The conventional history of animals could be more accurately described as the history of human ideas about animals. Only in the last few decades have scholars from a wide variety of disciplines attempted to document the lives of historical animals in ways that recognize their agency as sentient beings with complex intelligence. This collection advances the field further, inviting us to examine our recorded history through an animal-centric lens to discover how animals have altered the course of our collective past. The seventeen scholars gathered here present case studies from the Pacific Ocean, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, involving species ranging from gorillas and horses to salamanders and orcas. Together they seek out new methodologies, questions, and stories that challenge accepted historical assumptions and structures. Drawing upon environmental, social, and political history, the contributors employ research from such wide-ranging fields as philosophy and veterinary medicine, embracing a radical interdisciplinarity that is crucial to understanding our nonhuman past. Grounded in the knowledge that there has never been a purely human time in world history, this collection asks and answers an incredibly urgent question for historians and others interested in the nonhuman past: in an age of mass extinctions, mass animal captivity, and climate change, when we know much of what animals have done in the past, which of our activities will we want to change in the future?

Left in the wild, Billie the elephant would have spent her life surrounded by her family, free to wander the jungles of Asia. Instead, she was captured as a baby and shipped to America where she arrived in the mid 1950s, long before circus and zoo-goers worried about animal living conditions. Billie spent her first years confined in a tiny zoo yard giving rides to children. At 19, she was sold and groomed for life in the circus. Billie mastered difficult stunts: she could balance on her hind legs, walk on her front legs and perform one-foot handstands. For twenty-three years she dazzled audiences, but she lived a life of neglect and abuse. As years passed, Billie rebelled. When she attacked and injured her trainer, a federal inspector ordered her taken off the road. For a decade she languished in a dusty barn. Finally, fate intervened. The U.S. Department of Agriculture removed Billie and fifteen other elephants as part of the largest elephant rescue in American history. Billie wound up at a sanctuary for performing elephants in Tennessee at 45, but she thundered with anxiety in her new environment and refused to let anyone remove a chain still clamped around her leg. Last Chain on Billie charts the growing movement to rescue performing elephants from lives of misery, and tells the story of how one emotionally damaged elephant overcame her past and learned to trust humans again.

Dogs are getting lawyers. Cats are getting kidney transplants. Could they one day be fellow citizens?Cats and dogs were once wild animals. Today, they are family members and surrogate children. A little over a century ago, pets didn't warrant the meager legal status of property. Now, they have more rights and protections than any other animal in the country. Some say they're even on the verge of becoming legal persons.How did we get here,and what happens next?In this fascinating exploration of the changing status of dogs and cats in society, pet lover and award-winning journalist David Grimm explores the rich and surprising history of our favourite companion animals. He treks the long and often torturous path from their wild origins to their dark days in the middle ages to their current standing as the most valued animals on Earth. As he travels across the country,riding along with Los Angeles detectives as they investigate animal cruelty cases, touring the devastation of New Orleans in search of the orphaned pets of Hurricane Katrina, and coming face-to-face with wolves and feral cats,Grimm reveals the changing social attitudes that have turned pets into family members, and the remarkable laws and court cases that have elevated them to quasi citizens.The journey to citizenship isn't a smooth one, however. As Grimm finds, there's plenty of opposition to the rising status of cats and dogs. From scientists and farmers worried that our affection for pets could spill over to livestock and lab rats to philosophers who say the only way to save society is to wipe cats and dogs from the face of the earth, the battle lines are being drawn. We are entering a new age of pets,one that is fundamentally transforming our relationship with these animals and reshaping the very fabric of society.For pet lovers or anyone interested in how we decide who gets to be a person" in today's world, Citizen Canine is a must read. It is a pet book like no other.

Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. "Corporal Compassion "emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy.

"Corporal Compassion" examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition and challenges practitioners to move past recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach.

Listen as Nikki retells her piglets' favorite bedtime story. It is the story of how she escaped a factory farm, give birth to piglets on a "mound of dry ground" and how they came to live in peace at Farm Sanctuary, Watkins Glen, NY. In the end, Nikki does not know if her piglets believe that the story she tells is true. She doesn't mind. She knows they will live long and happy at Farm Sanctuary. More of us are becoming aware of from where our food comes and how the animals involved are treated. This story can open discussions for older children or can be read as a simpler story for younger children.

