress in chickens, in particular the faecal > measurement of corticosterone and the measurement of social and ACTH induced > corticosterone responses using faecal corticosterone. I would be greatful if you could point me in the direction of any literature using faecal measurements of corticosterone. My group has previously investigated various methods of measuring corticosterone prior to my arrival, but I don't recall them mentioning this one. Blood sampling looked to be the most suitable method and this is the method I am currently using. However, I have to be honest and say that despite being experienced at taking blood samples, I intensly dislike having to do it especially on something as small as a mouse. Faecal sampling may benefit the welfare of mice, me and presumably remove the background effect that the procedure must have on corticosterone levels! Regards, Charlotte. From: IN%"imiuvezo@imiucca.csi.unimi.it" "Istituto di Zootecnica Veterinaria" 9-DEC-1996 10:28:12.23 To: IN%"Applied-Ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: regional meeting mediterranean countries --=====================_850175594==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear networkers, information about the first mediterranean countries ISAE meeting best wishes Marina Verga --=====================_850175594==_ Content-Type: application/msword; name="ISAEMEET.DOC"; x-mac-type="42494E41"; x-mac-creator="4D535744" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="ISAEMEET.DOC" 26UtAAAACQQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgAEAAHYNAADjEgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYLAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASAAAkAAASAAAkACQSAAAAACQSAAAAACQS AAAAACQSAAAAACQSAAAOADISAAAAAAAAAAAAADISAAAAADISAAAAADISAAAAADISAAAKADwSAAAK AAAAAAAAAEYSAAAyAHkSAAAAAHkSAAAAAHkSAAAAAHkSAAAAAHkSAAAAAHkSAAAAAHkSAAAAAHkS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHkSAAA0AK0SAAA2 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AgADAwAAAADEAgAAqQEAAAAA5csLBvXiCwZr2wsGDgCqAAAAAgAAAGcBAAC8CwAAAAA2AAAAAAAA ABZJU1RJVFVUTyBESSBaT09URUNOSUNBFklTVElUVVRPIERJIFpPT1RFQ05JQ0EAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA= --=====================_850175594==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" --=====================_850175594==_-- From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 9-DEC-1996 10:57:30.99 To: IN%"James.Murphy-Amazona.Society@worldnet.att.net" "James Murphy" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Ethology Network Address Date sent: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 17:48:36 +0100 (CET) From: paul koene Subject: re: Re: Ethology Network Address To: MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk Dear Mike, The ethology address I have is ETHOLOGY@SEGATE.SUNET.SE Greetings, Paul From: IN%"William_R_STRICKLIN@umail.umd.edu" 9-DEC-1996 11:02:20.52 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Hierarchies and Deep Ethology Dear All: Deep ecologists (and deep ethologists) could make a mistake similar to one made by some anthropologists in the 1960's and 1970's. These anthropologists intrepreted, actually misinterpreted, and reported newly found "primitive" social groups (one in the Phillipines as I recall) in terms of the indidividual scientists' social-political interests. These anthropologists were very much into the existentialist, back-to-nature movement of the period, and they "saw" in these hunter-gatherer societies the utopia they personally sought. We all have social-political interests - but I believe that having an identified social-political agenda such as that of the deep ecologists (as well as what a few persons have called deep ethologists) is especially risky to one's objectivity. Deep ecologists and eco-feminists argue that hierarchies are a male manner of thinking, and that it is male-type thinking that has led to the domination and exploitation of nature, animals and some groups of humans. Some persons argue that because men were in charge at the outset, the hierarchical ordering of elements is pervasive in our religions, political systems, and even science. I was made aware of this argument in some form as long ago as my graduate education in the 1970's, but I attained total emersion when I attended an "Eco-feminists For Animal Rights Workshop" in San Franscisco some 6 years ago. While I found much to disagree with at this meeting, I did find the question of dominionism to be one that deserves much thought. However, to argue that hierarchies exist only in confined animals is more wishful thinking than it is supportable by research. Brown (1975; The Evolution of Behavior, Norton & Co., Inc.; page 84) writes: "Using color-banding with species that form groups proved that dominance hierarchies occur in natural populations as well as confined groups. Field studies of dominance relationships among birds and other animals in natural populations have been reviewed by Collias (1944) and Brown (1963b), and Thompson (1960)." In one sense hierarchies "exist" in neither wild nor captive animals. Hierarchies don't exist in the same sense that bell-shaped curves do not exist in groups of animals for it is we scientists who construct these bell-shaped curves based on data about body weight, height, number of fights, etc. We construct the hierarchies based on the data we collect. To the animals the hierarchy itself may be of no more importance than is their position in a bell-shaped curve. However, just as bell-shaped curves have meaning to scientists, so can hierarchies. There was an excellent discussion on the topic of dominance hierarchies in an older issue of "Brain and Behavioral Science." The title of the lead article was something to the effect "Dominace Hierarchies: Are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater?" A quick search of my office has failed to turn up this reference. I would appreciate it if someone has this info handy and could provide me the complete reference. W. Ray Stricklin Department of Animal Science University of Maryland From: IN%"brousset@servidor.unam.mx" "Dulce Brousset" 9-DEC-1996 16:12:32.20 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Looking for naloxona doses Hello, I'm looking for some references or experiences using naloxona for stereotypies and/or acralick treatment; or any other protocol with antidepresents or ansiolytic drugs that could be use on dogs. I'll really appreciate all your help with comments about it. Thanks, Dulce Brousset, e-mail address: brousset@servidor.unam.mx From: IN%"dolphins@dolphinsociety.org" 9-DEC-1996 16:30:56.07 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Sign language communication with elephants This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------74A66BB73E5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sign language communication with elephants offers a potential solution to the "Elephant Problem". [attached] --------------74A66BB73E5 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii; name="1million.htm" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="1million.htm" Content-Base: "file:///A|/1million.htm" SIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATION WITH DOMESTIC ASIAN ELEPHANTS, 1994.

SIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATION WITH DOMESTIC ASIAN ELEPHANTS, 1994.

By: J. G. Dolphin. The Dolphin Society, POB 13042, Torrance, CA 90503, USA.

dolphins@dolphinsociety.org



A Potential Foundation For An Elephant / Internet Interface? A Potential Solution To The Elephant Problem?



INTRODUCTION

What are the potentials for communication with elephants? Where do elephants belong in the spectrum of species in communication with humans?

Many domestic Asian Elephants seem to have a continuously variable level of motivation. They seem to be constantly making judgements such as "How hungry am I now? How hard do I want to work for that bunch of bananas?" An observation often made by mahouts of domestic Asian elephants is that they are like children, that they lack initiative and altruism. They don't usually perform trained behaviors without the direction of a mahout and they almost never rescue a mahout from danger.

But are these characteristics much different from those of humans that have been enslaved?

Wild elephants show great initiative, altruism and cooperation in rescue and in many other areas of behavior. Orphaned elephants that have been raised by humans with kindness, sometimes show great friendship, initiative and altruism toward humans.

As an historic progression, cultural and species barriers have been overcome. Perhaps it is time to bridge the abyss of "nothing to talk about unless we share a precise ecological niche or humanoid form". There is excellent communication with gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans, but they are humanoid to a depth that makes implicit understanding almost automatic. There is good communication with dolphins, but dolphin share the human ecological niche of social hunting. The phyletic, psychological and ecological distance between Humans and Elephants makes empathy difficult, and symbolic communication relies heavily on implicit understanding. Communication through body language, voice tone and emotional contagion rely on the similarity of the conversants. There is excellent rapport with pet wolves, but pet wolves share human lives and territories, wolves are social hunters and even seem to share the human sense of humor. However elephants do share some psychological, ecological, evolutionary and cultural aspects with humans. They use complex vocal communication, acquire human vocal meaning quickly and remember it well.

But in five thousand years of close association, why hasn't elephant to human symbolic communication progressed further? One reason might be that communication has been oriented to Human tasks and not to Elephant tasks.

Why communicate with elephants? As humans encroach on elephant habitat, problems develop. A heavy toll is being taken by crop raiding elephants and associated elephant killing by farmers, elephant poaching for ivory and meat, elephant capture and the killing of humans by elephants. By improving communication with elephants, crop raiding might be converted to cooperative farming and killing prevented.

Humans could gain insight into very alien psychologies and cultures. New perspectives on rainforest ecology and savannah ecology might be gained.

In this experiment, the direction of research was, "Can elephants be trained to act out English verbs? And use trunk gestures to elicit analogous actions from humans? Can nouns be referred to by pointing to objects? Can elephant vocal meaning be acquired in the context of using the gestures for two way sign language communication? Can elephants draw pictures to supplement communication?

A comparison of elephant and human behavior in terms of the elements of Human and Elephant cognitive maps has generated several conclusions regarding similarities in structure and content and thus similarities in the structure and content of elephant and human communication. These conclusions were used to design the strategies and tactics for communication with the elephants in this experiment.

These similarities become evident in the gestural and vocal communication used between elephant and mahaut. Implicit meaning in the form of social and emotional relationship is very commonly communicated. Elephants often effect human behavior through gesture and vocals. Communication becomes comprehensible through the narrowness of the work context. The geography and content of elephant cognitive maps are revealed through comprehension of elephant symbolic communication.

Can elephants draw pictures to supplement communication? Can these pictures allow insight into the geography and elements of elephant cognitive maps? Trunk dexterity is more than adequate to produce simple realistic drawings. Elephants sometimes make marks in the dirt while standing in groups and vocalizing. Are they using the marks for communication?

Communication, cooperation, altruism and problem solving seen to share an interdependent phylogenetic progression, pointing to similarities in the evolution of large-brained mammals; Humans, Elephants, Cetaceans, Apes. Elephant brains are several times larger than human brains, with many times the cortical area available for higher mental function. Elephants have complex vocal communicaton, behave altruistically toward kin group members and routinely solve difficult problems involving child care, rescue , defense, male combat, matriarchal social relations, finding food and water, location of estrous females etc.

Within this broad spectrum of similarity, a comparison of psychological, ecological, evolutionary and cultural similarities is needed as a foundation for a general theory of Elephant/Human communication.

Cognition often expresses clearly in planned behavior. Elephants or humans in a problem situation require symbolic knowledge of the environment. The brain must encode and decode environmental information to motivate insightful behavior.

In it's simplest definition, a cognitive map is a mental representation of goals and paths that allows insightful travel. For example, a short-cut, rather than a familiar route. There are several kinds of evidence that elephants , like humans, have the need for and use cognitive maps.

During Hominid evolution, social hunting, [including the hunting of Mastodons, Mammoths and Elephants], provided both the need for and the occasion to use cognitive maps.

Hunting strategies of mammalian predators include persistence, encirclement, coordinated stalk, ambush, driving, blocking of escape routes before a rush and running in relays. The defense and counter-atack strategies of proboscids require the acquisition and use of cognitive maps.

Most of Human and all of Elephant nutrition is derived from selective plant gathering. This implies a cognitive map and a taxonomy. Elephants have a need to remember locations, seasons and values of plants. They have a need to separate edible from poisonous, painful and perhaps medicinal plants.

Culture itself provides the need for and the occason to use cognitive maps and communication. Matriarchal leadership, exclusion of adolescent males from the kin group, fighting for position in the male hierarchy, crop raiding, anti-predation and home-range and thousands of other aspects of elephant culture, requires a knowledge of the territory and the ability to communicate about it.

Human and Elephant matriarchies can be compared in relation to similar ecologies. Elephant and Human matriarchal cultures that share the same ecosystems, as is central Sumatra, can be compared in terms of exclusion of males, male combat etc.

Crop raiding, homicide and proboside provide both areas of behavioral comparison and an urgent need to communicate with elephants.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Elements and Geography of Elephant and Human Cognitive Maps

WATER

Elephants and Humans need to drink often and they bathe often when possible. There is a need to remember and communicate about the location of water and routes to it.

FOOD

The location and season of food plants are elements of Human and Elephant cognitive maps.

THE MATRIARCH

The identity, location, emotion and communication of the matriarch are of importance to elephant kin-group members and members of human families within matriarchal cultures.

For example, young human or elephant females often annoy the matriarch and need to know her location and emotional state to avoid aggression yet maintain the benefits of association.

Adolescent human or elephant males, forced from the kin group by the matriarch need to know her location to avoid harassment.

When a human or elephant matriarch leads the group, human or elephant family members need to know her intentions.

When human or elephnat matriarchs die, kin groups of leaderless humans or elephants join other matriarch-led kin groups, or a new matriarch assumes leadership from the adult females.

CHILDREN

Young elephant or humans command immediate attention and rescue with a distress call. Their location and situation are of importance to the family, kin group and especially the mother and older daughters. A comparison of Human and Elephant child care might yield clues to similarities in elephant and human cognitive maps , to similarities in the structure and content of communication and to strategies for human/elephant communication.

MATING

The location of estrous females is of extreme importance to human or elephant males.

HOME RANGE

The existence of elephant home ranges and human hunting territories implies of boundaries. When an elephnat or human family group comes into the territory of another group, interactions are of paramount importance. Elephant kin groups join temporarily with the "home" group. Elephant home ranges are comparable in size to human hunting ranges, implying that human and elephant cognitive maps encode equivalent areas.

