Newsletter - January/February 09

Although Britain is considered to be a nation of animal lovers there aren’t many events where we can learn more about our pets and other animals.

 

Learning About Animals was set up to provide information and promote interest in the welfare and behaviour of animals. The aim is to bridge the gap between professionals/scientists working with animals and the public.

 

If you have any suggestions for future events or if you would like to be considered to be a speaker please contact me.

 

I am also a qualified equine behaviourist and run consultations in Surrey and the Home Counties.  For more details please visit the relevant section of the web site.

Events Early 2009

 

Francesca Riccomini – cat workshops

Workshop on feline house soiling (7th February)

Workshop on feline aggression (18th April)
House soiling and aggression are possibly the most common and distressing problem behaviours in our cats. Such difficulties often arise because of misunderstandings about normal behaviour and basic feline needs. These two workshops will examine real life cases that illustrate the various factors involved in the development of such problems and the best way to go about successfully resolving them. £30 each. 9.30am-1pm. Details.

Talking with Animals: an afternoon exploring language in animals with Dr Britta Osthaus

Saturday 21st February 2009, Woking, Surrey

Dr Britta Osthaus is an expert in animal cognition and animal behaviour. This event will explore whether animals can be considered to communicate through language - describing the research that has been done into how animals communicate. During the course of the lecture we will meet some amazing animals that might make us reconsider the human-animal relationship. Tickets £15 (£13 concessions). 2-5pm, Woking. Details.

 

Tooth and Claw
Britain's wild predators and the way we feel about them with Ian Rowlands

Wednesday 25th February 2009 (evening lecture), Woking, Surrey

Ian Rowlands discusses how we really feel about issues such as Sea Eagles, Fox hunting, Sparrow hawks in our gardens, domestic cats and even the reintroduction of Wolves. This lecture will be brought to life by spectacular and photography. It asks questions of ourselves: as the most powerful predator of all. £8, 7.30-9pm. Details.

Bookings for all above events are being taken now. For further details of all events/tickets/how to book please visit the website or call 01932 820714.

 

Research Corner: Quiet Bison father more calves than noisy ones!

 

During their mating season, scientists recently discovered that the quietest bulls sire more offspring than the noisier ones. The researchers also found that the volume of a bull’s bellow was not related to its weight or age.

The study was published in the November issue of the journal Animal Behaviour. Why would this be? You might think that the louder the bellow would be a sign to the females of a better quality father. The scientists speculate that perhaps the bulls provide information about their suitability as a mate through other signals such as the frequency or the duration of their bellows. Perhaps bellows that are too noisy would cause too many other bison to come and find out what was going on. The scientists also wondered why the lower-quality males don’t adjust the volume of their bellows to emulate their more successful rivals. It is suggested that perhaps if you bellow more quietly rivals have to approach even closer to check you out, and if you bring another bison close there’s a higher risk of attack – too great a cost for ‘lower’ bulls.  

 

 

 

Speaker profile: Ian Rowlands

 

Ian Rowlands will be giving an evening lecture for Learning About Animals on Wednesday 25th February.

 

Ian is one of the UK’s best known, well-travelled, freelance tour leaders. He co-owns the whale watching company Planet Whale and works with Sparklezone, a company specializing in coaching retreats in the natural world. He is a trustee with Organisation Cetacea (ORCA), a registered charity for whales and dolphins. Every year Ian gives lectures on a variety of wildlife-related topics…. It’s very exciting that he is coming to Woking to give this lecture in February!

Check out Ian’s website www.ianrowlands.com for pictures (and Douglas Adams quotes!) and to find out more about his adventures.

This event is timely because ‘re-wilding’ Britain has recently been in the press – for example, see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5404100.ece. Also in early 2009, Natural England, the government’s conservation watchdog, will ask its board to consider making re-wilding part of its formal policy for protecting our natural heritage.

 

Featured Web site: Wildlife Aid

 

Wildlife Aid, as seen on TV’s ‘Wildlife SOS’, is one of the UK’s largest wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release centres.

 

The charity, having been founded in 1980 by Simon Cowell MBE, is now the only remaining organisation of its kind in Surrey. Dealing with in excess of 20,000 wildlife incidents each year, the centre is open to receive wildlife casualties around the clock, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

 

Check out the Wildlife Aid web site – which includes the following:

- A section on wildlife gardening

- A wish-list for the centre – perhaps you could help?

- Patient’s corner

- Live web cams

- And much more...

Top Names for Pets

Vets at the University of Glasgow recently released the result of their compilation over the last ten years of names of cats and dogs.  

The cat top 10 includes Jack, Oscar, Sam, Cleo, Sophie, Oliver, Jasper and Tigger.

For dogs, Max, Ben and Sam are among the most popular names for male dogs and Holly, Molly and Bonnie, the most common for females.

In the past 10 years the vet school has treated 378 dogs called Max but just three called Pickle; and a cat called Harry Potter was also  treated!