The great apes -- gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans -- are known to be our closest living relatives. Chimpanzees in particular share 98 percent of our DNA, and scientists widely agree that they exhibit intellectual abilities long thought to be unique to humans, such as self-awareness and the ability to interpret the moods and identify the needs of others. The close relation of apes to humans raises important ethical questions. Are they better protected in the wild or in zoos? Should they be used in biomedical research? Should they be afforded the same legal protections as humans?
Great Apes and Humans is the first book to present a spectrum of viewpoints on human responsibilities toward great apes. A variety of field biologists, academic scientists, zoo professionals, psychologists, sociologists, ethicists, and legal scholars consider apes in both the wild and captivity. They present sobering statistics on the declining numbers of wild apes, specifically discussing the decimation of great ape populations due to wild game consumption. They explore the role of apes in the educational missions of zoos as well as the need for sanctuaries for wild ape orphans and former research subjects. After examining the social division between apes and humans from historical, evolutionary, and cognitive perspectives, they conclude by reviewing the current moral and legal status of great apes as well as how apes' cognitive skills inform these issues.
Although this provocative book contains many different opinions, the uniting concern of the contributors is the safety and well-being of great apes. Only by continuing the dialogue so clearly presented here can we hope to ensure their future.

New research into human and animal consciousness, a heightened awareness of the methods and consequences of intensive farming, and modern concerns about animal welfare and ecology are among the factors that have made our relationship to animals an area of burning interest in contemporary philosophy. Utilizing methods inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein, the contributors to this volume explore this area in a variety of ways. Topics discussed include: * scientific vs. non-scientific ways of describing human and animal behaviour* the ethics of eating particular animal species* human nature, emotions, and instinctive reactions* responses of wonder towards the natural world* the moral relevance of literature* the concept of dignity* the question of whether non-human animals can use languageThis book will be of great value to anyone interested in philosophical and interdisciplinary issues concerning language, ethics and humanity's relation to animals and the natural world.

As the title suggests, this book deals with the subject of cows. Normally we see cows as docile, dumb creatures, grazing nonchalantly in some far distance. But there is a whole lot more going on in their lives. Numerous stories from around the World are presented herein to substantiate this point. Where does all the war, racism, terrorism, violence, and cruelty that's so endemic to human civilization come from? Why do humans exploit and massacre each other so regularly? Why is our species so violence-prone? To answer these questions we would do well to think about our exploitation and slaughter of animals and its effect on human civilization.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1906 Edition.

This book deals with the internal lives of the cows and contains true stories from around the world. Cow is a very sober animal and does not wag its tail as often as a dog. This does not mean dog is good and cow is food. All animals including the dog should be shown love and care. But cow especially has a serious significance for human existence. Talk about cows' feelings is often brushed off as fluffy and sentimental but this book proves it otherwise.

Know the animals, respect the planet, love thy neighbor.

Rowan Blogg is an Australian veterinarian of the highest distinction and I greatly admire his professionalism, which I observed for years at close range.
In Any Kind of Danger he has extended his work into the environment and moral philosophy by tackling the complex issue of how we exploit animals. In the 19th Century William Wilberforce and other pioneers argued that our treatment of animals is a measure of our humanity. Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (1975) stimulated international interest in the subject. Dr Blogg's book should do the same.

Rowan Blogg examines the role of wildlife on the planet, millions of years before our species became dominant, but how much habitat do we reserve for their natural life? How many species are under threat?

The world's population will stabilise at about nine billion in 2050 - and this raises the fundamental issues of how much land, water and energy we will devote to raising animals for food. Is grazing an efficient or humane way of feeding our species?
Industrial farming - out of sight and out of mind - involves inescapable cruelty. Chickens are raised on an A4 size of smaller 'scratching area', confined in multi-layered cages.
Do animals have a right of access to sunlight and paddock for at least the great part of their lives? How does a cow giving birth cope with a crowded cattle truck?

Do we turn our eyes away from the inevitable suffering involved in animal transport, especially life sheep exports?
There are profound moral lessons to be learned from observing how we treat animals - and yet the issue will not be on the agenda for the next Federal or State elections.

We are in Dr Blogg's debt for this thoughtful, passionate book.
-Barry Jones, AO, FAA, FAHA. FTSE, FASSA
Australian Minister for Science 1983-90

This book examines one of the most pressing cultural concerns that surfaced in the last decade - the question of the place and significance of the animal. This collection of essays represents the outcome of various conversations regarding animal studies and shows multidisciplinarity at its very best, namely, a rigorous approach within one discipline in conversation with others around a common theme. The contributors discuss the most relevant disciplines regarding this conversation, namely: philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, theology, history of religions, archaeology and cultural studies. The first section, Thinking about Animals, explores philosophical, anthropological and religious perspectives, raising general questions about the human perception of animals and its crucial cultural significance. The second section explores the intriguing topic of the way animals have been used historically as religious symbols and in religious rituals. The third section re-examines some Christian theological and biblical approaches to animals in the light of current concerns. The final section extends the implications of traditional views about other animals to more specific ethical theories and practices.