FARM BOUNDARIES

Boundaries of crops are places of decision for both Human and Elephant crop raiders. Adult males may venture in alone, but juvenile elephants or humans usually gather additional delinquents before raiding. Whole matriarch-led kin groups of human or elephants may raid together, but usually after dark. The location of boundaries and their defenders are elements of human and elephant cognitive maps and could be used to design strategies for elephant / human communication. For example, communication directed toward converting crop raiding into cooperative farming. Elephants could be allowed into fields that need composting. By eating and defecating vegetation in fields, the soil could be improved for the next crop. Elephant plop could even be used for such high priced crops as mushrooms.

MOTHER-DAUGHTER

Human or elephant matriarchal mother-daughter relationships often develop into a permanent bond between adults. The relationship can be compared between species toward communication about family relatinships.

DEATH

The corpse and places of death are of importance to humans and elephants. Elephants sniff the corpse, burry the dead, touch and handle bones extensively, scatter bones and shatter tusks. Elephants seem to display grief at the death of a family member. Attempts to assist a dying elephant may persist long after death. Elephant and human burrial rites can be compared toward communication about death and dying.

ODOR

Frequent sniffing of the route by traveling humans or elephants points to a common olfactory element in the cognitive maps of humans and elephants and to olfactory marking. Elephant odor is concentrated at water holes, places of high food density, and along routes. Elephants and humans detect predators by smell and both detect prey plants or animals by smell. Human nad elephant places of death are vividly marked with intense and persistent olfactory information. Olfaction is important to socially hunting human groups and to socially defending or counter-attacking elephant groups. This points to the value of comparing elephant and human olfactory content and geography of cognitive maps and toward communication about [or with] olfactory information.

THE EXPERIMENT

The research was done with retired working elephants in Northern Thailand and with a six year old male.

The first method tried was "matching-to-sample" visual/gestural communication. Four images were used, a circle, triangle, wavy line and cross. One image was shown to both elephants, then after a delay of ten seconds, they were asked to touch the original from a choice of two. After several trials, Cup , a sixty year old female, would consistently choose the original. Bon, the sixty year old male with one huge tusk, chose spatial relationships, left, right, up or down. He may not have had sufficient eyesight to see the targets clearly.

The second method was exchange of visual images. We would paint a picture, show it to an elephant, then the elephant would draw over the picture, next to it or on a separate paper. We drew realistic images, surreal images or abstract designs. The elephants drew images that we understood as abstract. If they had realistic meaning to the elephants, we were unable to grasp it. All drawings were done on 56 by 80 centimeter drawing paper clipped to fiberboard. We drew in black felt-tip pen or water color. The elephants drew in trunk tip moisture. Their drawings were dusted with paint powder to develop contrast.

The third method of communication tried was sign language. We trained Bon and Cup to raise their trunks to ask a human to "come" , to touch drawings or objects to refer to them, to select spatial positions and to select radio channels by touching "on", "off" and "change" targets.

Mai, the six year old male was interested in playful communication. He would ask for a kiss by making loud chirping noises with is trunk tip, or direct back and neck massage with trunk tip or body position.

METHODS OF TRAINING

We trained the "matching-to-sample" by sticking half bananas to the original, then the correct choice. After ten trials, Cup would touch the correct choice out of two without any bananas on the image.

We trained the elephants to draw pictures by placing bananas on the drawing paper, letting the elephants eat off the paper, dusting the trunk-tip moistened paper with non-toxic paint powder and showing the developed image to the elephants. After we stopped putting bananas on the paper, Bon would make dark complex drawings and then amend them, Cup would make delicate, light touches with the trunk tip. Mai made rapid whipping strikes with the trunk tip.

We trained the sign language gestures by combining motivation with action. For example, for the word "come", we held up a large bunch of bananas, then took one step closer every time an elephant raised a trunk.

ACQUISITION OF ELEPHANT VOCAL MEANING

We attempted to acquire elephant vocal meaning by showing an object to one elephant, then giving a second elephant a choice of two. Both elephants were given bananas for a correct choice. We hoped that the first elephant would vocalize to the second elephant to elicit the correct choice. Then we could record the vocalization, play it back, and if the correct choice were repeated, an 'Elephant to English dictionary" of sub-sonic/sonic elephant vocals could be recorded.

RESULTS

Of the three types of communication, the elephants used the gestures most successfully. They were successful in using syntactic sign language. They were able to combine and recombine gestures to elicit actions from humans and to refer to objects or drawings.

Pointing to objects and drawings was useful in both directions; elephant to human and human to elephant.

Drawing pictures was not useful in communicating symbolic information from elephant to human, but was useful from human to elephant.

Cup was successful in the matching-to-sample, but not Bon, and Mai was not interested. Two elephants are required for the vocal meaning acquisition experiment, so it needs further testing.

We were able to acquire elephant vocal meaning in other sign language contexts.

CONCLUSIONS

Syntactic sign language is useful for human/elephant communication. It could be used in any situation where there is a foundation of mutual motivation. Perhaps for cooperative farming or reforestation. It can help to communicate symbolic information in the context of human/elephant friendships.

A human/elephant friendship pair trained in two way syntactic sign language might act as an elephant/internet interface, allowing anyone on the net to talk with an elephant.

Solutions to the serious problems of crop raiding, homicide, proboscide, village trampling and ivory poaching might be assisted by elephant/human sign language communication.

After extensive elephant vocal meaning acquisition, a computer vocal translator might be programmed, allowing two way symbolic vocal conversations between humans and elephants.

