This article investigates the barriers to implementing higher caging in animal research establishments in the UK. The use of animals in research and testing in the UK is regulated by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which sets out how animal experiments must be licensed and regulated. Within this, the Code of Practice currently allows laboratory rats to be housed in cages that are 20 cm high, even though adults can rear up to 30 cm. Most adult rats therefore cannot stand upright in ‘standard’ cages. We found that the main factors hindering the implementation of higher caging were classified into five different groups; health and safety, financial, animal welfare, scientific, and ‘human’. Suggestions to overcome these barriers are provided, as well as alternative animal welfare changes that can be put into place. We conclude that much of the desired evidence for moving to higher cages is already available, and therefore the focus should be on education and improving access to the existing evidence, in order to encourage facilities to work around existing financial and health and safety concerns.

At the intersection of death geographies and animal geographies, the topic of animal death offers crucial insights for how we understand death and how we define human/nonhuman boundaries. This review piece brings rich discussions of animal death across anthropology, critical animal studies and the environmental humanities into conversation with work in geography. This article takes a two-pronged approach; first, in recognition of the intensely spatial nature of death, this article explores where animal death takes place. This section observes how spaces of animal death are physically concealed and how this spatial distancing is aided by verbal concealment and dismemberment of the animal body, as well as how justifications for killing are organised along spatial lines. This helps to make animals killable in these spaces.The second section focuses on who is killed and made killable as well as who kills. The degree of being killable or grievable is highly uneven amongst animals, as it is amongst humans. Moreover, those individuals who routinely inflict animal death are subject to discrimination and vulnerability due to this proximity. Finally, the article concludes with reflections on what the topic of animal death can contribute to the death geographies and animal geographies literatures, and how we can move towards more animal-centric approaches to animal death.

Nurturing a culture of care remains a key strategy and needs to be well integrated in the education programmes for laboratory animal professionals. Addressing attitudes is a complex task that must ensure reflective learning approaches. Teaching strategies must facilitate a safe space to talk openly about emotions and caring responsibilities. We reflect on two training initiatives focusing on culture of care. Firstly, the ‘Care-full Stories’ tool, which uses fictionalised prompts (storytelling) to encourage participants to share their own stories from working in animal research. Feedback on its impact on establishing a safe space for sharing experiences and the importance of appreciating diverse perspectives between staff is discussed. Secondly, we provide feedback on the development of training approaches on animal research integrity and culture of care with low- middle-income international communities. Strategic targets addressing the multicultural diversity of the communities, recognising their specific needs and their access to resources, must be well defined. It is important to acknowledge the interconnection between people, animals and their shared natural environment when defining the culture of care concept and addressing the teaching approaches. We discuss both the positive outcomes and challenges of these two learning experiences to support innovation when planning tools for teaching culture of care. Accounting for ‘how’ and ‘where’ the training will be delivered remains key to its successful uptake and local sustainability. Supporting improved educational tools to ascertain why caring has an impact on our professional lives will have a direct impact on the wellbeing of laboratory animal professionals worldwide.

Muslim consumers in the UK eat more meat than the national average. Individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, particularly South Asian communities, experience poorer health outcomes, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease, associated with meat consumption. According to a YouGov survey, British Pakistani and Bangladeshi consumers use television cookery programs and social media (particularly YouTube) as their main digital sources of dietary information. Against this background, this study uses a mixed-method approach to show how meat is normalized in YouTube recipe content. Using quantitative analysis of 77 recent recipe videos presented by four leading British chefs (Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Nadiya Hussain) and halal recipe videos, we find that meat-based recipes overwhelmingly outnumber vegetarian/vegan ones, and that, whereas environmental or animal welfare concerns are hardly mentioned, health narratives feature in some videos. Using critical discourse analysis of a sample of videos, we show how meat consumption is rationalized by the “absenting” of meat’s animal origins (making it “normal”), the “defaultization” of meat (making it “natural” and “necessary”), and “positive emotional routines” (making it “nice” and “necessary”). We consider how these representations of meat serve to overcome the “meat paradox” and legitimize, and thereby normalize, meat consumption among British Muslims.