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Human-Animal Studies Corner |
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Humans and Companion Animals Helping Each Other
Companion animals can lower stress and anxiety, help keep people active, and according to WebMD, a dog in a meeting can increase trust, team cohesion, camaraderie and, ultimately, productivity. A recent article by the American Association of Retired Persons, Pets and Their People During the Coronavirus Pandemic: How animals are helping make lockdowns more bearable, provided snippets of people’s comments about their animals’ contributions to their lives during the pandemic, showing that during this stressful time, people’s animals have helped them cope:
- “I feel very blessed to have the ability to ride on the trails during the pandemic. For a brief and precious time, I feel at peace. My horses have always been my sanctuary,”
- “I’m the therapy-dog coordinator for a hospital, and my two goldendoodles are certified. They haven’t been doing therapy since the pandemic, but life would be much lonelier if I did not have them. My husband and I have lost dear friends to the illness, and the dogs have been a source of comfort, not only to us but to other people.”
Pandemic-related stay-at-home orders and the shift for many to working from home have also benefitted companion animals with 24-7 companionship they may not have had before. Brian Hare, PhD, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, Director of Duke Canine Cognition Center concurs that During A Pandemic, Dogs Are Essential Citizens. He also notes that being home during the pandemic can be an opportunity bring home new companion dogs. But this is not without potential difficulties. According to Hare, staying home means that young dogs will not have the opportunity to be properly socialized in order to build confidence and decrease fear and aggression. They also need to spend time alone now, so that once their humans go back to work they do not develop separation anxiety.
However, while adoptions might be up, so too are we seeing shelter abandonments on the rise. Concerns come from the U.K Kennel Club, which has warned people this might not be the time for impulse buying animals without considering their future, as “there's a worry animals will be abandoned once life goes back to normal and people no longer spend so much time at home.” That worry appears warranted. Although life is nowhere near back to normal in the UK or US, as of early July about 40 pets a day were being abandoned across England and Wales, according to the RSPCA. That concern is shared by Jayne Bashford, the RSPCA's chief inspector for Cambridgeshire who has “seen 30% of our usual annual total for abandoned animals in just three months." Bashford sees concerns about the future driving the spike in abandonments, as people decide they can no longer afford to keep a pet. This appears to be the precisely the case in some instances: As the State of Alabama spiked in coronavirus cases, Alabama animal shelters were overrun as people ditched pets adopted during pandemic.
In most cases, the abandonments appear cost-related—people have lost their jobs and simply cannot afford to care for their companion animals. Organizations are stepping up with both advice and assistance. According to the ASPCA, there are several agencies that are trying to help caretakers keep their companion animals during this pandemic, which are listed on its website. Other organizations, including RedRover, a national nonprofit animal welfare organization, have resource programs for those in need of help covering costs. Other groups, such as Drifter’s Hearts of Hope in Colorado and the Kentucky Horse Council’s Equine Safety Net program, are also offering help to equine owners during the pandemic.
Our tasks at this point would seem to be both helping to get information about resources out to those in need, and supporting organizations that are trying to help. Toward that end, please circulate the resources above if you think the messages might reach people in need. Also, so that I can help spread the word, please email me at gala.argent@animalsandsociety.org other resources you may come across to help people keep their companion animals.
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ASI International Development Projects
ASI is pleased to announce the completion of three of our latest Human-Animal Studies International Development Projects (HASIDP). The purpose of these competitive, annual projects is to provide one non-American university per year with the financial and knowledge-based resources to build its own HAS program. The selected universities have received financial and consultative support, including the creation of courses, marketing support, cultivation of institutional and extra-institutional partners, and administrative support. In addition to the Human-Animal Studies program at the Universidad de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal we previously reported on, both the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa and the University of Athens, Athens, Greece have also launched their HAS programs. We are happy to celebrate their first HAS semesters with the universities! Read more about ASI’s HASIDP HERE.
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Join Our new Human-Animal Studies Facebook Group
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We are pleased to announce our new, public, Human-Animal Studies Facebook group. Since May of this year, more than 1,500 members have already populated the group with relevant and interesting posts and discussion.
Because interest in social media has edged out the email listserves popular ten years ago, this new group replaces and extends as an interactive space our HAS Yahoo listserve, which we closed early this year. The group is designed to fill the need for a network for sharing information and promoting research, accomplishments, jobs, events and activities related to the multifaceted and complex relationships that exist between human and other animals. Please join us there, share HAS-related information, and spread the word!
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Wildlife Overpopulation Policy
A Reflection by Ken Shapiro, ASI Board President
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While we all try to come to terms with how to deal with studies reporting major declines in wildlife worldwide, we also are confronted, paradoxically, with developing policy relating to the overpopulation of wildlife. Examples of this are urban and suburban deer, horses on Federal lands in the West and on islands such as Assateague in Maryland and Virginia, and various species in zoos. Both the declines and the “surpluses” are the result of human activities, the latter through the reduction in the number of natural predators, loss of habitat and, in the case of suburban deer, the increase in habitat (woodland/field margins and gardens) in which they “over-produce.”
A number of practices have been employed to deal with overpopulations -- lethal control, surgical sterilization, and massive round-up and removal. A more acceptable policy is emerging-- the use of immunocontraception. The most researched (since the late 80s) and promising Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP), when injected through darting, produces antibodies that prevent sperm from attaching to an egg, thereby preventing fertilization. (See Powell, Preliminary Evaluation of Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) Immunocontraception for Behavioral Effects in Feral Horses (Equus caballus), JAAWS, 1999, 2, 4). (Regrettably, the current source of PZP is a byproduct of slaughter houses).
PZP has been successfully applied to wild horse herds in a number of limited setting (https://americanwildhorsecampaign.org/fertility-control). However, a major barrier to its widespread use (aside from the usual bureaucratic inertia), has been the absence of a single-dose multi-year vaccine. The good news is that progress is being made in this direction. PZP-22 provides 22 months of effectiveness and when delivered with time-release boosters reduces fertility levels for 5-6 years. (For further information about PZP-22 see Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control -- https://botstiber.org/biwfc/).
A personal experience illustrates what the availability of a commercially viable immunocontraceptive could mean for our treatment of wildlife. I live in a heavily wooded small town in which the two existing forests were both suffering the results of overbrowsing from an overpopulation of deer – the absence of adequate undergrowth, of new generations of seedlings, and of other species of wildlife. After much deliberation (and some rancor), the town initiated the culling of the deer by bow-hunting, a “solution” that must be done year after year as additional deer supplant those killed. Clearly, the use of PZP-22 would be a more humane, a less costly, and a more biodiversity-enhancing policy. The Environmental Protection Agency is considering making the product available for the first time outside of research contexts.
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