--------------74A66BB73E5-- From: IN%"hubrecht@ufaw.org.uk" 9-DEC-1996 17:26:52.51 To: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: hierachies Dear all Old hat indeed! Animals compete for what matters to them (resources). Very often, overall differences in an animal's resource holding potential will mean that linear hierachies, or something similar, will arise. However, if for a certain individual the risks involved in competing for a resource are outweighed by the potential benefits of achieving the resource then it will compete and may defeat an animal (considered by the ethologist to behigher in rank by some other measure). Hence reversals and non linear hierachies. Thelma Rowell 1972 (and others) talked about all this years ago. Robert Hubrecht hubrecht@ufaw.org.uk From: IN%"d163570@er.uqam.ca" "CLOUTIER SYLVIE" 9-DEC-1996 20:28:35.57 To: IN%"William_R_STRICKLIN@umail.umd.edu" "ws31" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hierarchies and Deep Ethology Hello Ray, The reference for the paper on dominance is : Bernstein, I.S. 1981. Dominance: The baby and the bathwater. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, p. 419-457. Sylvie Cloutier Departement de Psychologie Universite du Quebec a Montreal C.P. 8888, succ. Centre-Ville Montreal QC H3C 3P8 Canada email: D163570@er.uqam.ca From: IN%"d163570@er.uqam.ca" "CLOUTIER SYLVIE" 9-DEC-1996 20:31:31.52 To: IN%"William_R_STRICKLIN@umail.umd.edu" "ws31" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hierarchies and Deep Ethology Hello Ray, The reference for the paper on dominance is : Bernstein, I.S. 1981. Dominance: The baby and the bathwater. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, p. 419-457. Sylvie Cloutier Departement de Psychologie Universite du Quebec a Montreal C.P. 8888, succ. Centre-Ville Montreal QC H3C 3P8 Canada email: D163570@er.uqam.ca From: IN%"aa266@cleveland.Freenet.Edu" 9-DEC-1996 23:43:14.20 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Hi again! >> Question 2 >> Why is there a hierarchy/rank within flocks/herds. >> Please give examples. >> > As far as I am aware, hierarchies do not really exist in the wild. >Hierarchies are merely social terms that people have tried to apply to >other animal species other than humans. In the terms that I believe you >are asking about there are indeed cases where some animals in a herd have >more power over others. But this is more due to the animals "on top" are >those that are the strongest, most healthy, etc. In the lek breeding of >antelope the males fight for the optimum breeding spots. The best males >get the best spots in the middle of the lek. The females' preference of >males also has a part in the distinction between the males. In apes as >well there are members that have more experience and more pull than >others. But none of what I have come across really qualifies as an >hierarchy as we know it; where an individual or individuals have control >of others even though they have no physical advantage over everyone else >of the group, i.e. kings and queens coming into power due to family >heritage. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ And how do you think the lineage began? Check your history. We work and have worked in a power structure much as our lessor kin. -- DBC (aka D.B. Cameron, DVM) Animal Behavior Clinic Middleburg Hts., OH 44130 216/826-0013 Fax: 234-3407 From: IN%"aa266@cleveland.Freenet.Edu.I.find.it.highly.unlikely.that.an.animal.in" 9-DEC-1996 23:55:56.06 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies >the wild is concerned about who he/she has power over. They have a hell >of a lot more to worry about. Besides that, I dont believe that any wild >animal would waste their precious energy on beating up another animal just >because they can. Spend some time observing a wolf pack in breeding season and you may change your beliefs. -- DBC (aka D.B. Cameron, DVM) Animal Behavior Clinic Middleburg Hts., OH 44130 216/826-0013 Fax: 234-3407 From: IN%"D.B.MORTON@BHAM.ac.uk" 10-DEC-1996 03:51:56.57 To: IN%"brousset@servidor.unam.mx", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Looking for naloxona doses Dear Dulce, You wrote : <> I would be wary of using fixed doses. The dose may well be strain/breed dependent (and in laboratory animals dose variance has been linked to time of day, gender, diet, fullness of stomach, environmental variables such as light periods, and obviously route of dosing) and so it is advisable to standardise as much as you can and do some dose sighting followed by a dose response curve. David M. Prof.David.B.Morton | Janet: D.B.Morton@uk.ac.bham Biomedical Science and Ethics | Internet: D.B.Morton@bham.ac.uk The Medical School | University of Birmingham | Birmingham | Tel: +44 - (0)121 414 3616 B15 2TT, UK Fax: +44 - (0)121 414 6979 From: IN%"MAPPLEBY@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk" "Mike Appleby" 10-DEC-1996 07:27:54.01 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: (Fwd) Re: Ethology Network Address ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 23:32:13 -0800 From: Steven Smith Organization: North Carolina Zoo To: Mike Appleby Subject: Re: Ethology Network Address Mike, The ethology list info follows. steve smith The ETHOLOGY list has been moved from SEARN.SUNET.SE to SEGATE.SUNET.SE. Thus, the new address to send mail to the list is: ETHOLOGY@SEGATE.SUNET.SE Similarly, the new LISTSERV address (for subscriptions, information requests, administrative struff) is: LISTSERV@SEGATE.SUNET.SE Please use these addresses in the future. Note that you may now view the list archives interactively at: http://segate.sunet.se/archives/ETHOLOGY.html If you have any questions,just write to William Hayes , Jarmo Saarikko , David Fleck or to Eric Thomas . -David Fleck, Semi-moderator L-Soft list server at SEARN (1.8b) wrote: > > Thu, 18 Jul 1996 04:40:04 > > Your subscription to the ETHOLOGY list (Ethology (Discussions on animal > behaviour)) has been accepted. > > Please save this message for future reference, especially if you are not > familiar with LISTSERV. This might look like a waste of disk space now, > but in 6 months you will be glad you saved this information when you > realize that you cannot remember what are the lists you are subscribed > to, or what is the command to leave the list to avoid filling up your > mailbox while you are on vacations. In fact, you should create a new mail > folder for subscription confirmation messages like this one, and for the > "welcome messages" from the list owners that you will occasionally > receive after subscribing to a new list. > > To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, > just send mail to ETHOLOGY@SEARN.SUNET.SE. This is called "sending mail > to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV > makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address > (ETHOLOGY@SEARN.SUNET.SE) is also called the "list address". You must > never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed > to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the > "LISTSERV address", LISTSERV@SEARN.SUNET.SE (or LISTSERV@SEARN.BITNET). > It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but > fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX > number, and the list address is like a normal phone line. If you > accidentally make your FAX call someone's voice line, the person > receiving the call will be annoyed. If you do this regularly, however, > your victim will probably get seriously upset and send you a nasty > complaint. It is the same with mailing lists, with the difference that > you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, so a > lot more people get annoyed if you use the wrong number. > > You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF ETHOLOGY" > command to LISTSERV@SEARN.SUNET.SE (or LISTSERV@SEARN.BITNET). You can > also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you > send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET ETHOLOGY > REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so > that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged > on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, > especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is > from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from ETHOLOGY. If > you send a "SET ETHOLOGY ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a > short acknowledgement instead, which will look different in your mailbox > directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is > an acknowledgement you can read later. Finally, you can turn off > acknowledgements completely with "SET ETHOLOGY NOACK NOREPRO". > > Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options > have been set to "MIME" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more > information about subscription options, send a "QUERY ETHOLOGY" command > to LISTSERV@SEARN.SUNET.SE (or LISTSERV@SEARN.BITNET). > > Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a > list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX ETHOLOGY" > command to LISTSERV@SEARN.SUNET.SE (or LISTSERV@SEARN.BITNET). You can > then order these files with a "GET ETHOLOGY LOGxxxx" command, or using > LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command > for more information on the latter. > > This list is available in digest form. If you wish to receive the > digested version of the postings, just issue a SET ETHOLOGY DIGEST > command. > > Please note that it is presently possible for other people to determine > that you are signed up to the list through the use of the "REVIEW" > command, which returns the e-mail address and name of all the > subscribers. If you do not want your name to be visible, just issue a > "SET ETHOLOGY CONCEAL" command. > > More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV > reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" > command to LISTSERV@SEARN.SUNET.SE (or LISTSERV@SEARN.BITNET). Mike Appleby wrote: > > Dear James > > > Greetings: Please advise me the internet address of the Ethology network. > > I work with domestically raised house parrots and currently there is an > > unquestioned 'truth' in parrot behavior that if the parrot is above your > > eye-height or head height, it is dominate and difficult to control and it > > below this level, submissive. The general idea is to keep your parrot below > > this level to maintain control and dominance. I am not familiar with ANY > > behavioral system in which relative height is biologically hard wired into > > the system and forms the bases for interpersonal relationships. Your > > comments are greatly appreciated. > > James J. Murphy > > Avian Biologist, > > Editor: Amazona Quarterly > > Tl:(206) 847-1314 > > Fax: (206) 847-0833 > > Washington, USA > > Sorry, I don't have it. Perhaps someone else can help. > > I hope you will excuse my forwarding your enquiry to this net where > people may also be able to help. This is certainly reminiscent of > hen behaviour where people working in aviary systems with birds above > head-level get fed up of being pecked on the head. > > Folk will be getting fed up with my name by now. Does anyone know of > a cure for positive feedback of email involvement? > > Mike From: IN%"C.M.Pond@open.ac.uk" "C.M.Pond (Caroline Pond)" 10-DEC-1996 08:42:55.18 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "Bird man", IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk" "F.Toates (Fred Toates)" CC: Subj: RE: Ethology Network Address If you want them to talk, I strongly recommend caging parrots above head height. I have lived with an African grey for the last 22 years. She has a vocabulary of at least 100 words and phases, many of which she can use appropriately and/or pro-actively. I am convinced her eloquence is due in large part to the fact that she has always been caged in a way that allows her to look down on humans, and is often free to walk around the house. She sometimes goes down to floor level but quickly retreats to a high perch when strangers or loud noise threaten, and always sleeps high up. Being low down does make her feel insecure when people are around, and more, rather than less likely to bite. When up high she very rarely exploits her position to peck passersby. _______________________________________________________________________________ From: F.Toates (Fred Toates) on Tue, Dec 10, 1996 2:23 pm Subject: FW: Ethology Network Address To: C.M.Pond (Caroline Pond) C, For you? F _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Mike Appleby on Tue, Dec 10, 1996 2:32 am Subject: Re: Ethology Network Address To: James Murphy Cc: applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca Dear James > Greetings: Please advise me the internet address of the Ethology network. > I work with domestically raised house parrots and currently there is an > unquestioned 'truth' in parrot behavior that if the parrot is above your > eye-height or head height, it is dominate and difficult to control and it > below this level, submissive. The general idea is to keep your parrot below > this level to maintain control and dominance. I am not familiar with ANY > behavioral system in which relative height is biologically hard wired into > the system and forms the bases for interpersonal relationships. Your > comments are greatly appreciated. > James J. Murphy > Avian Biologist, > Editor: Amazona Quarterly > Tl:(206) 847-1314 > Fax: (206) 847-0833 > Washington, USA Sorry, I don't have it. Perhaps someone else can help. I hope you will excuse my forwarding your enquiry to this net where people may also be able to help. This is certainly reminiscent of hen behaviour where people working in aviary systems with birds above head-level get fed up of being pecked on the head. Folk will be getting fed up with my name by now. Does anyone know of a cure for positive feedback of email involvement? Mike ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by MacMailgate3.open.ac.uk with SMTP;10 Dec 1996 02:32:17 +0000 Received: from skycat.usask.ca by venus.open.ac.uk with SMTP Internet (PP) id <07850-0@venus.open.ac.uk>; Tue, 10 Dec 1996 02:32:05 +0000 Received: from sask.usask.ca by sask.usask.ca (PMDF V5.0-6 #15020) id <01ICSTD9KB4Y8YAA8K@sask.usask.ca> for applied-ethology-xpnd@sask.usask.ca; Mon, 09 Dec 1996 08:43:51 -0600 (CST) Received: from haymarket.ed.ac.uk by sask.usask.ca (PMDF V5.0-6 #15020) id <01ICSTCOWU348Y8TKL@sask.usask.ca> for applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca; Mon, 09 Dec 1996 08:43:40 -0600 (CST) Received: from srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk (srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk [129.215.136.240]) by haymarket.ed.ac.uk (8.6.13/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA26312; Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:43:01 +0000 (GMT) Received: from BIO-SRV0/SpoolDir by srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk (Mercury 1.21); Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:42:35 +0000 Received: from SpoolDir by BIO-SRV0 (Mercury 1.21); Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:42:28 +0000 Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:42:23 +0000 From: Mike Appleby Subject: Re: Ethology Network Address To: James Murphy Cc: applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca Errors-to: applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca Message-id: <25E05136B03@srv0.bio.ed.ac.uk> Organization: Edinburgh University X-VMS-To: IN%"James.Murphy-Amazona.Society@worldnet.att.net" "James Murphy" X-VMS-Cc: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Priority: normal From: IN%"digger@liverpool.ac.uk" "Matthew Adams" 10-DEC-1996 08:44:59.49 To: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "entire net" CC: Subj: Hymenoptera Hello everyone, I really need your help! I,ve got an assignment for my MS.c. and I'm a bit stuck. The title is : "Haplodiploidy & Inbreeding predispoces species to Altruism.. Discuss in relation to the Hymenoptera". If anyone has got any ideas or can suggest any good references or literature I would be very welcome. ThankYou Matthew Adams. From: IN%"Petra.Mertens@lrz.uni-muenchen.de" 10-DEC-1996 08:45:40.58 To: IN%"brousset@servidor.dgsca.unam.mx" "Dulce Brousset", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Looking for naloxona doses Naloxone and naltrexone are usually not used for treatment of acral lick dermatitis and/or other stereotypies in behavior therpy for a number of reasons including short half life, effectivness and cost. There are a few good references regarding the use of drugs belonging to the group of antidepressants (tricyclics as well as serotonin reptake inhibitors) in pets. Clomipramine (e.g. Anafranil) is certainly the most frequently used drug for treating ALD in dogs. Clinical studies show that it is effective and shows very side effects. Feel free to contact me for detailed information - Please find a brief list of references below. Dodman NH, Shuster L et al. 1988. Use of narcotic antagonists to modify stereotypic self-licking and scratching behavior in dogs. JAVMA 200: 815-18. Golberger BA and Rapoport J 1991 Canine acral lick dermatitis: response to the anti-obsessional drug clomipramine. JAHA 27: 179-82. Hewson CR et al. 1995. The effecxts of clomipramine on monoamine metabolites in the normal canine brain. Proceedings of the ISAE meeting 105-106. Mertens PA, Dodman NH 1996. Pharmacological treatment for canine acral lick dermatitis. Kleintierpraxis 41:327-37 White SD 1990. Naltrexone treatment of acral lick dermatitis in dogs. JAVMA 202:1073-76. Sincerely, Petra _________ Dr. Petra A. Mertens Institute for Ethology and Animal Hygiene Ludwig-Maximilians-University Muenchen Schwere-Reiter-Str. 9 80797 Muenchen petra.mertens@lrz.uni-muenchen.de From: IN%"Petra.Mertens@lrz.uni-muenchen.de" 10-DEC-1996 09:55:29.58 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: dominance in birds Dominance related aggression is a quite frequent problem in pet birds. Generally, owners ARE advised to prevent the bird from sitting on the shoulder or another location above eye level, since dominant birds seem seek higher spots to sit and rest in the wild (e.g. a flock in a tree) to signal dominance. A good person to talk to about birds is Ilana Reisner, PhD (IReisner@aol.com) (sorry, Ilana - hope that`s fine with you?!). She has great interest in bird behavior and behavior therapy (Diplomate of the American College for Vet Behaviorist). Best wishes, Petra ______________ Dr. Petra A. Mertens Institute for Ethology and Animal Welfare Ludwig-Maximilians-University Schwere-Reiter-Str. 9 80797 Muenchen Germany petra.mertens@lrz.uni-muenchen.de From: IN%"sgadbois@is2.dal.ca" 10-DEC-1996 10:09:36.36 To: IN%"aa266@cleveland.Freenet.Edu", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies >>the wild is concerned about who he/she has power over. They have a hell >>of a lot more to worry about. Besides that, I dont believe that any wild >>animal would waste their precious energy on beating up another animal just >>because they can. >> > > Spend some time observing a wolf pack in breeding season and >you may change your beliefs. > > > >-- > DBC (aka D.B. Cameron, DVM) > Animal Behavior Clinic > Middleburg Hts., OH 44130 > 216/826-0013 Fax: 234-3407 I agree!!! It is amazing how bad some seasons (depending on who's dominant at the moment and other environmental pressures) aggression can be in a wolf pack. At the CCWR, in 1995, fights between a beta and alpha male wolves were very intense. The beta was very "damaged" but very persistent and serious fights would happen daily. Other years, (most years), such an intensity is not observed, sometimes it is more between females than males. It seems to depend much on the dynamic within the pack and the different temperaments involved... this suggests that maybe Dewsbury was right to see a genetic base to dominance. Simon Gadbois Department of Psychology Life Sciences Centre Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada, B3H 4J1 sgadbois@is2.dal.ca 902-494-3603 (Fentress's lab) 902-494-3370 (Moger's lab) 902-494-6585 (fax) 902-857-9206 (res) Behavioral (social) endocrinology of the wolf (aggression and social stress, urinary cortisol). Sequential and temporal analysis of behavior. Worked with wolves, red foxes and coyotes with John Fentress, Peter McLeod, Fred Harrington & Will Moger at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research and Shubenacadie Wildlife Park, Nova Scotia, Canada. From: IN%"Per.Jensen@hhyg.slu.se" 10-DEC-1996 10:10:51.01 To: IN%"William_R_STRICKLIN@umail.umd.edu" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hierarchies and Deep Ethology Dear Ray and all others, The reference on hierarchies that you mentioned is: Bernstein, I., S., 1981. Dominance: The baby and the bathwater. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences.,4. 419-57. Apart from an excellent review of hierarchy theory at that time (unfortunately quite contemporary also now, fifteen years later) it contains a very interesting open peer review section. Cheers, Per ******************************************************************* Per Jensen, Professor of Ethology Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Dept of Animal Hygiene, Section of Ethology POB 345 S-532 24 Skara, Sweden Phone: +46 (0)511 67219 Fax: +46 (0)511 67204 ******************************************************************* From: IN%"Birgitte.I.Damm@ihh.kvl.dk" "Birgitte Iversen Damm" 10-DEC-1996 10:24:46.56 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: heart rate measurements Hello to you all ! Does anybody know of studies in which heart rate has been used to measure psycological responses taking physical activity into account in the = analysis ? References would be very much appreciated. Thank you. Birgitte Damm, DMV, Ph.D. student The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University Division of Ethology and Health B=FClowsvej 13 DK-1870 Frederiksberg C Denmark e-mail: bid@kvl.dk From: IN%"denn9587@uidaho.edu" "John Dennehy" 10-DEC-1996 15:32:43.67 To: IN%"digger@liverpool.ac.uk" "Matthew Adams" CC: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "entire net", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hymenoptera Matthew, The seminal paper in this area is: WD Hamilton. The genetical evolution of social behavior. I.II. J. Theoret. Biol. 7:1-52. On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, Matthew Adams wrote: > Hello everyone, > I really need your help! > I,ve got an assignment for my MS.c. and I'm a bit stuck. > The title is : > "Haplodiploidy & Inbreeding predispoces species to Altruism.. Discuss in relation > to the Hymenoptera". > > If anyone has got any ideas or can suggest any good references or literature > I would be very welcome. > > ThankYou Matthew Adams. From: IN%"denn9587@uidaho.edu" "John Dennehy" 10-DEC-1996 15:35:35.63 To: IN%"digger@liverpool.ac.uk" "Matthew Adams" CC: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "entire net", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: Hymenoptera Matthew, The seminal paper in this area is: WD Hamilton. The genetical evolution of social behavior. I.II. J. Theoret. Biol. 7:1-52. On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, Matthew Adams wrote: > Hello everyone, > I really need your help! > I,ve got an assignment for my MS.c. and I'm a bit stuck. > The title is : > "Haplodiploidy & Inbreeding predispoces species to Altruism.. Discuss in relation > to the Hymenoptera". > > If anyone has got any ideas or can suggest any good references or literature > I would be very welcome. > > ThankYou Matthew Adams. From: IN%"dolphins@dolphinsociety.org" 11-DEC-1996 01:45:21.05 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Communication with dolphins using sonic holograms obtained by recording echoes from dolphin biosonar. This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------2AD96FF4454A Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit x --------------2AD96FF4454A Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii; name="dolphin com.htm" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="dolphin com.htm" Content-Base: "file:///A|/dolphin%20com.htm" COMMUNICATION WITH FREE DOLPHINS USING SONIC HOLOGRAMS OBTAINED BY RECORDING ECHOES FROM DOLPHIN BIO-SONAR.

COMMUNICATION WITH FREE DOLPHINS USING SONIC HOLOGRAMS OBTAINED BY RECORDING ECHOES FROM DOLPHIN BIO-SONAR.

A POTENTIAL FOUNDATION FOR A DOLPHIN / INTERNET INTERFACE?

The following is a conceptual outline for a computer system which is intended to allow a dolphin to project sequences of visual images to a human and to allow a human to project sequences of visual images/sonic holograms to a dolphin.

A recording is made of many types of dolphin echo location beams. The recording is then played back, projecting the beam at various objects, individuals, interactions between objects and individuals, interactions between individuals etc. The echoes, the "sonic holograms" are then recorded next to a recording of the corresponding visual image. A "virtual keyboard" is then created for the dolphins by projecting the entire vocabulary from separate underwater speakers at very low amplitudes. The dolphin can select a concept from the vocabulary by sonaring the source of the weak signal. The signal is then automatically boosted to conversational amplitudes and the visual image projected on two computer screens for simultaneous viewing by the humans and dolphins.

