Book Review: Lost Kingdom: Animal Death in the Anthropocene

Currently, the problem of preserving the natural diversity of wild flora and fauna is becoming more and more relevant and significant due to the huge growth of poaching activities. Poaching is one of the global problems leading to the disappearance of valuable species of flora and fauna. The loss of any species of wild fauna causes enormous damage to the interests of society, leading to irreparable losses. The disappearance of certain species of flora or fauna does not pass without harm and violates the ecosystem. Crimes against wild fauna are regulated under article 258 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation («Illegal Hunting»). There are administrative and criminal liability for violation of this article. In this regard, there was an urgent need for the use of special knowledge in the investigation of crimes related to wild flora and the organization of forensic examination as an independent direction of forensic veterinary examination. The appointment of forensic biological examination is an obligatory significant action, and the results of the research of experts in this field are considered one of the decisive sources of evidences in the course of investigation. P. V. Fomenko wrote that the forensic biological examination of violently killed animals has much in common with the postmortem examination, but differs significantly from it in terms of goals, objectives and methods of implementation. The examination is carried out not only to establish the cause of death of the animal, but also to clarify the circumstances under which the death of the animal occurred. The reasons for forensic veterinary investigation of killed animals are very different. In the most often cases, the investigators have to solve the following questions: the determination of lifetime morphological changes and causes of death of the animal; the presence of any injuries that caused damage and death of the animal; the suddenness of the death of a wild animal, especially in cases of gunshot wounds requiring the intervention of the judiciary. According to S. V. Aramilev’s opinion, improving the quality of forensic examinations is necessary to toughen control over poaching, smuggling and illegal trade in wild animals, their parts and derivatives, and, consequently, to impose adequate punishment for these offenses.

Економічні аспекти превенції сказу тварин

During the course of some experiments on rabbits, it was noted that injection of tincture of iodine (U. S. P.) into the pericardial sac was followed by some unidentified disturbance of cardiac mechanism which resulted in the death of the animals within a few minutes. The same series of events followed in each of the five animals employed. Six dogs were then studied. Under ether intratracheal anesthesia, the chest was opened and from 1.5 to 2 cc. of tincture of iodine injected, with much the same results as with the rabbits. As soon as the first few drops of the solution touched the epicardium there was an obvious visible effect on the heart muscle which continued until the death of the animal within five to ten minutes. Examining the heart grossly after death, it was found that the iodine had diffused over the entire epicardium but there was no visible evidence of staining of the heart muscle beneath the serous covering. In order to determine, if possible, the sequence of events following the injection of the irritant, the next two experiments were carried out in the Department of Physiology with the animals attached to the electrocardiograph. The first animal alone succumbed to the first dose of iodine. The second animal failed to show the usual prompt response and death did not occur until three injections of iodine had been given. We have no positive explanation to give of the phenomena observed. The rapidity of the effect of the injection would make it improbable that there was any systemic disturbance; rather it would point to a purely local action of the alcohol on the heart muscle or the electrical mechanism of the organ.

To date, there is no registered injectable dosage form of levocarnitine for veterinary use on the territory of the Russian Federation. The purpose of our work was to conduct preclinical studies of l-carnitine for veterinary use, in particular acute toxicity, in laboratory animals and to establish the class of acute toxicity. Acute toxicity studies were conducted on outbred rats in October 2021 at the vivarium of the St. Petersburg State University of Veterinary Medicine. When studying acute toxicity after intragastric administration, l-carnitine was administered at an initial dose of 2 ml / kg of animal weight. When studying acute toxicity after intramuscular and subcutaneous administration, lcarnitine was administered at an initial dose of 2 ml / kg of animal weight. During three days of observations, the death of animals was not revealed. After the expiration of three days, we introduced the drug in the same dose and by the same routes of administration to other animals (three animals for each route of administration). During 14 days of observation, the death of the animals was not detected, other disorders of the general condition and any signs indicating the toxic effect of the studied drug were absent. As a result of acute toxicity studies on laboratory animals of the drug l-carnitine for veterinary use with intragastric, subcutaneous and intramuscular administration, it was found that a dose of 2 ml/kg did not cause death of experimental animals. The investigated drug l-carnitine, according to GOST 32644-2014, can be classified as hazard class V in accordance with the globally agreed system of hazard classification and labeling of chemical products or in class V in accordance with the toxicity classification according to Hodge and Sterner.

