Should Scientists Bond with the Animals Whom They Use? Why Not?

Abstract

The Inevitable Bond (Davis & Balfour, 1992;Davis, 1993) is a useful and well-edited collection of original essays. Davis and Balfour's introductory remarks and the brief summaries they provide before each chapter are helpful for keeping the central themescientist-cuiimal interactionsin focus.

Psychological stress and strain in laboratory animal professionals – a systematic review

“…This discrepancy between taking care of and tolerating or inducing harm in the same animals can lead to cognitive dissonance, psychological stress and strain, 1,15,18,19 which potentially influences proper animal care 1,6,16 and, thus, the outcome of scientific projects. 20,21 In addition, absences and high staff turnover due to psychological strain can have long-term consequences on the facility's organizational and economic situation. 22 Consequently, guidance on how to mitigate LAPs' psychological stress and strain has become highly relevant for organizations and institutions [23][24][25][26][27] and there is increasing consensus that a 'culture of care' in the laboratory animal setting needs to foster both animal and staff wellbeing.…”

“…This discrepancy between taking care of and tolerating or inducing harm in the same animals can lead to cognitive dissonance, psychological stress and strain, 1,15,18,19 which potentially influences proper animal care 1,6,16 and, thus, the outcome of scientific projects. 20,21 In addition, absences and high staff turnover due to psychological strain can have long-term consequences on the facility’s organizational and economic situation. 22…”

The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Agriculture

“…In a comparatively short, thoroughly-researched and easy to read book that will appeal to students, activists, academics and concerned citizens, Weis convincingly demonstrates that global meat consumption is qualitatively different in the 21 st century: that it is an outcome of a process of the capitalization of agriculture in which the accumulation imperative has significantly contributed to deepening global inequality, without regard for the nutritional or ecological implications of increased meat production and consumption, while consciously and deliberately removing from sight the extreme cruelty and violence that lies at the heart of global industrial livestock production. As Bekoff (2007) has stressed, a reduction of meat consumption by 10 per cent would result in at least 12 million more tons of grain being available for human consumption, which could feed the 60 million people around the world that starve to death each and every year. Thus, in the 21 st century, the act of meat consumption is now a highly politicized act, an act whose structural foundations are laid bare in Tony Weis' remarkable The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Agriculture.…”

Who Watches the Watchmen?

“…Davis and Balfour provide introductory notes to each chapter, and have obviously taken great care in placing similarly themed chapters together. One paper's ideas are picked up and reiterated in others, becoming powerful motifs.One of The Inevitable Bond's strongest themes is the use of anecdotes as a source of scientific information (see also Bekoff, 1993).Fentress (Chapter 4) puts the case for anecdotes forcefully and convincingly. He shows that deep insights into an animal's behaviour can be gained by watching "one-off incidents, although he cautions that such observations must be supported by more controlled and rigourous testing (also Duncan, Chapter 18).…”

“…One of The Inevitable Bond's strongest themes is the use of anecdotes as a source of scientific information (see also Bekoff, 1993).…”