A human can select concepts by touching a virtual keyboard.

The concepts represented by the visual/sonic images could progress toward congruity in human and dolphin perception through ongoing communication and through deepening of dolphin/human friendships. A purpose of the computer translator is as a communication acquisition device. A sort of "Rosetta Stone". After extensive deepening of congruity of perception, The question "How do you communicate this concept or how do you say this?" could be asked and answered. A dolphin could acquire English and a human could acquire "Delphinese".

A second approach would be to give humans the auditory and speaking frequencies of dolphins with a frequency translating helmet. Combined with an artificial gill, a frequency translator would allow humans to join dolphin pods in a sea or river for long periods and interact in the context of dolphin society. This long term interaction would allow the acquisition of a "delphinese" dialect.

--------------2AD96FF4454A-- From: IN%"schilder@neuretp.biol.ruu.nl" 11-DEC-1996 02:44:01.62 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Salivary cortisol test for dogs >Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 16:49:28 -0800 (PST) >To: schilder@neuretp.biol.ruu.nl >From: billcamp@cdsnet.net (Bill Campbell) >Subject: Salivary cortisol test > >Dear Dr. Schilder, > >I have been following (and offered one comment about) your work with the >Tri-Tronics electric shock collar and its effects on laboratory dogs on the >ISAE bulletin board. I receive frequent phone calls (many from >veterinarians) regarding adverse behavioral effects after dogs are *taught* >with electric shock to the throat. Recently, I have mentioned your use of >salivary cortisol levels as an indicator of stress in your lab dogs. Now, my >question: > >Can you let us the proper method for collecting saliva samples, as well as >the criteria for measurement in the laboratory. Most labs in the US *insist* >on blood only, obviously ignorant of the salivary method. > >Kindest regards, > >Bill Campbell > >P.S. If you think it would help the ISAE group, please respond there. Bill > >BehavioRx Systems >P.O. Box 1658 >Grants Pass, OR 97526 >http://www.rogueweb.com/petbehavior > Dear Bill, I think many dogs suffer from being trained iwth the shock collar. Not so much because they receive shocks per se, but because they receive to heave shocks that are timed wrongly. Stress literature would learn dog trainers that if they do not time properly, and if they do not make clear to the dog what is the desired behavioural alternative for the punished behaviour, then stress will result. Lack of control and bad predictability coupled to pain are the reasons. The saliva method for determining cortisol was first published by Vincent and Michell. Recently, we added a new publication. Here are the references: Vincent, I.C. and Michell, A.R. (1992) Potential applications for non-invasive measurements in small animal epidemiology and in the detection of stress. Proc. Meet.Soc.Vet. Epidemiol. Prev Med.' The societely, 1992 Vincent, I.C. & Michell, A.R. (1992) Comparison of cortisol concentrations in saliva and plasma of dogs. Res.Vet.Sci.53:342-345 Beerda, B, Schilder, M.B.H., Janssen, N.S.C.R.M. & Mol, J.A. (1996) The use of saliva cortisol, urinary cortisol and catecholamine measurements for a noninvasive assessment of stress responses in dogs. Hormones and Behaviour 30:272-279. The saliva method is especially well suited to assess acute stress, not so much chronic stress. Regards, Matthijs Schilder, Ethology and socio-ecology University of Utrecht PO box 80.086, 3508 TB Utrecht Utrecht, The netherlands From: IN%"CHolm@ZI.KU.DK" "Holm, Christine {ZI-APB}" 11-DEC-1996 02:49:34.54 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" "applied-ethology-error" CC: Subj: RE: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies I don't agree! If these fights determine who gets to mate with whom, they are very relevant and certainly not a case of beating someone up "just because they can". I would consider the latter an anthropomorphistic statement. Causality in nature is a very sensitive thing and when we do not know the cause of a behaviour we should confine ourselves to saying so. Besides I don't think people beat each other up "just because they can" either. There is usually a deeper reason. Best regards Christine Holm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Christine Holm, M. Sc. Ph.D. student Dept. of Population Biology ----------------------------------- University of Copenhagen Time flies like the wind Denmark Fruit flies like bananas Tel. +45 35 32 12 93 ----------------------------------- E-mail: cholm@zi.ku.dk Fax: +45 35 32 12 99 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ---------- >From: applied-ethology-error >To: aa266; applied-ethology >Subject: Re: Hi again! Groups and hierarchies >Date: 10. December 1996 12.06 > >>>the wild is concerned about who he/she has power over. They have a hell >>>of a lot more to worry about. Besides that, I dont believe that any wild >>>animal would waste their precious energy on beating up another animal just >>>because they can. >>> >> >> Spend some time observing a wolf pack in breeding season and >>you may change your beliefs. >> >> >> >>-- >> DBC (aka D.B. Cameron, DVM) >> Animal Behavior Clinic >> Middleburg Hts., OH 44130 >> 216/826-0013 Fax: 234-3407 > >I agree!!! It is amazing how bad some seasons (depending on who's dominant >at the moment and other environmental pressures) aggression can be in a wolf >pack. At the CCWR, in 1995, fights between a beta and alpha male wolves were >very intense. The beta was very "damaged" but very persistent and serious >fights would happen daily. >Other years, (most years), such an intensity is not observed, sometimes it is >more between females than males. It seems to depend much on the dynamic >within the pack and the different temperaments involved... this suggests that >maybe Dewsbury was right to see a genetic base to dominance. > >Simon Gadbois >Department of Psychology >Life Sciences Centre >Dalhousie University >Halifax, Nova Scotia >Canada, B3H 4J1 > >sgadbois@is2.dal.ca >902-494-3603 (Fentress's lab) >902-494-3370 (Moger's lab) >902-494-6585 (fax) >902-857-9206 (res) > >? Behavioral (social) endocrinology of the wolf >(aggression and social stress, urinary cortisol). >? Sequential and temporal analysis of behavior. >? Worked with wolves, red foxes and coyotes with >John Fentress, Peter McLeod, Fred Harrington & Will Moger >at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research and Shubenacadie >Wildlife Park, Nova Scotia, Canada. > > > > From: IN%"Anna.Olsson@sjv.se" "Anna Olsson" 11-DEC-1996 04:09:27.77 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"'/DD.WPMAIL=SJV.AS(u)SJV:(q)P$=INTERNET(073)A$=ATLAS(073)C$=SE(073)DDA.RFC-822$=NVELTMEYER(a)APS.UoGuelph.C(q)/PRMD=GW/ADMD=ATLAS/C=SE/'@se.atlas.net" CC: Subj: John Webster-quotation Dear all, I'm using a quotation from John Webster's book A Cool Eye Towards Eden for our internal newsletter and I would like to refer to his position in science/animal welfare. Could anybody please help me with information about what institution John Webster represents? Best wishes Anna Olsson animal housing & welfare - organic animal husbandry Swedish Board of Agriculture Division for Animal Production and Management S-551 82 Jonkoping Sweden e-mail Anna.Olsson@sjv.se tel +46-36-155000 fax +46-36-308182 "Industrialization has transformed an agriculture created for the purpose of converting solar energy into human-useful form, into an agriculture that uses more nonrenewable energy from fossils than it captures as solar energy from the sun. But what is perhaps more important is that these industrial systems degrade their human resource base. Large specialized factory farms transform independent decision makers into people who know how to follow instructions or directions but not necessarily know how to think or make decisions." John Ikerd University of Minnesota From: IN%"siobhan.abeyesinghe@bbsrc.ac.uk" "Siobhan.Abeyesinghe" 11-DEC-1996 06:04:07.99 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: heart rate measurements Hi Birgitte I believe that this paper: Baldock, NM. & Sibly, RM. 1990. Effects of handling and transport on the heart-rate and behaviour of sheep. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 28: 15-39. takes physical activity into account in the analysis of heart-rate. Hope this helps Siobhan Abeyesinghe. PhD student Silsoe Research Institute Wrest Park Silsoe Bedford MK45 4HS England From: IN%"dynavet@goules.nat.fr" "xavier aubry" 11-DEC-1996 08:22:50.72 To: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: IN%"e-shock collars - side effects" Subj: side effects of e-shock collars Dear colleagues, Following a recent conversation about e-shock collars, I am currently looking for detailed information on these devices (anti-barking collars, remote control collars and invisible fences) : - side effects of e-shock collars - clinical observations - video observations - influence of e-shock collars on stress in dogs - cortisol modification - immunity response modification I am a little bit surprised that these collars can be found for sale in supermarkets or pet-shops in several countries, though there are prohibited in several others like Switzerland. Best regards, Xavier Aubry, vet behaviorist (France) From: IN%"rushenj@EM.AGR.CA" "Jeff Rushen" 11-DEC-1996 09:39:58.89 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: IN%"Birgitte.I.Damm@ihh.kvl.dk" Subj: heart rate measurements -REPONSE For use of multiple regression to control for effects of activity on heart rate see: Baldock, N. M. and Sibly, R. 1990. Effects of handling and transportation on the heart rate and behaviour of sheep. Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 28:15-39. Schouten, W., Rushen, J., and de Passille, A. M. B. 1991 Stereotypic behavior and heart rate in pigs Physiology and Behavior 50:617-624 de Passille, A. M.; Rushen, J. and Martin, F. 1995. Interpreting the behaviour of calves in an open-field test: a factor analysis. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 45:201-213 cheers ******************************************* Jeffrey Rushen Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada, J1M 1Z3 ******************************************* Phone: 1-819-5659174 ext. 206 Fax: 1-819-5645507 Email: rushenj@em.agr.ca ******************************************* >>> 10/12/ 21h53 >>> Hello to you all ! Does anybody know of studies in which heart rate has been used to measure psycological responses taking physical activity into account in the analysis ? References would be very much appreciated. Thank you. Birgitte Damm, DMV, Ph.D. student The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University Division of Ethology and Health Bulowsvej 13 DK-1870 Frederiksberg C Denmark e-mail: bid@kvl.dk From: IN%"joseph.stookey@sask.usask.ca" 11-DEC-1996 09:43:27.18 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: 9th International Congress in Animal Hygiene Dear All, The 9th International Congress in Animal Hygiene (ISAH'97), which will take place on August 17 - 21, 1997 in Helsinki, Finland. The main topic of the congress is "Healthy Animals, Sound Production Environment, Satisfied Consumer". It will be discussed in nine sessions entitled as follows. Every session will be opened by an invited key note speaker mentioned in brackets. A. Animal housing and management - prevention of bovine diseases (Dr. Olav Osteraas, N) B. Animal housing and management - prevention of swine diseases (Prof. Martin Tielen, NL) C. Animal housing and management - prevention of poultry problems (Dr. Linda Keeling, S) D. Animal behaviour as an indicator of animal welfare in different housing and management systems (Prof. Donald Broom, UK) E. Cold housing and open housing - effects on dairy cattle health, management and production (Dr. Neil Anderson, CA) F. Cold housing and open housing - effects on swine health, management and production (Prof. Bo Algers, S) G. Economical evaluation of animal health and welfare (Prof. Aalt Dijkhuizen, NL) H. Animal wastes as a risk for animal and human health (Prof. Dieter Strauch, D) I. Food hygiene and salmonella prevention (Prof. Jorma Hirn, FIN) If yoy are interested by this Symposium and if you are not on the mailing list, send to me by e-mail your full postal address and you will receive the second announcement and call for papers. Registration Fee Before June 15, 1997 FIM 1.900 (about 420 $) After June 15, 1997 FIM 2.200 (about 490 $) The registration fee covers participation in sessions, congress proceedings, receptions, lunches and coffee service, congress banquet and the professional excursion. Call for papers Abstracts are invited for papers and posters to be presented in the congress. Abstract deadline is December 31, 1996. The abstract should be written in English and it can be maximum half a page of A4-sized paper including 30mm margins. The title of the paper is written in capital letters, followed underneath by the name(s), affiliation(s) and postal as well fax numbers of the author(s). Proposed papers will be selected by using the abstracts to oral or poster sessions by organizing committee and the Executive Board of ISAH. Authors will be notified of acceptance by March 1, 1997. The abstracts will not be published as such, but all authors shall send his or her paper in a length of five pages (paper for will be sent by organizers) for congress proceedings. The paper deadline is April 15, 1997. Congress proceedings will be mabe available for the participants at the symposium. The abstracts should be sent to the Secretariat of the symposium at the address: Animal Hygiene Congress Secretary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine BOX 57 00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI FINLAND or by e-mail hannu.saloniemi@helsinki.fi The www address of ISAH'97 is http://www.helsinki.fi/el/tdk/isah97.html Best wishes, Hannu Saloniemi President of ISAH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hannu Saloniemi email: hannu.saloniemi@helsinki.fi professor in animal hygiene phone: +358 9 708 49 528 University of Helsinki fax: +358 9 708 49 799 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences P.O.Box 57 - FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"vuzv1@ms.anet.cz" "Marek Spinka" 11-DEC-1996 10:11:38.83 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: ISAE97 Congress - please add your e-mail addresses! RE: 31th Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology Prague, August 13-16, 1997 Dear all, For those who will send their reply forms during the remaining month till the deadline: The organizing committee would like to ask you to add your e-mail address when filling the reply form. Please indicate which form of communication do you prefer: e-mail or air mail. From: IN%"vuzv1@ms.anet.cz" "Marek Spinka" 11-DEC-1996 10:14:20.31 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: ISAE 97 Congress Reminder: Deadline in 30 days! Dear all, Allow me to remind you that the deadline for submitting abstracts and returning reply forms for the 31th Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology which will be held in Prague, August 13-16, 1997 is JANUARY 10, 1997 Below, I am including the electronic form of the First Announcement and Call for Abstracts which was