The article presents and discusses the issues of the use of free-living invertebrates to assess the ecological status of freshwater environments with different methods of biological monitoring. Invertebrates are excluded from ethical consideration in the...
Welfare assessments have been largely successful in improving management and quality of life for animals in human care. This has prompted an increased interest in their use for free-ranging wild animals to assess health, environment...
There are very few studies describing euthanasia complications in non-domestic species. The goal of this study was to survey veterinarians to determine what complications may commonly occur during the euthanasia of non-domestic species. An online...
Cognitive abilities likely evolved in response to specific environmental and social challenges and are therefore expected to be specialized for the life history of each species. Specialized cognitive abilities may be most readily engaged under...
We argue that pain is not needed to protect the body from damage unless the organism is able to make free choices in action selection. Then pain (including its affective and evaluative aspects) provides a...
Human-wildlife interactions continue to increase due to anthropogenic disturbances, with some interactions resulting in conflict. Leveraging a taxa’s bias for a particular sensory cue is a promising management avenue for reducing the potential and realized...
Hermit crabs have an intimate relationship with gastropod shells and show numerous activities by which they locate, select, and change shells in different contexts. They gather information about new shells and update information about their...
My recent review examined the complex and intimate relationship between hermit crabs and the empty gastropod shells upon which they depend for survival. Because shells come with costs as well as benefits, the crabs are...
Electrical stunning is used to capture crocodiles to perform routine management procedures. It is essential from a welfare point that electrical stunning must cause unconsciousness in animals. However, there is no information of whether or...
Play behavior in crocodilians is not uncommon, but it remains virtually undescribed in scientific literature. I present the first overview of play behavior of three types (locomotor play, object play and social play) in crocodilians...