This study investigated the impact of age, cognitive level and anxiety level on children's conception of death in humans and animals. Children from three age groups (6-7; 8-9; 10-11) were divided into high and low anxiety levels and high and low cognitive abilities. Then, the children were administered two questionnaires on human and animal death. The findings show that there was a main effect of age, anxiety and cognition on the conception of both animal and human death. Human death scores were higher than animal death scores. The interactions indicate that anxiety has a stronger impact on cognitively high subjects than on cognitively low subjects and that cognition affects the animal death concept more than the human death concept.

Objective of this work was to determine the long-term preservation of Yersinia pestis DNA, detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the bone tissue of rodents, and to quantify content changes over time under the influence of biotic and abiotic factors. Materials and methods. After death of model animals infected with virulent Y. pestis strain, their skeletons were freed from soft tissues and placed in the environments where conditions were close to the natural ones. The study of bone remains for the presence of Y. pestis DNA fragments was held immediately after the death of the animals, and then, twice a year. Results and conclusions. The data obtained allow for dividing all the fossil remains of the fallen from plague infection mammals into three separate groups: with high, medium, and low content of bacteria. Further study demonstrates that reduction of Y. pestis DNA concentration in bone tissue of animals after six months of storage does not occur. After a year, a sharp decrease (100-fold) of observable material dilutions for which the identification of detected plasmids is still possible, is registered. After one and a half year of observation, the genes of plague microbe in the bones of experimental animals could not be found. In order to increase the information content of the study of this type of material put forward has been proposal to reestablish the system of observation sites to collect castings and bone remains of mammals.

Red meats are derived from ruminant animals. For muscle to become meat, the animal must die. Since all plants and animals on the planet must suffer the same fate of death, the death of the animal cannot be considered as unnatural or inhumane. Some might consider the death of meat animals untimely and therefore worthy of the categorization as inhumane. But, in an existential sense, the animal would never have existed if its meat was not desired by someone. Therefore, it could be said that the consumer is the reason the animal was allowed the “privilege” of life. But, as the saying goes, “the devil is in the details,” whether the meat is produced in a manner considerate of the well-being of the animal is the issue addressed in this chapter. This chapter reviews the literature concerning the science of physiological and emotional stress and production system elements that can be employed to ameliorate stress.

Each of the novels in this chapter positions the death of the animal as fundamentally transformative of both self and text, using different formal strategies to depict, or react to, the death of the animal. Evie Wyld’s All the Birds, Singing and Yannick Murphy’s The Call both use unique narrative structures in their accounts of the relation between human and nonhuman death and trauma in farm and agricultural settings. Keith Ridgway’s Animals and Sara Baume’s A Line Made by Walking depict the death of small wild animals in ways that disrupt both stable narrative perspective and the relation between word and image. Animal death, in each text, changes not only the stories the protagonists tell about animals but also the ones they tell about themselves.

As medical caregivers for animals, we veterinarians must contend with a paradox that involves important issues between ourselves and animals. We have the power to restrain and manipulate animals for various reasons, yet we have the responsibility to do so in a way that does no harm—this introduces the paradox of the veterinarian’s role in the life and death of animals. Veterinarians are trained to help in nature’s healing process, but we also treat our patients with the knowl

Dying is one of the basic existential experiences which, at the most fundamental level, both connects and separates humans from the rest of animate nature. What they have in common is the biological dimension, while divisions occur at the cultural level. Within Western culture, based on the Christian religion, the death of an animal, seen as a soul-less being, is deprived of the sacred dimension and perceived as a biological act of cessation of all vital functions. This belief is contrasted with the perspective of companion animal caretakers, for whom the individual experience of going through the process of dying and the death of their pet can be a traumatic experience, comparable to the experience of the death of a human loved one. In this article, I consider the following: caretakers’ reac- tions to the loss, the specificity of the bond that affects grief, analogies between mourning after the death of a human and a pet, the role of ritual in the mourning process, strategies and ways of reorganizing the relationship with the deceased pet, and social attitudes faced by the caretakers in response to their grief, with particular emphasis on the phenomenon of disenfranchised grief. The text is based on ethnographic qualitative research focused on the caretakers’ experiences related to the disease and death of companion animals.