mailed to all members of the ISAE in October. For those who did not receive the First Announcement and Call for Abstracts in written, there is still time to ask for it, by e-mail or fax, at the addresses which are at the bottom of the announcement. Sincerely, Marek Spinka *********************************************************** 1st announcement and Call for papers 31st International Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology Prague, Czech Republic, 13-16 August 1997 Deadline 10 January 1997 Congress Site and Date Prague is considered by many to be among the finest cities in Europe. Despite its location in the geographical centre of the continent and many dramatic historical events, the town has never been destroyed during its 1100-year history. During the last 8 years, Prague has become a popular conference city. Prague has daily direct flight connections to most of major European cities, and to many overseas airports as well. It can be also easily approached by road or train. The congress accommodation and meeting rooms are in the Crystal Conference Centre, with a good public transport connection to any place in Prague. The date of the congress was chosen for 13-16th August in order to give the delegates the opportunity to visit also the International Ethological Congress in Vienna (18-25th August 1997) or the Congress of the Society for Animal Hygiene in Helsinki (17th-21st August 1997). Session Topics . Behaviour of Zoo Animals, including management, housing, man-animal relationship, behavioural problems and their solution. Invited speaker: Frans de Waal, Yerkes Regional Primate Centre, Atlanta, USA. . Behavioural Aspects of Domestication and Feralization, including semi- and newly domesticated species, feral animals, and any behavioural aspect of transfers of wild animals into captivity or captive animals to the wild. Invited speaker: Edward Price, University of California, Davis, USA. . Free Papers, including behavioural studies on farm, companion, and laboratory animals. Scope of the conference There will be 6 plenary presentations (40 minutes including discussion), 48 spoken presentations in two parallel streams, and a poster session which will be given ample time and space during the conference. The 60 minutes Wood-Gush Memorial Lecture will be given by Ilan Golani, Tel Aviv University, Israel. Events . Visits to the Safari Zoo in Dv r Kralove and to a "white" red deer park . Visit to Prague Zoo or Walk through Historical Prague . Congress Banquet followed by Folk Dancing . After-congress excursion to South Bohemia Pond Conservation Area Submission of Abstracts Papers can be submitted as oral presentations or posters on a form (available from the congress organisers) along with a 300 word abstract (to reach the Congress Secretariat no later than 10 January 1997). The preferred way of sending the abstracts is by e-mail to the address VUZV1@MS.ANET.CZ. ASCII text may be suitable, if authors provide a character in brackets for each of the unconventional control commands. The legend for these characters should be enclosed by the author. E.g. (1)=superscript, (2)=degrees etc. Acceptance of Word or Wordperfect format would avoid the problem. Alternatively, abstracts can be sent in a printed form, by mail or fax. Four of the plenary talks will be selected by the scientific committee so that they fit the general interests as indicated by the offered papers. Authors who wish to offer a plenary presentation should indicate so on the form and submit an abstract of this talk, not exceeding 600 words, along with the abstract of their ordinary (spoken or poster) presentation. Authors will be informed about the acceptance of their offers in February 1997. Local Organizing Committee Marek Spinka, Gudrun Illmann, Ludek Bartos , and Zuzana Stetkova, Ethology Group, Research Institute of Animal Production, Prague, Czech Republic Lubor Kostal, Institute of Animal Biochemistry and Genetics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Ivanka pri Dunaji, Slovakia Scientific Committee Paul Hemsworth, Victorian Animal Science Institute, Attwood, Australia (Chairman) Please address all correspondence to ISAE97, c/o Marek Spinka, Research Institute of Animal Production (VUZ V), CZ-104 00 Praha 10 - Uhrineves, Czech Republic, phone +42 2 6771 0713, fax +42 2 6771 0779 or 6771 1448, e-mail VUZV1@MS.ANET.CZ. From: IN%"grarthur@vassar.edu" 11-DEC-1996 11:21:31.20 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Mongolian gerbil seizures Hello-- I am a Bio undergrad at Vassar College. For my senior research thesis project, I am working on the effects of cholinergic drugs on seizures in Mongolian gerbils. I would like to hear suggestions of how I could go about measuring these effects on behavior. Any other experienced advice in this area would also be appreciated. Thank you. ***************************************************** Greg Arthur `97 Vassar College Department of Biology. From: IN%"kckissan@alpha.delta.edu" "Kelly Caithlin Kissane" 11-DEC-1996 11:32:16.71 To: IN%"C.M.Pond@open.ac.uk" "C.M.Pond (Caroline Pond)" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "Bird man", IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk" "F.Toates (Fred Toates)", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: African Greys Re: African Grey parrots and communication The posts about African Greys reminds me of the work done by Irene Pepperberg at the University of Arizona. Her Africn Grey, Alex, has a large vocabulary and can apparently use the words appropriately. When I graduated from UA in 1995, she had obtained 2 more young African greys, in hopes that Alex will teach them how to communicate . Kelly C. Kissane Grad student Central Michigan University arachnology/animal behavior From: IN%"kckissan@alpha.delta.edu" "Kelly Caithlin Kissane" 11-DEC-1996 11:34:57.43 To: IN%"C.M.Pond@open.ac.uk" "C.M.Pond (Caroline Pond)" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" "Bird man", IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk" "F.Toates (Fred Toates)", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: African Greys Re: African Grey parrots and communication The posts about African Greys reminds me of the work done by Irene Pepperberg at the University of Arizona. Her Africn Grey, Alex, has a large vocabulary and can apparently use the words appropriately. When I graduated from UA in 1995, she had obtained 2 more young African greys, in hopes that Alex will teach them how to communicate . Kelly C. Kissane Grad student Central Michigan University arachnology/animal behavior From: IN%"KJOHNSON@CVM.TAMU.EDU" "Kathalyn Johnson" 11-DEC-1996 13:35:02.03 To: IN%"kckissan@alpha.delta.edu", IN%"C.M.Pond@open.ac.uk", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: African Greys -Reply >>> Kelly Caithlin Kissane 12/11/96, 11:34am >>> Re: African Grey parrots and communication The posts about African Greys reminds me of the work done by Irene Pepperberg at the University of Arizona. Her Africn Grey, Alex, has a large vocabulary and can apparently use the words appropriately. When I graduated from UA in 1995, she had obtained 2 more young African greys, in hopes that Alex will teach them how to communicate . Kelly C. Kissane Grad student Central Michigan University arachnology/animal behavior For anyone in the Texas area, Dr Pepperberg is giving a seminar on bird behavior in Conroe, TX Saturday December 14, 1996. Alex is not coming with her because of the potential risk of travel. The seminar is hosted by West Nursery. They can be reached at the following for additional information: West Nursery 8825 I-45 So. Conroe, TX 77385 (409) 321-2465 From: IN%"KJOHNSON@CVM.TAMU.EDU" "Kathalyn Johnson" 11-DEC-1996 13:37:44.33 To: IN%"kckissan@alpha.delta.edu", IN%"C.M.Pond@open.ac.uk", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: African Greys -Reply >>> Kelly Caithlin Kissane 12/11/96, 11:34am >>> Re: African Grey parrots and communication The posts about African Greys reminds me of the work done by Irene Pepperberg at the University of Arizona. Her Africn Grey, Alex, has a large vocabulary and can apparently use the words appropriately. When I graduated from UA in 1995, she had obtained 2 more young African greys, in hopes that Alex will teach them how to communicate . Kelly C. Kissane Grad student Central Michigan University arachnology/animal behavior For anyone in the Texas area, Dr Pepperberg is giving a seminar on bird behavior in Conroe, TX Saturday December 14, 1996. Alex is not coming with her because of the potential risk of travel. The seminar is hosted by West Nursery. They can be reached at the following for additional information: West Nursery 8825 I-45 So. Conroe, TX 77385 (409) 321-2465 From: IN%"WayneH42@aol.com" 11-DEC-1996 17:21:22.74 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: Looking for naloxona doses <<<>>> I did a "naloxone" query and "stereotypy" query in my database. Hope these help. Regards, Wayne Hunthausen, DVM NALOXONE Naloxone-responsive compulsive tail chasing in a dog Brown SA, Crowell-Davis S, Malcolm T, Stuarts P J Am Vet Med Assoc 190(7): 884-886 Apr 1987 Effects of Naloxone on stereotypic and normal behavior of tethered and loose-housed sows Schouten W, Rushen G Appl Anim Behav Sci 1992;33:17-26 Naloxone and self mutilation Richardson JS Zaleski WA Biol Psychiatry, 18:99-101 1983 Naloxone attenuates self-abusive behavior in developmentally disabled clients Sandman CA, Datta PC, Barron J, et al Appl Res Ment Retard, 4: 5-11 1983 Naloxone suppresses food/water consumption in the deprived cat. Foster JA, Morrison M, Dean SJ, et al Pharm Biochem Behav1981:14:419 The effect of Haloperidol and Naloxone on excessive grooming behavior of cats Willemse T, Mudde M, Josephy M, Spruijt BM European Neuropsychopharmacology 1994:1:39-45. ===================================== CANINE STEREOTYPIES TITLE AUTHOR SOURCE Social communication in canids:evidence for the evolution of a stereotyped mammalian display Bekoff M Science 1977:197:1087-9. Compulsive Disorder in Dogs Hewson CJ, Luescher UA In:Voith VL, Borchelt PL eds. Readings in companion animal behavior Trenton NJ:Veterinary Learning Systems, 1996:153-8. Neurotic problems O'Farrell V In: Problem Dog: Behaviour and Misbehaviour. London:Meltheun, 1989:172-179 Conflict, stereotypic and compulsive behavior Luescher UA In: Official Convention Program, AVMA 131st Annual Meeting, Schaumberg, IL: AVMA, 1994. Apomorphine provoked stereotypy in the dog Nymark M Psychopharm (Berl) 1972:26:361-8. Naltrexone-induced pruritis in a dog with tail chasing behaviour Schwartz S J Am Vet Med Assoc 1993:202:278-80. Using drugs to control behavior problems in pets Burghardt WF Vet Med, Nov. 1991,1026 Acral mutilation and nociceptive loss in English pointer dogs: A canine sensory neuropathy Cummings JF, deLahunta A, Winn SS Acta Neuropathologica, 1981, 53:119-127 Sterotypic or obsessive-compulsive disorders in dogs and cats. Luescher UA, McKeown DB, Halip J Vet Clin North Am (small anim pract) 65(2):401-413, 1991 Acral lick dermatitis: medical management Doering GG Canine Pract 1974;55:21-5 Psychogenic dermatoses Muller GW, Kirk RW, Scott DW, eds. In Small Animal Dermatology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1983:625-35 Clinical evaluation of a topical treatment for canine acral lick dermititis Scott DW, Walton DK J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 1984;20:565-70 Acupuncture treatment of canine lick granuloma Bullock JE Calif Vet 1978;April:14-15 Naltrexone for treatment of acral lick dermatitis in dogs White SD J Am Vet Med Assoc 196:1073, 1990 Spontaneous displacement activities, compulsive behavior and abnormal social behavior in the dog Fox MW Vet Rec Aug 1, 1964, Vol. 76, No. 31, 840-843 Uncovering Many New Psychotherapeutic Agents Mandelker, Lester Vet Forum, August 1990, p. 28 Self-Mutilation Campbell WE Mod Vet Prac v.57(2) Feb 1976 p127-128 Electropsysiological evidence of sensory nerve dysfunction in 10 dogs with acral lick dermatitis van Ness JJ J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 1986;22:157-60 Jaw snapping syndrome in eight dogs Cash WC, Blauch BS JAVMA 1979;175(7):709-710 Orgotein treatment of canine lick granuloma Neibert HC Mod Vet Pract 1975;56:529 Acral lick dermatitis in the dog Veith L Canine Pract 1986;13:15-22 Canine Acral Lick Dermatitis: Response to the Antiobsessional Drug Clomipramine Goldberger BA, Rapoport JL JAAHA March/April 1991,v. 27;179-182 Psychogenic dermatoses Shanley KS, Overall KL In: Kirk RW (ed) Current Veterinary Therapy XI, Philadelphia, WB Saunders Co, 1992, p552-58 Use of narcotic antagonists to modify sterotypic self-licking, self-chewing and scratching behavior in dogs Dodman NH, Shuster L, White SD, Court MH, Parker D and Dixon R J Am Vet Med Assoc 193(7):815-819 Oct 1988 Endorphins implicated in stereotypies of tethered sows Cronin GM, Wiepkema PR, van Ree JM Experientia 1986; 42:198-199 Lick granuloma Panel Report Mod Vet Pract 1974;55:139-45 Naloxone-responsive compulsive tail chasing in a dog Brown SA, Crowell-Davis S, Malcolm T, Stuarts P J Am Vet Med Assoc 190(7): 884-886 Apr 1987 Psychomotor episode of a poodle Carithers RW Iowa State Univ Vet 1973;35(2):48 Behavior Problems in Small Animals Beck AM, Overall KL, McKeown DB, et. al. Ralston Purina Co., 1992 Differential effects of amphetamines on clinically relevant dog models of hyperkinesis and stereotypy: Relevance to Huntington's Chorea Corson SA, Corson EO, Kirilcuk V, Cirilcuk J, Knopp W, Arnold LE IN Barbeau A (ed): Advances in Neurology, vol 1; New York, Raven Press 1972, pp 681-697 Tail Chasing or Circling Behavior in Dogs Blackshaw JK, Sutton RH, Boyhan MA Canine Practice 1994;19(3):7-11 A 5-step protocol for treating tail-chasing by Bull-Terriers and other dogs Holmes RJ Proceedings of the Australian Small Animal Veterinary Association Conference, 1992. p. 54 Tail chasing in dogs- Behavioural Tip Blackshaw JK Control and Therapy Series, Mailing 160, #3049, 1991, p323 Recognition, diagnosis, and management of obsessive-compulsive disorders, Part I - A rational approach Overall KL Canine Practice 1992;17(2):40-44 Recognition, diagnosis, and management of obsessive-compulsive disorders, Part II - A rational approach Overall KL Canine Practice 1992;17(3):25-27 Recognition, diagnosis, and management of obsessive-compulsive disorders, Part III - A rational approach Overall KL Canine Practice 1992;17(4):39-43 Sterotypies in Companion Animals and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Mckeown Donal B, Luescher Andrew U, Halip Jack In: Behavioral Problems in Small Animals, Ralston Purina Company ,St. Louis 1992 Tail Chasing in Dogs Crowell-Davis SL Current Veterinary Therapy XI: Small Animal Practice pp,995-997, 1992 Treatment of Canine Acral Lick Dermatitis with Radiation Therapy: 17 Cases (1979-1991) Rivers B, Walter PA, McKeever PJ JAAHA, 1993; 29: 541-546 Use of clomipramine to treat ritualistic stereotypic motor behavior in three dogs Overall KL JAVMA, Vol 205, No 12; 1994 15 Dec: 1733-1741 Tail Chasing in Dogs Crowell-Davis SL In: Current Vet. Therapy XI, R. Kirk & J. Bonagura (eds.), W.B. Saunders Co., Phil., 1992, pp.995-97 Canine lick granuloma treated with radiotherapy Owen LN J SM Anim Prac 1989;30:454-6 Acral pruritic granuloma Roberts IM In;Kirk RW, ed. Current Vet. Therapy 1964-1965: small animal practice. Philadelphia:WB Saunders,1965:113-4 "Differential effects of amphetamines on clinically relevant