Animal category: Reptiles

European Parliament: written answer to Question E-002772/23: EU legislation on use of hazardous substances in electrical equipment: consequences for animal welfare and biodiversity conservation

Question: Gianna Gancia (ID). Answer: Mr Sinkevičius on behalf of the European Commission

Published in 2023

Answer to a question on the lack of regulation of heating spotlights emitting UV-A/B radiation, used for breeding and keeping exotic animals.

Document types: Regulation/Certification

Animal categories:Wildlife, NAC, Reptiles

Keywords:Enrichment, Well-being indicator, Living environment, Stress

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A survey exploring the impact of housing and husbandry on pet snakes

B.M. Cargill, L. Benato, N. J. Rooney

Published in 2022

Scientific paper presenting the results of a survey of pet snake owners on their housing and husbandry practices. It highlights a number of living environments that do not comply with current regulations and proposes that these results should be used to target rearing advice and to draft new manuals for snake keepers.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories:Reptiles

Keywords:Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Adaptation of the environment to the animal, Enrichment, Housing, Living environment, Human-animal relationships, Stress

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Investigating Welfare Metrics for Snakes at the Saint Louis Zoo

Lauren Augustine, Eli Baskir, Corinne P. Kozlowski, Stephen Hammack, Justin Elden, Mark D. Wanner, Ashley D. Franklin, David M. Powell

Published in 2022

Scientific paper investigating the behavioural and physiological responses of zoo snakes to disturbances in animal care. It highlights the need for better daily monitoring of animal-based welfare indicators and for further study on the behavioural and physiological responses of individuals and groups of snakes to changes in their living environment.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories:Reptiles

Keywords:Animal-based measurements, Human-animal relationships, Stress, Welfare indicators

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Pet Reptiles - Are We Meeting Their Needs?

Alexandre Azevedo, Leonor Guimarães, Joel Ferraz, Martin Whiting, Manuel Magalhães-Sant'Ana

Published in 2021

Scientific article showing that although Portuguese pet reptile owners' knowledge of their animals' behaviour is generally good, they have very little knowledge of their pets' basic needs and that the conditions under which these are kept are often detrimental to their welfare.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories:Reptiles

Keywords:Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Enrichment, Living environment, Human-animal relationships, Stress, Societal issues, Welfare indicators

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La Conscience des Animaux

Pierre Le Neindre, Muriel Dunier, Alain Boissy, Emilie Bernard, Xavier Boivin, Ludovic Calandreau, Nicolas Delon, Bertrand Deputte, Sonia Desmoulin-Canselier, Nathan Faivre, Martin Giurfa, Jean-Luc Guichet, Léa Lansade, Raphaël Larrère, Pierre Mormède, Patrick Prunet, Benoist Schaal, Jacques Servière, Claudia Terlouw

Published in 2018

Are animals conscious beings?  How do they perceive their own worlds? These questions are being debated in the scientific community for both academic and practical reasons. Accordingly, on 7 July 2012, a group of leading scientists in England headed by Philip Low felt it necessary to publish The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. This manifesto states that "a convergence of evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuro-anatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states as well as the ability to express intentional behaviour...". It calls for further research to learn more about this capacity in animals. In 2015, INRA carried out a multidisciplinary scientific expertise in order to provide a critical review of the literature on animal consciousness. This work was executed at the request of the European Food Safety Authority (request EFSA-Q-2015-00390, contract no. EFSA/Inra/2015/01).

This study is an overview based on the report from INRA's collective scientific expertise (Le Neindre et al., 2017). It is divided into six chapters:
––the social, ethical and legal context for the expertise (chapter 1)
––consciousness in the animal kingdom: historical perspectives, epistemology and definitions (chap. 2)
––overview of current knowledge on human consciousness, with a discussion of the main current innovative concepts given their usefulness for our understanding of the available data on animals (Chapter 3)
––behavioural and neurobiological components in animals that allow us to talk about more or less elaborate content of consciousness. This chapter constitutes the core of the expertise (chap. 4).
––the positive consequences of taking consciousness into account on our understanding of welfare, suffering and pain (chap. 5)
––the importance of consciousness in the adaptive capacities of animals, especially in their phylogenetic components (Chapter 6)
The book concludes with proposals for future avenues of research resulting from the deliberations of various scientific bodies.

Document Types: Scientific work

Animal categories: Bovines, Canines, Caprines, Equines, Mammals, Monogastrics, Birds (except poultry), Ovines, Fish, Porcines, Primates, Reptiles, Rodents, Ruminants, Poultry

Keywords: Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Anxiety, Learning, Training, Consciousness, Pain, Societal issues, Enrichment, Brain integration, Metacognition, Cognitive processes, Evolutionary processes, Stress

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