The Organization of Animal Protection Investigations and the Animal Harm Spectrum: Canadian Data, International Lessons

This paper offers the first overview of the Canadian animal cruelty investigations landscape. First, the public and private sector organizations responsible for enforcement are explained, followed by examination of the implications of this patchwork for reporting suspected cruelty. Key statistical data are presented about the types of issues and cases and investigator responses. Initial recommendations are then proposed, and the value of the animal harm spectrum is discussed, including how it can be mobilized to strengthen the operations of animal protection work and animal welfare policy across nations.

GROUNDS FOR ANIMAL RESCUE PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 7(3) OF THE ANIMAL PROTECTION ACT OF 21 AUGUST 1997 IN REGARD TO THE INSTITUTION OF A COLLISION OF DUTIES UNDER ARTICLE 26 § 5 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE

The article discusses the conditions for the emergency receipt of animal from the owner in accordance with Art. 7 sec. 3 of the Act of August 21, 1997 on the protection of animals and indicates the need to enrich them with the premises for excluding criminal liability under Art. 26 § 5 of the Penal Code. The main research problems of the study are the premises of the proper and legal emergency receipt of animal from the owner within the meaning of Art. 7 sec. 3 of the Act, including an indication of when such behaviour is legal and when it is illegal, and a detailed specification of the scope of responsibilities of the person who performs the collection of the animal towards the owner of the received animal. According to Art. 217 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in connection with Art. 220 of the Code of Criminal Procedure only law enforcement agencies, including the prosecutor, police officers and other bodies authorized by the law, may search the apartment / land. Authorized representatives of a social organization whose statutory purpose is to protect animals do not have this competence, therefore they are required to cooperate with police officers in the scope of searches. The article shows that in the event of the emergency receipt of animal from the owner in accordance with Art. 7 sec. 3 of the Act, in the absence of Police officers and with the opposition of the owner of the apartment / land, there is no violation of the legal interest of protection of the home if the perpetrator acts in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity and the principle of proportionality underlying Art. 26 § 5 of the Criminal Code.

Testing Social Media Advertisements for Animal Advocacy

We used the Mercy For Animals social media outreach budget to systematically estimate the efficacy of different advertisements on different demographic groups. Based on the click-through rates (CTR: the percentage of impressions resulting in clicks on ads), we observe:1. Animal-based advertisements are more than twice as effective as other types of advertisement, achieving a CTR over 3% compared to just 1.1-1.5% for environment, health, and social adverts.2. Females and older users were more likely to click adverts compared to males and younger users, respectively.3. Specific messages may outperform others within these broad themes. We find that pigs were the most effective animal advert (vs. cows, chickens, and fish), climate change was the most effective environment advert (vs. land use, water use, and deforestation), and chronic disease was the most effective health message (vs. obesity, pathogen contamination, and antibiotic contamination).The findings can be used to inform social media strategy for Mercy For Animals and the broader animal protection movement.

Problems of the environmental law of the European Union

The problem of ecology is one of the most common problems of the twenty-first century. No country is immune: no country has better military equipment, no country with low inflation, no country with “perfect” legislation. The purpose of the article was to clarify legislative issues: European Union legislation was outdated, general and lacking in specificity. To address these problems, this article uses different approaches to the definition of environmental security, which makes it necessary to change the concept and the actions within which the definition is adopted. The article goes on to discuss the position of realists who argue that environmental security cannot be set because of lack of accountability “the importance” of the issue of “high” issues. Thus, the paper refers to the emergence of environmental security and its long path. This article contains the following changes and provisions: Brundtland Committee (1987), Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Habitats in Europe (1979), International Tropical Timber Agreement (1983) as well as the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979), the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the Hazardous Substances Directives, the impact of EU measures on the environment and the Animal Protection Directive. In addition, the article exposes Programs designed to ensure and regulate environmental safety. The report of the European Environment Agency was also reviewed and a comparative analysis of the data contained in the report and the British Broadcasting Corporation estimates was made. The authors draw attention to several directives, calling them “triumvirate”, which provide the basis for countries to regulate some environmental legislation. Almost in the end of the paper the authors pay attention to the phenomenon of environmental ethics, which is a consequence of imperfect legislation. In its conclusion, the article states that the problems that arise from the lack of accountability of legal acts of a real environmental situation occur in the member states, taking into account the special case of the European Union.