dog models of hyperkinesises and stereotypy: Relavance to Huntington""s Chorea." Corson SA, Corson EO, et al Barbear A ed:Advances in Neurology, vol 1. New York, Raven Press, 1972, 681-697 Jaw snapping dog (questions and answers) McGrath JT Modern Veterinary practice1962:43:70 Jaw snapping syndrome in eight dogs. Blauch S J Am Vet med Assoc1979:175:709-710 Psychogenic polyphagia (compulsive eating in a dog). Fox MW Vet Rec 1962:74:1023-1024 The efficacy of fluoxetine (Prozac) in the treatment of acral lick and allergic inhalant dermatitis in canines. Shoulberg N Proceedings of the American College of Veterinary Dermatology, San Francisco1990 Whirling behavior in dogs as related to early experience. Thompson WR, Melzack, Scott TH Science1956:123:939 Drug treatment of canine acral lick: An animal model of obsessive-compulsive disorder Rapoport JL, Ryland DH, Krietee M Arch Gen Psychiatry 1992:49:517-21. From: IN%"Anna.Olsson@sjv.se" "Anna Olsson" 12-DEC-1996 02:12:14.53 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: ISAE97 Congress - please add your e-mail addresses! -Svar Dear Marek, did I give my e-mail address? I don't remember anymore. Anyway, here it comes. e-mail Anna.Olsson@sjv.se Nevertheless,for the congress information I prefer paper letters, since I have to close my electronic mailbox when I'm off whereas the one on my desk is always open! I sincerely hope that my boss allows me to go "on duty" to Prague. Otherwise I'll come in private, looking very much forward to see your town which I haven't visited yet. Merry Christmas! Anna Olsson animal housing & welfare - organic animal husbandry Swedish Board of Agriculture Division for Animal Production and Management S-551 82 Jonkoping Sweden e-mail Anna.Olsson@sjv.se tel +46-36-155000 fax +46-36-308182 "Industrialization has transformed an agriculture created for the purpose of converting solar energy into human-useful form, into an agriculture that uses more nonrenewable energy from fossils than it captures as solar energy from the sun. But what is perhaps more important is that these industrial systems degrade their human resource base. Large specialized factory farms transform independent decision makers into people who know how to follow instructions or directions but not necessarily know how to think or make decisions." John Ikerd University of Minnesota From: IN%"dmills@dmu.ac.uk" "D Mills" 12-DEC-1996 06:10:50.72 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: New Chair in Animal Science at De Montfort University Lincoln - vacancy De Montfort University Lincoln requests applications for the newly created appointment, Professor of Animal Science. The position will be based within the School of Agriculture and Horticulture at our Caythorpe Campus in Lincolnshire, England. Over recent years , the School has developed its HE programme in Equine and Animal Science (Behavioural Studies) and the accompanying research has a particular focus on behavioural studies. The School seeks to rapidly develop its research work further and the successful candidate will be expected to show a demonstrable record of achievement in this area. As a member of the School's senior management team, you will provide positive leadership to the enthusiastic team of staff in this academic area. For an informal converstion with the Head of School, Prof. John Moverley, about this position, please telephone UK (0)1400 275552 Application forms and further details are available from: The Personnel Office, De Montfort University Caythorpe Court, Caythorpe, Nr Grantham Licolnshire NG32 3EP UK Tel UK (0)1400 275634 Closing date Decempber 20 1996 De Montfort University is an equal opportunities employer From: IN%"pbmcconn@facstaff.wisc.edu" 12-DEC-1996 15:07:36.15 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: what is nature? Earlier, regarding the discussion on hierarchies, Moulton wrote: >Most of what is being given as >examples of hierarchies are within domesticated or enclosed animals. This >is not nature by any means. I can't resist adding a comment regarding the statement above: although of course animal's behavior differs in different context, I take exception to the statement that domesticated animals aren't "in nature". Yes their environment is different, but that does not mean that they are no longer "in nature". This is a bit of a soap box of mine, so bear with me if this has already been discussed (I'm afraid I'm terribly behind on reading my email --- the price of being out of town). I hear this assumption made often: that anything that humans have a hand in is "man-made" and therefore "not natural". Exactly what does that make us, then? I argue that since humans are animals and that since we are still a part of a living ecosystem, that we too are "natural". Different yes, but still "natural". Domestication is not "unnatural", it's just different. After all, didn't it evolve through a basic biological process of one species engaging in what can be thought of as optimal foraging? One can also argue (as has Budiansky in "Covenant of the Wild" that many species evolved into domestication as an advantageous situation for them rather than being coerced. Food for thought. Trisha *********************************** Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D. Ass't Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Zoology, UW-Madison Birge Hall, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Applied Ethologist, Dog's Best Friend, Ltd. P.O. Box 447 Black Earth, Wisconsin 53515 608 767-2435 FAX 608 767-3726 (Send mail or calls here, not to UW) ************************************ From: IN%"mike@m-tay.demon.co.uk" "Mike Taylor" 12-DEC-1996 16:27:39.01 To: IN%"dynavet@goules.nat.fr" "xavier aubry" CC: IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: e-shock collars In message <14241430401365@nat.fr>, xavier aubry writes > >I am a little bit surprised that these collars can be found for sale in >supermarkets or pet-shops in several countries, though there are prohibited >in several others like Switzerland. > Does anybody know why these collars are banned in certain countries? I have a sneaky suspicion it may be because they operate on a radio frequency that is used for another purpose in that country, and thus could cause interference, and not for any other reason. I'd like someone to prove me wrong. -- Mike Taylor -- From: IN%"biodiversity@scherago.com" "Tammy Baldwin" 12-DEC-1996 20:52:53.61 To: IN%"abfc@polarnet.com", IN%"afa@ktn.net", IN%"mryan@mail.asiandevbank.org", IN%"stookey@sask.usask.ca", IN%"rushenj@em.agr.ca", IN%"Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"gaba@lights.com", IN%"feedback@gencor.ca", IN%"skerr@holstein.com", IN%"srkerr@sove CC: IN%"herbb@scherago.com", IN%"tammyb@scherago.com" Subj: *****THE Conference on Biodiversity***** **************************************************************************** Announcing: **************************************************************************** Commercial Issues of Biodiversity The Biodiversity Conference for Business Organized by SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and Scherago International Chair: Thomas Lovejoy of The Smithsonian Institution **************************************************************************** April 7-10, 1997 The Camino Real Hotel San Jose, Costa Rica **************************************************************************** The conference will focus on issues regarding nature-derived chemicals and their commercial potential. This forum will present the needs of developing and developed countries and their pharmaceutical, cosmetic, agricultural, paper, and other industries interested in developing products from natural resources. The two-day conference will include presentations from developing and developed countries and their industries, legal and financial issues, and an overview of bioprospecting. Optional field trips following the conference include guided tours of the rain forest and Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (InBio). Advisors and accepted speakers include: Thomas Lovejoy, Smithsonian Institution Thomas Eisner, Cornell University Rodrigo Gamez, Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad Daniel Janzen, University of Pennsylvania Ishmail Serageldin, World Bank Braulio Dias, Ministry of the Environment (Brazil) Barry Marrs, Arres Enterprises Francesca Grifo, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation Ashok Khosla, Development Alternatives (India) Rita Colwell, Maryland Biotechnology Institute Setijati Sastrapradja, KEHATI Foundation (Indonesia) John Rennie, Editor-in-Chief, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Magazine Who should attend: corporate executives and leaders of industry, government, and academia; policy makers, technical directors and technology transfer specialists; and legal/financial, research, and business development professionals. You will learn about the technical, legal and economic issues of product development from natural resources. To request registration information, updates, sponsorship opportunities, and airline discount information, call 212-643-1750, ext. 28; fax 212-643-1758; or e-mail: biodiversity@scherago.com or visit our on-line request for information page on the WWW at: http://scherago.com/bioform.html From: IN%"jerry-thomas.warren@bio.uio.no" "T. Warren" 13-DEC-1996 02:59:23.25 To: IN%"pbmcconn@facstaff.wisc.edu", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: what is nature? At 15:06 12.12.96 -0600, Patricia Mcconnell wrote: >I hear this assumption made often: that anything that humans have a hand >in is "man-made" and therefore "not natural". Exactly what does that make >us, then? I argue that since humans are animals and that since we are >still a part of a living ecosystem, that we too are "natural". Different >yes, but still "natural". Domestication is not "unnatural", it's just >different... I concur! Dr. Tom Warren Biol. Inst. Box 1050, Blindern Univ. of Oslo 0316 Oslo Norway From: IN%"Frank.Odberg@rug.ac.be" "Frank Odberg" 13-DEC-1996 03:01:20.58 To: IN%"pbmcconn@facstaff.wisc.edu" "Patricia Mcconnell" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: what is nature? I tend to agree with you. Furthermore, too many people interpret the concept "natural" as something static. On the behavioural level as "the" behaviour of a given species. Due to a certain amount of permanence of selection pressures, a kind of relatively stable structure develops (= one could compare that to the notion of "dissipative structures" in chaos theory). However, adaptation/changes are most of the time possible (and desirable, otherwise the organism could get extinct). One forgets this too often when thinking about animal welfare. "Natural behaviour" can surely be used as a reference, but not as a kind of immobile dogma. It boils down to how much it costs to adapt away from that temporary equilibrium. That's why some colleagues, purposefully exagerating in order to make their point,contend that "natural" behaviour does not exist. FOO Prof.Dr. Frank O. Odberg University of Ghent Dpt. of Animal Nutrition, Genetics, Production and Ethology Heidestraat 19 B-9820 Merelbeke Belgium tel: +32-(0)9-2521941 fax: 5304 From: IN%"Frank.Odberg@rug.ac.be" "Frank Odberg" 13-DEC-1996 03:03:24.44 To: IN%"pbmcconn@facstaff.wisc.edu" "Patricia Mcconnell" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: what is nature? I tend to agree with you. Furthermore, too many people interpret the concept "natural" as something static. On the behavioural level as "the" behaviour of a given species. Due to a certain amount of permanence of selection pressures, a kind of relatively stable structure develops (= one could compare that to the notion of "dissipative structures" in chaos theory). However, adaptation/changes are most of the time possible (and desirable, otherwise the organism could get extinct). One forgets this too often when thinking about animal welfare. "Natural behaviour" can surely be used as a reference, but not as a kind of immobile dogma. It boils down to how much it costs to adapt away from that temporary equilibrium. That's why some colleagues, purposefully exagerating in order to make their point,contend that "natural" behaviour does not exist. FOO Prof.Dr. Frank O. Odberg University of Ghent Dpt. of Animal Nutrition, Genetics, Production and Ethology Heidestraat 19 B-9820 Merelbeke Belgium tel: +32-(0)9-2521941 fax: 5304 From: IN%"sed1522@ed.sac.ac.uk" 13-DEC-1996 06:01:06.61 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: animal cognition and consciousness Dear all, I would like to know how you would define animal cognition and animal consciousness and what you would consider to be the difference between those two terms? Thank's in advance Anna Blomberg From: IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk" "F.Toates (Fred Toates)" 13-DEC-1996 07:51:15.96 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: cognition Re: Anna Blomberg dear All, Cognition is all things to all men and women. I have urged sanitization of our vocabularly so as to rule out, say, trees being called cognitive (some do just that!). I don't believe cognition is simply a useful synonym for complex information processing since what biological system is NOT an example of this? Therefore the term is useless if used in this way. Like Tolman, I would define cognition as "information on the world that is stored in a form not tied directly to the production of behaviour". Cognitions can be right or wrong, confirmed or disconfirmed in the light of experience. They can be expressed in flexible behaviour or in inhibiting behaviour or might never be expressed behaviourally. By contrast, S-R connections or procedures are neither right nor wrong but can be either adaptive or maladaptive. Happy to supply references if wished. Regards, Fred PS All this talk about hierarchies between animals - why is no one seriously interested any more in hierarchies of control within animals (Cf. Tinbergen, Baerends, Kortlandt) - or are they? From: IN%"Birgitte.I.Damm@ihh.kvl.dk" "Birgitte Iversen Damm" 13-DEC-1996 09:42:56.06 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: Thanks Thank you ever so much to all the kind people who responded to my inquiry about heart rate measurements and physical activity. You have been a great help!! Birgitte Damm, DVM, Ph.D.student The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University Div. of Ethology and Health B=FClowsvej 13 DK-1870 Frederiksberg C Denmark e-mail bid@kvl.dk From: IN%"wattsjon@duke.usask.ca" "Jon Watts" 13-DEC-1996 10:06:14.54 To: IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk" "F.Toates (Fred Toates)" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: cognition Like Fred said, "cognition" gets used to mean all kinds of things. I'm sure I've even heard or read the word used to mean only the kind of language-based thinking that humans do when trying very hard. E.g. When hung over: " ...Uhh! ..I think I'll get some coffee ... Oops! I just dropped the pot in the kitchen sink....It broke! ... Oh well, maybe I'll go back to bed for a while..." For me cognition is to do with the creation and manipulation of internal representations or models of the world, and the use of those representations to modulate behaviour. Such representations would include such matters as beliefs and expectations and social relationships as well as physical aspects such as models of spatial relationships (e.g. "cognitive maps" and so forth). Thus cognition is closely related to consciousness (subjective "awareness" of the above), but is not synonymous with it. While it might be possible to argue that cognition could occur without consciousness, I don't consider it likely. At least not in biological organisms. In artificial life the situation might not be so clear, which brings up the subject of hierarchies of control within individuals which Fred also mentioned. some researchers working on animats (simulated animals) have developed a concept known as "subsumption architecture" which is a kind of hierarchical control system which can modulate the behaviour of robots or simulated critters. Future work related to artificial life and artificial intelligence might place us in a position where cognition (by my meaning of the term) would unequivocally be performed by an artificial system. We would then have to ask whether "consciousness" would be a property of such a system. We could at least envisage a system that we could ask whether it was conscious or not. (which we obviously can't do with a cow) But then again why should we believe what it tells us in reply? Jon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Watts (___) ) ) University of Saskatchewan |o o|___________/ ( Dept of Herd Medicine O \#/ | ) and Theriogenology |bser| | Statistical | ( Western College of Vet. Med. |vati| | analysis | ) 52 Campus Drive |ons.