Pigs, like humans, can get bored. Perhaps they’d like to play a game to amuse themselves? Even better, with interacting humans? A project designed to examine such possibilities is underway at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht and Wageningen University Livestock Research Department in The Netherlands. It’s called ‘Playing With Pigs’ and is “researching the complex […]
Tag: pigs
The wound-healing ape and the hydrotherapy pig
The Denver Medical Times [August 1899 vol. XIX, no. 2, pp. 65-71] was the venue for James Weir Jr.’s compendium of observations on how animals treat themselves when afflicted by diseases. Among the highlights: Several safari travelers report that elephants shot by hunters may plug their wounds with moistened clay. “In 1882 there was on […]
How much does the Air Force annoy livestock?
After years of defending legal claims from farmers and others who believed their animals had been adversely affected by sonic booms and other aircraft noises, the United States Air Force sought to find out whether the scientific evidence might be starting to go against them. Bioacoustic experts at the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, though their expertise […]
‘Pigness’ (Cinematic and Televisual) – a thesis
One of academia’s most prominent accounts of ‘Pigness’ in motion pictures was authored in 2010 by Dr. Mark von Schlemmer (University of Central Missouri, Department of Communication and Sociology) in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, With reference not only to leading examples of cinematic pigs (like Babe and […]
Involuntary Hippophagia (2): Horsemeat and Hamsters
Improbable readers may be familiar with the Pork-Cat Syndrome (a link between allergic sensitivity to pork meat and cat epithelia), details of which were first published in 1994. Perhaps less well known though is the Horsemeat-Hamster Syndrome, which could have implications for those who have been exposed to the current UK outbreak of Involuntary Hippophagia. […]
Hoping to Understand Heads and Tails, Indicatively
Heads and tails are two sides of the many-sided coin that is emotion. This study explores several sides, including those two: “Indicators of positive and negative emotions and emotional contagion in pigs,” Inonge Reimert, J. Elizabeth Bolhuis, Bas Kemp, T. Bas Rodenburg, Physiology and Behavior, vol. 109, no. 17 January 2013, pp. 42–50. The authors, […]
The ‘Animal Elimination Problem’
Are vegetarians being cruel to animals? In the sense that they might be contributing to the ‘Animal Elimination Problem’ (i.e. as a result of their refusal to eat them, are they denying as yet unborn bred-for-food animals the right to a life)? Such problems have been examined by top-of-his-class Professor Stephen H. Webb (Wabash College, […]