During the past three years, names such as Al Capone, Clooney, Indiana, Gandalph, Harry Potter, Beckham and Del Boy have gained in popularity, according to the study.

 

 

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Featured Charity - Orangutan Appeal UK

 

Did you know..?

 

· Orangutans are the largest tree dwelling mammal in the world

 

· Adult Orangutans have the strength of four men

 

· Orangutans have an arm-span of up to 8 ft when fully grown

 

· Male Orangutans require large home ranges, up to 2500 ha

 

· Orangutans also face threats from hunters, illegal pet trade and disease. Orangutans are the slowest breeding mammal in the world

 

Founded in 2000 by Sue Sheward, the Orangutan Appeal UK is dedicated to providing a sustainable future for the endangered orangutan species through rehabilitation and conservation of orangutans and their natural rainforest habitat.

 

In the past 20 years, 80% of orangutan habitat has been lost, due to illegal logging, rainforest clearance for permanent agriculture plantations, forest fires and gold mining. Orangutans are disappearing at a rate of 2,000 a year and there are fears that, at this rate of decline, both the Sumatran and the Bornean orangutan could become extinct in the wild by 2010.

 

Orangutan Appeal UK is the only charity dedicated to raising money for the world famous Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre in North Borneo. The centre currently cares for fifty orangutans, teaching them the skills needed to survive in the wild including foraging for food, building nests and tree-climbing.

 

Once rehabilitated, these orangutans are later released into a protected rainforest reserve for a second chance of life in the wild, whilst remaining secure.

 

The Appeal’s achievements to date include building a new intensive care unit for the Sepilok Centre, sponsorship of veterinary staff, a new Land Rover to enable carryout rescues and releases, the world’s first orangutan cataract surgery, a campaign to free captive orangutans, assisting the Centre for Orangutan Protection in Indonesia and the first helicopter relocation of an orangutan. The Appeal’s ground breaking research project on Post-Release Monitoring of rehabilitated orangutans has recently been acknowledged by the Prince’s Rainforests Project for its contribution to conservation.

 

The Orangutan Appeal’s main source of funding comes through the sale of the Appeal’s orangutan ‘Adoption’ packs, through fundraising and donations, legacies and corporate sponsorships. They desperately need your help to continue their valuable work.

 

For more information and to make a donation, please contact 01590 622966, email info@orangutan-appeal.org.uk, or visit www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk. The Orangutan Appeal UK is registered charity number 1092640.

 

The web site includes a shop where you can buy orangutan-related gifts such as this jute bag  - a great environmentally friendly alternative to the plastic bag. £3.50

 

Orangutans have been in the news recently – see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7797776.stm. Recent research shows that they can learn to trade favours and are better at it, or more willing to do it, than other apes such as chimps, gorillas and bonobos!

 

Also, a whistling captive orangutan has provided scientists with clues about the evolution of human speech and learning, see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081211112004.htm

 

Learning About Animals is considering holding a morning of lectures all about orangutans with speakers from this appeal and other experts. Let me know if you would be interested – if I get enough responses it will be organized for late summer 2009 with the profit being donated to Orangutan projects.

 

The orangutan on the left is Naru. He was on the Appeal's adoption scheme and has since completed the rehabilitation programme and is enjoying his second chance at life in the wild, released into a protected rainforest reserve.

 

Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored.”— Alice Walker

Farm Animal Welfare: The Compassionate Shopping Guide

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) has written a compassionate shopping guide - which you can download from their web site. The guide provides information for the ethical consumer about which meat, fish, eggs and dairy produce to buy and which to avoid. It also tells you how each supermarket scores on the welfare of farm animals.

CIWF say “The food you choose has a direct effect on how farm animals live. Sixty billion animals are farmed for food worldwide every year – the vast majority of them reared intensively in systems that seriously impact on their welfare. We're here to show you how simple it is to make their lives better through the food you eat.”

 

 

Behaviour Corner - Enrichment

 

In the wild, animals spend a considerable amount of time and energy finding and processing food, building their nests and defending the boundaries of their territory. The majority of their waking hours may be spent meeting these needs.

 

Because we provide our pets with food, a home etc. the time they  spend doing these things is significantly reduced and as a result the behavioural and psychological needs that are associated with these activities might not be met.

Enrichment can help to address these needs but to be effective needs to be appropriate - chickens would like a perch but a dog wouldn’t be so impressed with one! We must also try not to think about what we might want but what our pets would want; for example although we like to curl up and sleep for around eight hours a night a horse in a stable might well get bored as horses only sleep for around 4 hours spread throughout the day.

To keep our pets busy we need to continually bear this in mind for their physical and psychological well-being - we can think about what and how we feed them, what we can give them to do, if they are a social species we should consider getting them a friend, etc.

In future newsletters there will be a section with ideas for enrichment for dogs, cats, rabbits and horses so watch this space...