| \___________/| *& Saskatoon ------ || || %$#@ S7N 1B4 / \ || || ^*@*~ Canada &^%%#$@ wattsjon@duke.usask.ca "The Holy Cow" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"wattsjon@duke.usask.ca" "Jon Watts" 13-DEC-1996 10:08:43.18 To: IN%"F.Toates@open.ac.uk" "F.Toates (Fred Toates)" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca", IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: cognition Like Fred said, "cognition" gets used to mean all kinds of things. I'm sure I've even heard or read the word used to mean only the kind of language-based thinking that humans do when trying very hard. E.g. When hung over: " ...Uhh! ..I think I'll get some coffee ... Oops! I just dropped the pot in the kitchen sink....It broke! ... Oh well, maybe I'll go back to bed for a while..." For me cognition is to do with the creation and manipulation of internal representations or models of the world, and the use of those representations to modulate behaviour. Such representations would include such matters as beliefs and expectations and social relationships as well as physical aspects such as models of spatial relationships (e.g. "cognitive maps" and so forth). Thus cognition is closely related to consciousness (subjective "awareness" of the above), but is not synonymous with it. While it might be possible to argue that cognition could occur without consciousness, I don't consider it likely. At least not in biological organisms. In artificial life the situation might not be so clear, which brings up the subject of hierarchies of control within individuals which Fred also mentioned. some researchers working on animats (simulated animals) have developed a concept known as "subsumption architecture" which is a kind of hierarchical control system which can modulate the behaviour of robots or simulated critters. Future work related to artificial life and artificial intelligence might place us in a position where cognition (by my meaning of the term) would unequivocally be performed by an artificial system. We would then have to ask whether "consciousness" would be a property of such a system. We could at least envisage a system that we could ask whether it was conscious or not. (which we obviously can't do with a cow) But then again why should we believe what it tells us in reply? Jon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Watts (___) ) ) University of Saskatchewan |o o|___________/ ( Dept of Herd Medicine O \#/ | ) and Theriogenology |bser| | Statistical | ( Western College of Vet. Med. |vati| | analysis | ) 52 Campus Drive |ons.| \___________/| *& Saskatoon ------ || || %$#@ S7N 1B4 / \ || || ^*@*~ Canada &^%%#$@ wattsjon@duke.usask.ca "The Holy Cow" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 13-DEC-1996 10:36:04.55 To: IN%"jerry-thomas.warren@bio.uio.no" "T. Warren" CC: IN%"pbmcconn@facstaff.wisc.edu" "Patricia Mcconnell", IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: what is nature? On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, T. Warren wrote: > At 15:06 12.12.96 -0600, Patricia Mcconnell wrote: > > >I hear this assumption made often: that anything that humans have a hand > >in is "man-made" and therefore "not natural". Exactly what does that make > >us, then? I argue that since humans are animals and that since we are > >still a part of a living ecosystem, that we too are "natural". Different > >yes, but still "natural". Domestication is not "unnatural", it's just > >different... Do you mean to imply that since we are animals and part of an ecosystem that everything we do is natural?! Producing immense amounts of non biodoegradable items, building skyscrapers, producing cars that emit pollution into the air, manipulating genes of our species and others...is this all natural? This argument has been brought up in the past, and many politicians these days would agree. But I think there is a definite need to make a distinction between what is natural and what is not in order to deal with the pressing environmental problems of today. You can say everything is natural, so whatever we do is ok, or we can say everything is unnatural and it doesnt matter what we do. Either way, nothing gets done. We may be within an ecosystem, but we definitely have tried to remove ourselves as much from it as possible. How many of us grow our own food or hunt our own food? How many of us know where our food came from? How many of us are aware of all the aspects of the environment around us?Not very many. An ecosystem entails taking and giving to the environment around you. We take sure enough, but what exactly do we give back? We keep ourselves secluded enough not to become another animal's dinner, and after we die we are either cremated or put in a coffin. That doesnt really put us in sinc with an ecosystem as it is normally known As for the comment made about people referring to nature as static, I also must disagree with that notion. Nature definitely is not static by any means;it is one of the most dynamic systems on this planet.But to say a herd of cows or pigs enclosed in a fenced in pen is natural is to also suggest that keeping lab rats in a cage is natural. That is what both of them have been bred by us to become accustomed to. These animals are more static than nature has ever been. So are you suggesting that all captive, domesticated animals are natural? Natural by definition has several meanings, none of which I believe would support the idea that farming of animals is natural: 1) Present in or produced by nature. 2) Conforming to the usual or ordinary course of nature 3) Free from affectation or artificiality 4) Not altered, treated, or disguised 5) In a primitive, uncivilized, or unregenerate state Cows, pigs, lab rats, etc., are all altered and treated. They have been bred and raised for OUR needs, not their own. Cows, in order to be sold into the market for the majority's consumption, they are treated with anitibiotics and hormones; if that is not artificial I would like to know what is. Colleen Moulton From: IN%"sed1499@ed.sac.ac.uk" 13-DEC-1996 11:34:17.33 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: what is nature? > At 15:06 12.12.96 -0600, Patricia Mcconnell wrote: > > >I hear this assumption made often: that anything that humans have a hand > >in is "man-made" and therefore "not natural". Exactly what does that make > >us, then? I argue that since humans are animals and that since we are > >still a part of a living ecosystem, that we too are "natural". Different > >yes, but still "natural". Domestication is not "unnatural", it's just > >different... > > I concur! > > Dr. Tom Warren > Biol. Inst. > Box 1050, Blindern > Univ. of Oslo > 0316 Oslo > Norway > > I don't! 'Natural' is a term created by humans - we can use that term to define whatever we want. We usually use the term to exclude mans activities, why turn the definition on its head? Afterall words are just there to help us think. If we start argueing about strict definitions we will get no work done. (For example, where would the science of animal welfare be without first deciding that animals can feel pain). I hope you don't spend too much of your christmas period worrying about definitions! From: IN%"serpell@vet.upenn.edu" 13-DEC-1996 12:36:42.48 To: IN%"pbmcconn@facstaff.wisc.edu" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: what is nature? Dear all, Patricia Mcconnell wrote: >I take exception to >the statement that domesticated animals aren't "in nature". Yes their >environment is different, but that does not mean that they are no longer >"in nature". In some cases, I think it is fair to say that domesticated animals are no longer "in nature" for the following reasons: It is true that domesticated and non-domesticated animals are both products of environmental selection pressures. During the early stages of the domestication process, when human selection pressures were probably largely unconscious and non-purposeful, the evolutionary distinction between domesticated and non-domesticated forms seems, I agree, quite unclear. However, when humans became conscious of the effects of selection, I venture to suggest that things moved onto an entirely new evolutionary plane that has no 'natural' counterpart or precedent. Our species can now quite lterally design or 'engineer' animals to serve specific human interests and purposes. The process of artificial (human) selection is therefore teleological, whereas Darwinian 'natural' selection is entirely non-teleological (unless one believes in some sort of supernatural guiding force behind it all). This hardly seems to me a trivial or unimportant distinction either conceptually or in terms of its effects on animals. Take, for example, the English bulldog that is unable to reproduce itself successfully except by cesaerian section, or the immunodeficient 'nude' mouse that can only survive in a carefully maintained, pathogen-free laboratory colony. Can we seriously argue that these are simply 'natural' variants of Canis lupus or Mus musculus? I don't believe so. Best regards, James Serpell ___________________________________________________________________ NB: PLEASE NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: serpell@vet.upenn.edu ___________________________________________________________________ School of Veterinary Medicine, Dept. of Clinical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 3900 Delancey Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6010. USA. Tel: (215) 898-1004 Fax: (215) 573-6050 From: IN%"gfb1@psu.edu" "G. F. Barbato" 13-DEC-1996 13:24:54.00 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: what is nature? At 11:44 AM 12/13/96 -0500, you wrote: >On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, T. Warren wrote: >> At 15:06 12.12.96 -0600, Patricia Mcconnell wrote: [snip] >a herd of cows or pigs enclosed in a fenced in pen is natural is to also >suggest that keeping lab rats in a cage is natural. That is what both of >them have been bred by us to become accustomed to. These animals are >more static than nature has ever been. So are you suggesting >that all captive, domesticated animals are natural? Natural by definition >has several meanings, none of which I believe would support the idea that >farming of animals is natural: > 1) Present in or produced by nature. > 2) Conforming to the usual or ordinary course of nature > 3) Free from affectation or artificiality > 4) Not altered, treated, or disguised > 5) In a primitive, uncivilized, or unregenerate state [snip] hmmm. seems to me i've heard this discussion either here or in the sci.ethology group about 5 years ago. so i thought up this story. moths are kind of nice, natural beasties of a sort. in a little place across the big lake, they were produced by nature (i think), conformed to usual circumstances, no artificial ingredients, and were about as uncivilized as moths get (though careful to clean their feet -- all six -- prior to coming home). and here lies the rub. those damnable 2legged things found out that they could burn coal and oil to warm up the nice winter air, make stuff in factories, and, sonofagun, everything got sooty and black. even the trees. well, you can guess what happened next. yup. those natural,circumstantial,uncivilized birds started picking out the nice white moths against the darksooty background of the trees and chimneys. but wait ....... whats this? now all those nice white moths turned black and sooty looking, having been forced to take up a disguise, cruelly and artificially, by another 2legged (albeit 2winged) beasty but are the moths still natural? not by the above definition so. is a lab rat in a cage natural? for a lab rat, probably ----- its the environment to which it has adapted. is a chicken natural? more natural than otherwise, i suspect (read WoodGush's attempts to 'feralize' the chicken) btw - i've never heard anyone before suggest that domestic animals are static. they are continually changing due to selection (both artificial and unconcious) and crossing. even inbred strains of lab rats continue to exhibit signs of genetic variation (see Hedrich 'Genetic monitoring of inbred strains of rats'), which is actually pretty cool, if you think about it..... Flame On, Johnny... aesopically yours.. gfb //// G. F. Barbato Phone: (814)-865-4481 < * ) Dept. Poultry Science FAX: (814)-865-5691 \ \__/// Penn State University Lab: (814)-865-3189 ( --- ) University Park, PA 16802 Email: gfb1@psu.edu \/ \/ **** URL: http://ps235.cas.psu.edu/ **** InterCollege Graduate Program in Genetics **** URL: http://ps240.cas.psu.edu/ **** From: IN%"gadagkar@is2.dal.ca" "Sudhindra Gadagkar" 13-DEC-1996 14:43:18.19 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: "Natural" busybodies is who we are! Hello all, Haven't been following this debate all too closely, but a couple of postings impying that domestication is just another environment that animals have to contend with, and that it shouldn't be such a big deal, prompted me to reply. I'm sorry, but I think domestication is a big deal. Offhand the only other instance that comes to mind where one species deliberately grows another in a unique environmnent that it provides, is the fungal "gardens" of ants (or is it termites?). I'm assuming that the fungi actually reproduce there and that there is some form of selection going on that "domesticates" the fungi to the environment provided by the ant/termite. If that isn't the case, and if the fungi die off and have to brought afresh each time they die, then humans, I think, remain the sole species that plays God, so to speak, in deciding who mates with whom among his stock of animals, and shapes the subsequent generations to suit his needs. The criteria used in domestication selection are always focussed on what WE are seeking from the animal, not what's best for it. How else can we explain breeds of dogs, for instance, that require constant care? Is the environment provided to commercially produced chicken simply "different" - when