The legal system for horse protection in ancient China

The concept of "animal welfare" originated relatively recently and refers to fulfilling the basic needs of animals to avoid unnecessary suffering. However, in ancient China, ecological awareness similar to current “animal welfare” had already been awoken and codified in the form of a series of legal systems, among which were specific regulations for horses that entailed giving them a good life, as well as a series of “animal welfare” regulations more in line with the current sense, such as not hitting them in the face, nor using genetically related horses for breeding. This paper analyses the current legal framework of animal protection to trace the legal system on horse protection throughout the history of China.

The prime-cost of production when rearing of young animals in dairy and beef cattle breeding

In a market economy, the prime-cost of production is the most important indicator of the financial and economic activity of any economic entity. It is a cost estimate of all resources used in the production process of the industry: feed, animal protection products, materials, fuel, energy, fixed assets, labour, natural and other costs associated with its production and sale. The purpose of the work was to calculate the prime-cost of production when rearing of young animals in dairy and beef cattle breeding in the Kurgan region. The analysis has shown that according to the years of observations less than half of livestock products were produced in agricultural organizations of the region: meat – 36,3–38,6 %, milk – 29,3–30,6 %. Egg production in agricultural organizations was at the level of 13 %. The correct choice of objects of calculation and calculation units, as well as the use of special methodological recommendations for accounting production costs and calculating the prime-cost of products (works, services) in agricultural organizations allows us to more accurately determine the prime-cost in dairy and beef cattle breeding. Despite the great attention to the individual aspects of cost accounting and calculating the prime-cost of agricultural production, there is still a need and importance of a more detailed study and further improvement of accounting and calculation of meat and dairy cattle products. The prime-cost of the gain in the live weight of young cattle can be calculated by different methods, but at the same time the selected option must be fixed in the accounting policy of the organization.

The Modern Zoo: Demographics and Perceptions of Two International Groups of Zoo Staff

Characterising the people that work in zoos is a key element of understanding how zoos might better contribute to conservation activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate demographics, early life experiences and perceptions of zoo staff to the role of the modern zoo. This paper reports the key characteristics and qualitative themes emerging from study of international (European and Chinese) zoo professionals. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with eight Chinese and eight European zoo staff about aspects of zoological animal welfare, conservation and zoological practices. These qualitative data were thematically analysed, and themes generated. This paper describes interviewee demographics and two themes relating to ‘early life influences’ and ‘the role of the modern zoo’. This analysis indicates that demographic data and early life influences of zoo professionals were broadly similar between two culturally diverse regions, but that their views on the role of the modern zoo differed, particularly in terms of their perceptions of conservation activities, with European interviewees focussing on biodiversity conservation, and Chinese interviewees focussing on animal protection.

The Anomaly of ‘Animal’

This chapter uses carters’ strikes led by bullock-cart drivers in late 19th- and early 20th-century Calcutta to explicate the tensions inherent in colonial animal protection legislations. More specifically, it illustrates how a single decisive event – the carters’ strike of 1862 – confronted two parallel and conflicting worlds, that of the poor, uneducated carters and the Calcutta Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (CSPCA). This historic moment is significant not only because it witnessed the meeting of these two worlds, but because by making the animals a mere proxy protagonist, it revealed the complex fault-lines within a colonial society. The human and the nonhuman subalterns – carters and bullocks, found their fates intertwined as the disadvantaged actors in a powerful, but unsuccessful protectionist crusade. Finally, the chapter reveals that while legislations and newer inventions all worked to unburden the overloaded animal, however, in a perfect colonial irony, the meaning of “animal” itself was left vague and amorphous in the British imagination.

Meat, Mercy, Morality

This book uses the lens of humanitarian debates to understand the nature of British colonialism in India. It demonstrates that with emergence of new notions of public health in late 19th-century Bengal, contests over appropriate measures for controlling animals became part of wider debates surrounding environmental ethics, diet, sanitation, and a politics of race/class that reconfigured boundaries between the colonizer and the colonized. Centered around three major stories – animals as diseased, eaten, and overworked – it explores how the colonial project of animal protection mirrored an irony in that it exposed the disjunction between the claims of a benevolent colonial state and a powerful, not-too-benign reality where the state constantly sought to discipline its subjects – both human and nonhuman. It refreshes our understanding of environment, colonial science and British imperialism by arguing that colonial humanitarianism was not only an idiom of rule, but was also translated into Bengali dietetics, anxieties, vegetarianism and vigilantism which can be seen in India even today.