Involvement of COX and NOS induction in the sympatho-activation during sepsis

Background . Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is characterized by systemic activation of blood coagulation, which results in generation and deposition of fibrin, leading to microvascular thrombi in various organs and contributing to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Aim . The aim of this study is to evaluate the histological model of DIMinno in the conditions of DIC initiation by tissue factor or thrombin in comparison with the classical version. Materials and methods The study was performed on 150 male mice. All laboratory animals were divided into three groups depending on the thrombosis trigger: group I – collagen+adrenaline solution (0.5 mg/kg + 0.06 mg/kg), group II – 5 mg/kg of recombinant tissue factor, group III – 10 mg/kg of thrombin, IV – ADP (0.5 mg/kg). All experimental work in vivo was performed in accordance with the International Recommendations of the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes, the rules of laboratory practice in non-clinical studies. Results . In conditions of systemic thrombosis, injected suspension of epinephrine and collagen (group I) resulted in the death of all animals within 3 days. Notably, more than 50% of the mice died within the first hour of the experiment. The death rate in group II on the 14th day of the experiment was 100%, but in contrast to group I, the death of laboratory animals was registered daily throughout the entire observation period (2.2±1.6 vs 139.4±121.5, p<0.01). The case of thrombin (group III) and ADP (group IV), on the contrary, shows deaths of animals during the first days of the experiment and the results of histological examination demonstrate massive thrombosis. Histological studies of animals show a lower count of blood clots in the lungs of laboratory animals, which suggests that the main cause of animal death is not acute thrombosis, but the development of delayed manifestations of DIC-syndrome when using tissue factor. Conclusion . Thus, we can see limitations of the use of tissue factor and thrombin in model thrombosis and prove the necessity to use physiological aggregation inducers.

In Switzerland, approximately 1.2 million animals are used annually for scientific purposes. This number includes animals directly involved in experiments as well as those excluded due to factors like genotype, sex, or age —so-called “surplus animals”. While ethical debates in animal research have focused largely on the pain and suffering caused by procedures such as surgeries or injections, much less attention has been paid to moral issues raised bysurplus animals. These animals are typically housed under standard laboratory conditions and killed when deemed unnecessary. Although the Swiss Animal Welfare Act aims to protect the dignity and welfare of all sentient animals, standardhousing conditions and the killing by (legally) accepted methods are not considered a harm.In this paper, we argue that this oversight leads to an underestimation of the harms involved in animal research. We make three claims: (i) the death of research animals — whether used in experiments or not — should be recognized as a non-sentientist harm; (ii) since standard killing methods often cause pain or distress, the killing of (surplus) animals should be considered a sentientist harm; and (iii) standard housing conditions in research facilities frustrate animal interests and potentially negatively impact animal welfare and thus should be reassessed with regards to their potential sentientist and non-sentientist harms. Since surplus animals are affected by various harms, moral and legal consideration should be given to their housing and killing in research.

Misogyny and Misery on the Menu

This paper explores what happens to care, and decisions about ending and extending life, when research animals become pets and pets become research animals. To do this, we draw on in-depth qualitative research on (i) rehoming of laboratory animals, (ii) veterinary clinical research, and (iii) the role of the Named Veterinary Surgeon (NVS) in UK animal research. We begin by exploring how (in theory and practice) the ethical, affective, and practical elements of care are split in the research laboratory. We then investigate arguments for and against ending and extending animal life via clinical research and rehoming, highlighting how these activities bring norms and dilemmas around animal death in the laboratory and veterinary clinic to the fore. We conclude by demonstrating the value of investigating borders between animal categories for understanding dilemmas around care and death, and for contributing to emerging literatures within geography around animal care, death, and categorisation. Key contributions of our work include highlighting: how care roles can be split; the importance of considering speculative and in-practice elements of care; the context-dependency and multiplicity of practices of killing in the veterinary clinic and laboratory; and the flexibility and changing nature of animal categories.