they do not ever see even the light of day? I'm not implying that all domestication is evil; indeed, I myself am working on domestication of fish. But not acknowledging that the environment we provide during domestication may have nothing to do with the environment that the species would normally be exposed to (sans the influence of man), is glossing over an extremely important difference. Incidentally, I don't have a problem with what "natural" means - sunlight is natural, fluorescent or incandescent lights are not; an animal competing for, and getting to mate with another of its choice is natural, another species deciding who is to mate with whom, in effect, directing the course of evolution, is not. Many thanks for listening. Sudhindra. From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 13-DEC-1996 16:11:09.37 To: IN%"gfb1@psu.edu" "G. F. Barbato" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: what is nature? On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, G. F. Barbato wrote: > > moths are kind of nice, natural beasties of a sort. > in a little place across the big lake, they were produced by nature (i > think), conformed to usual circumstances, no artificial ingredients, and > were about as uncivilized as moths get (though careful to clean their feet > -- all six -- prior to coming home). > and here lies the rub. > those damnable 2legged things found out that they could burn coal and oil > to warm up the nice winter air, make stuff in factories, and, sonofagun, > everything got sooty and black. even the trees. > well, you can guess what happened next. > yup. those natural,circumstantial,uncivilized birds started picking out > the nice white moths against the darksooty background of the trees and > chimneys. > but wait ....... > whats this? > now all those nice white moths turned black and sooty looking, having been > forced to take up a disguise, cruelly and artificially, by another 2legged > (albeit 2winged) beasty > > but are the moths still natural? > not by the above definition FOr one thing, the white moths did not turn black and sooty. The moths that were originally black to begin with weren't caught by the birds as much as the white ones were. Therefore, by natural selection, since the black moths were harder for the birds to see, there were more black moths left to reproduce...resulting in the majority of black moths that were observed. THe white moths did not disappear or disguise themselves, there were just subject to predation at a higher frequency than the black ones. A perfect example of natural selection, not artifical and cruel by any means. The only hand we had in it was the alteration of the color of the trees the moths were on. And if I have heard correctly, I believe that when they cleaned up the area and the trees were light again, the black moths were selected against (easier to see now) and the numbers of white moths increased (they no longer stood out like a sore thumb). At no time did one color change ITS color and neither of the colors disappeared. As far as I can see this is not an example of something being unnatural at all. It does follow the definition of natural in that the moths conformed to the usual or ordinary course of nature; i.e. natural selection. We may have had a hand in changing the color of the trees, but we did not go in and change the moths themselves as we do with domesticated animals. The natural world has to deal with many changes we make to the environment they live in, and they react to it as they would with any change in their environment...regardless of who changed it. Colleen Moulton From: IN%"gfb1@psu.edu" "G. F. Barbato" 13-DEC-1996 16:18:15.91 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: what is nature? At 01:29 PM 12/13/96 +0000, you wrote: >Dear all, > >Patricia Mcconnell wrote: > >>I take exception to >>the statement that domesticated animals aren't "in nature". Yes their >>environment is different, but that does not mean that they are no longer >>"in nature". > > In some cases, I think it is fair to say that domesticated animals >are no longer "in nature" for the following reasons: > It is true that domesticated and non-domesticated animals are both >products of environmental selection pressures. During the early stages of >the domestication process, when human selection pressures were probably >largely unconscious and non-purposeful, [snip] Belyaev (and colleagues that followed) argue (successfully, imho) that the early selection pressures during the domestication process were the strongest and most influential on the 'natural history' of domestic animals. one might question whether it is the selection for behavior (approach to humans, or lack of running away) that caused the associated behavioral/morphological/physiological changes associated with domestication or the process of directional selection itself (i.e., selective breeding of extreme phenotypes). that would be an interesting expt. this week, my money is on the selection process. [snip] >Take, for example, the English bulldog that is unable to reproduce >itself successfully except by cesaerian section, or the immunodeficient >'nude' mouse that can only survive in a carefully maintained, pathogen-free >laboratory colony. Can we seriously argue that these are simply 'natural' >variants of Canis lupus or Mus musculus? I don't believe so. touche. however, one could argue that these variants exist(ed) but would not normally survive without mans intervention. so we are only taking advantage of already existing variation and 'unnaturally' preventing their demise. i don't mean to be glib, but there is genetic variation for a wide variety of phenotypes (such as the ability for spermatozoa to survive cryopreservation) that are not obvious, nor apparently advantageous to the animal (or us, for that matter). we generally don't know about it til we look. otoh - are there traits that are advantageous for us, yet damaging to the animal (in the welfare sense of creating undue pain and suffering ---- which, as s.appleyard suggests i won't lose sleep in defining --- tonight anyway)??? ABSOLUTELY! as a domestic animal geneticist, a good portion of my job is to recognize these traits and find methods of either breaking the genetic correlation (which is really what we're talking about) or finding other ways to promote the economically advantageous phenotype sans deleterious side effects. gfb //// G. F. Barbato Phone: (814)-865-4481 < * ) Dept. Poultry Science FAX: (814)-865-5691 \ \__/// Penn State University Lab: (814)-865-3189 ( --- ) University Park, PA 16802 Email: gfb1@psu.edu \/ \/ **** URL: http://ps235.cas.psu.edu/ **** InterCollege Graduate Program in Genetics **** URL: http://ps240.cas.psu.edu/ **** From: IN%"Heeler@aol.com" 13-DEC-1996 17:54:26.44 To: IN%"applied-ethology-error@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: RE: "Natural" busybodies is who we are! In a message dated 96-12-13 16:41:31 EST, you write: >The criteria used in domestication selection are always focussed on what >WE are seeking from the animal, OK, I don't consider the lab rat a domesticated animal. It's a wild animal that has been selectively bred to conform to whatever criteria the lab people have in mind. But I don't know a lot about rats. The animals I regard as Real domesticated animals, domestic sheep, goats, cattle, dogs, and cats, got selected thousands of years ago and probably in a way that is a whole lot more "natural" than some cavepeople rounding them up and taming them. Now, I'm just a layperson here, but the neoteny theory of domestication makes alot of sense to me. There are profound behavioral differences between dogs and wolves, cats and tigers, milking cattle and Bison. And I don't believe those differences came about because somebody went out and tamed them. Cheers, Margie From: IN%"lafama@pinos.com" 13-DEC-1996 18:26:23.55 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: What is your opinion about masturbation in the horse during training, do you consider it a normal conduct and if not, what is the treatment From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 13-DEC-1996 19:47:33.37 To: IN%"gadagkar@is2.dal.ca" "Sudhindra Gadagkar" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: "Natural" busybodies is who we are! On Fri, 13 Dec 1996, Sudhindra Gadagkar wrote: > Hello all, > > Haven't been following this debate all too closely, but a couple of > postings impying that domestication is just another environment that > animals have to contend with, and that it shouldn't be such a big deal, > prompted me to reply. I'm sorry, but I think domestication is a big deal. > Offhand the only other instance that comes to mind where one species > deliberately grows another in a unique environmnent that it provides, is > the fungal "gardens" of ants (or is it termites?). I'm assuming that the > fungi actually reproduce there and that there is some form of selection > going on that "domesticates" the fungi to the environment provided by the > ant/termite. If that isn't the case, and if the fungi die off and have to > brought afresh each time they die, then humans, I think, remain the sole > species that plays God, so to speak, in deciding who mates with whom > among his stock of animals, and shapes the subsequent generations to suit > his needs. > > The criteria used in domestication selection are always focussed on what > WE are seeking from the animal, not what's best for it. How else can we > explain breeds of dogs, for instance, that require constant care? Is the > environment provided to commercially produced chicken simply "different" > - when they do not ever see even the light of day? I'm not implying that > all domestication is evil; indeed, I myself am working on domestication of > fish. But not acknowledging that the environment we provide during > domestication may have nothing to do with the environment that the species > would normally be exposed to (sans the influence of man), is glossing over > an extremely important difference. Incidentally, I don't have a problem > with what "natural" means - sunlight is natural, fluorescent or > incandescent lights are not; an animal competing for, and getting to mate > with another of its choice is natural, another species deciding who is to > mate with whom, in effect, directing the course of evolution, is not. > > Many thanks for listening. > > Sudhindra. > > I agree! Colleen Moulton From: IN%"billcamp@cdsnet.net" 14-DEC-1996 19:06:09.72 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: from a natural to other naturals That's it. I can clear it all up. The *natural* debate has sent me back to my old friend and language referee, Webster's Seventh Collegiate, where I find the following: (1)natural --- adj. 1. based on an inherent sense of right and wrong. hmmm 2 a: being in accordance with or determined by nature. then... (2)natural --- n. 1. one born without the usual powers of reason and understanding: IDIOT. Perhaps we *naturals* should just settle for, (1)pristine --- adj. 1. belonging to the earliest period or state. Bill Campbell Author - _Defining Nature_ From: IN%"vof@tattoo.ed.ac.uk" "Valerie O'Farrell" 15-DEC-1996 13:03:45.67 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: more iguana more help needed re Funky my daughter's iguana who is staying with me while she does her obstetrics placement. As usual, while with me he seems to eat nothing, except meal worms when offerred, tho I know these aren't good for him. He kept this up for 2 months in the summer. I used to keep him in his cage all the time, as there were too many escape routes like chimney, but this time I have him in a different room where there are 4 tropical fish tanks so its nice and warm and moist. The routine is that I switch on his light and heat lamp in the morning and by lunch time he is scrabbling to get out. If I let him out he first of all creates mayhem by getting inside the aquarium lighting hoods etc then he goes up the curtain and when I get him down an hour or two later he's cold, so I suppose that;s not very good for him. But on the days I keep him in he just sits and glares and does nt touch his plate of assorted veg. Any suggestions? A woolly jumper perhaps to stop him getting cold? Thanks Valerie From: IN%"cmoulton@warren-wilson.edu" "Colleen E. Moulton" 15-DEC-1996 14:00:08.69 To: IN%"vof@tattoo.ed.ac.uk" "Valerie O'Farrell" CC: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: more iguana On Sun, 15 Dec 1996, Valerie O'Farrell wrote: > more help needed re Funky my daughter's iguana who is staying with me > while she does her obstetrics placement. As usual, while with me he > seems to eat nothing, except meal worms when offerred, tho I know these > aren't good for him. He kept this up for 2 months in the summer. I used > to keep him in his cage all the time, as there were too many escape > routes like chimney, but this time I have him in a different room where > there are 4 tropical fish tanks so its nice and warm and moist. The > routine is that I switch on his light and heat lamp in the morning and > by lunch time he is scrabbling to get out. If I let him out he first of > all creates mayhem by getting inside the aquarium lighting hoods etc > then he goes up the curtain and when I get him down an hour or two > later he's cold, so I suppose that;s not very good for him. But on the > days I keep him in he just sits and glares and does nt touch his plate > of assorted veg. Any suggestions? A woolly jumper perhaps to stop him > getting cold? > > Thanks > > Valerie > My iguana goes through much of the same behavior, concerning the scrabbling to get out part...not the food part (he can definitely hold his own on this one..) When CJ, my iguana, tries incessantly to get out of his cage around noon time and even presenting him with food won't deter him from trying to squeeze his head out the side of his cage, I usually give in and let him out for awhile...during which time he does often wreak havoc in our dorm room and our suite mates room. I used to let him out for long periods of time, which led him to ending up on a curtain rod or on the rod in my closet, asleep.. and he ended up rather cold. I have found though that if I let him run around for about 15 minutes and then put him back in, along with his food, he seems pretty content. For him it appears that he just needs that short period of time to get out some pent up energy. After he gets this out of his system he is usually calm for the rest of the day, or at least until it is time for me to go to sleep :) For your sake I hope your visiting friend is like that too :) Good Luck! Colleen Moulton From: IN%"richards@hula.net" 15-DEC-1996 18:20:23.34 To: IN%"applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" CC: Subj: what is nature?/domestication Regarding whether domesticated animals are "natural" - The primary reason that state level society (i.e., 'civilization') in the New World lagged behind the Old World is because of the lack of New World animals that could be domesticated. Given this, I propose that without our ability to domesticate animals, we (H.sapien sapiens) [sorry, can't italicize] would not have atained our present position in the world hierarchy. Some may argue that our present position is nothing to be proud of, but that's another argument. Viewed in this light, I can't agree that domesticated animals are completely 'un-natural', as they were an integral part of human primate evolution.