Posts Tagged ‘Rights’
UK Government makes welcome move to enshrine Animal Sentience in UK law
We published this feature in late November when this issue broke, but on the 12th December Defra announced that the UK will introduce a new Animal Welfare Bill 2018 that ‘…sets out that the government “must have regard to the welfare needs of animals as sentient beings in formulating and implementing government policy”. Whilst welcoming this move, WDC…
Read MoreNew study on brain size and cultural behaviour in whales and dolphins
Authors of a new scientific paper published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution have put forward the theory that there is a link between brain size and social and cultural behaviour in whales and dolphins. The researchers looked at 90 different species of whales and dolphins and suggest the bigger their brains, the more complex…
Read MoreWhale heroes
Researchers have recorded a number of cases where humpback whales seem to be intentionally rescuing other species. The motivation behind these actions are unknown, but it begs the questions whether these rescues are driven by the whales’ empathy. In the first of our guests blogs as part of #whaleweek, Kathryn Leckie from WDC partner ‘My…
Read MoreSperm whale cultural turn-over: moving on out
Decades of research on sperm whales in the Pacific has revealed a most remarkable social event. Researchers have documented the large-scale relocation of cultural groups of sperm whales off the Galápagos Islands. Sperm whale clans can be differentiated by their unique click patterns, or codas. Researchers have been visiting the waters around the Galapagos over…
Read MoreResearch reveals pilot whales babysit young of other whales
A new report in Marine Mammal Science on the findings of a study of pilot whales off Nova Scotia, Canada, has shown that adult whales in the population look after the young of unrelated other whales. While this type of babysitting, know as “alloparental care”, has been observed in other social mammals, it is the…
Read MoreDolphin with broken blowhole learns to breathe through mouth
A New Zealand dolphin has amazed researchers in New Zealand by adapting to breathe through his or her mouth after she or he was unable to use the blowhole, according to a report in Marine Mammal Science. Whereas humans have the option to either use their nose or mouth, dolphins have evolved to just use…
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