One of the first hashtags I came across this week was #MoonBearMonday, which is the main specie covered in my AP. Moon bear is another name for the Asiatic black bears, and reports label them as the main victims of bear bile farming in many countries throughout Asia. Like the hashtag indicates, I happened to become aware of this hashtag on a Monday, while I was scrolling through my feed. One of the accounts I followed, Animals Asia included #MoonBearMonday in a tweet that shared the story of a bear who almost died as a consequence of contracting an illness at bear bile farms. I clicked on the hashtag’s feed and then came across different bears that were rescued from bear bile farms, as well as posts that showed the horrific situations farmed bears live through. Additionally, this hashtag lead me to follow a new account on Twitter, PeaceFurPaws, a branch of Animals Asia in Canada that is dedicated to stopping bear bile farming, ending the cat and dog meat trade, and re-homing of unwanted pets.
Moving on, through the search engine on Twitter, I found another valuable feed of information, #BearBile. Through this hashtag's feed, I found news on the illegal international trade of bear bile, but I also found many petitions that demanded for the Asian governments to shut down all bear bile farms Through the hashtags, I was able to identify a few relevant accounts to the purpose of my AP (Advocacy Project). For instance, #MoonBearMonday reemphasized to me the importance of Animals Asia, an organization devoted to completely eliminating bear bile farming practices in countries like China and Vietnam. Animals Asia, provides statistics, petitions, and stories on the topic of bear bile farming. In fact, they are one of my cited sources in my Advocacy Paper. Another account I became aware of was ENV, a non-governmental organization that combats the illegal wildlife trade by reducing consumer demand, strengthening law enforcement, and improving policy and legislation. I think ENV is a great source because after navigating through their website I discovered a plentiful of outreach and awareness they are doing in Vietnam to end bile farming that includes: working with government and authorities, public awareness campaigns, working with bear farmers and school informational awareness campaigns. What I really liked was that this organization brought to my attention solutions I had not come across through my previous research. Want to learn more about bear cognition and the cruelty of bear bile farming? Follow me then @DCSiquin!
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This week I took part of a Social Media Campaign (hereafter SMC), which included researching, adopting two organizations, and campaigning on Twitter for 6 days. The first part of the SMC consisted of researching and gathering information on issues associated with my specie of focus, bears, and searching for possible solutions offered for these issues. To begin with after reading through websites of organizations that are dedicated to the protection of wildlife, especially bears, I had a general list of the main problems bears face that include: loss of habitat, poaching, recreational hunting, global warming, and human conflicts. Now, that I had a general idea of the issues threatening bears, I decided to do research on each of the eight bear species that currently live. I choose to do this since I thought I would have a better knowledge of the degree to which each of the issues previously mentioned, impact each bear specie. In order to find such information, I began researching the articles published by the organizations I followed on Twitter. Some of the organizations that provided me valuable insight into bear threats, were World Wide Fund (WWF), Bear Trust International, Defenders of Wildlife, and Animals Asia. Other sources of information included articles by National Geographic, and Scientific American. Not only that, later through more deep research, I was able to find scholarly articles like “Poachers, Tigers, and Bears...Oh My--Asia's Illegal Wildlife Trade” written by Joonmoo Lee, a member of the Northwestern University, which specifically presented the issues and possible solutions to the serious threats that American black bears face, that can eventually turn them into an endangered species. Another important source I discovered through the Academic Search Complete was, “Analyses of fecal and hair glucocorticoids to evaluate short- and long-term stress and recovery of Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) removed from bile farms in China,” which demonstrated that hair glucocorticoids indicated high levels of stress when in bile farms, but decreased after the bears were placed in rescue homes. For every source, I researched the author or organization more in detail and then proceeded to skim through the pages and see if it contained potential information on bear threats. From researching issues that threaten bears, I concluded that they were all either caused by or side effects of human actions. Most of the habitat loss, especially that of Andean bears, great pandas, and sun bears were all a consequence of infrastructure development, land clearing for industries, or inequity in land tenure. While habitat loss remained an issue for all the bear species, the other major problem currently harming bears, especially Asiatic black bears and sloth bears, was poaching and captivity. In regards to Asiatic black bears, many are in bile farms in China, Vietnam, and Laos, where they are basically stabbed to extract bile from their gallbladder. The high demand on bear bile comes from its traditional use in medicine as well as in cosmetics, and other household products. Sloth bears while they are also victims of bile farming, their biggest threat is poaching and hunting. Usually sloth bear cubs are abducted or taken brutally from their mothers who are killed; the babies then grow up to become roadside entertainment puppets. While the problems bears face seem to never come to an end, there has been solutions proposed by both the people, organizations, and governments. For finding solutions, again I went first to websites of organizations I followed on Twitter; the organizations that provided possible solutions included The League, World Animal Protection, In Defense of Animals, and Free The Bears. Other insightful general texts came from the Scientific American and The Guardian. Some of the solutions included signing petitions, smart design and roadside management, creating legislations pro-wildlife and anti-hunting, and creating awareness. While most of the solutions were somewhat broad, I did find a specific solution to the specific problem of bear bile farming. After reading The Guardian article, “Is the end of 'house of horror' bear bile factories in sight?,” I found out that the chemical in bear bile is ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) could be substituted by herbal and synthetic alternatives (artificial bear bile) which means bear bile farming is not necessary. Then through a Google search, I was able to find a literature review, “Substitutes for Bear Bile for the Treatment of Liver Diseases: Research Progress and Future Perspective,” published by Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in which it summarizes the recent research progress in potential substitutes for bear bile in the last decade. As part of the SMC, I along with other classmates had to adopt two organizations, to promote and encourage others on Twitter to follow such organizations. My group and I were working on different species (bears, hyenas, and wolves), yet we are all interested in issues that concerned human participation. After going through everyone’s choice of organization, we decided to adopt Animal Defenders International (ADI) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) which are both organizations that advocate for animal welfare and animal safety. ADI, specifically exposed issues that threaten the welfare of animals, circus suffering and animal poaching. We also choose both of these organizations because on their websites they provided more information regarding our species. I navigated through their website, and not only found the campaign work ADI and IFAW do, but also the experts they have conducting research to better secure animal well-being. My part was specifically to inform my followers how they can help protect and rescue animals through the organizations. Signing petitions, volunteer work, internships, and even working in the organization were all different ways of getting involved in the mission. Additionally, I learned that even if one does not have the time or transportation to get to locations, one can get involved online by helping sign petitions, sharing news and updates and helping spread the word. Basically then, I did online volunteering for the organizations by tweeting about the opportunities they have for one to be part of the movement that seeks animal safety and well-being worldwide.
Overall, the SMC was an organized campaign of tweets along with my group to start researching and gathering information for my Advocacy Project, where I will define a problem caused by the relationship or interaction between humans and bears, and thus present possible solutions to the issue.
This week on Twitter I continued to post, follow, and search for potential information on bears and cognition. While I did my usual routine on Twitter, this week I focused on my topic for the Historical Conversations Project, bears. Like usual I started by searching on Twitter and finished by following relevant accounts for the purpose of my research project. I found a couple of more accounts covering bear research and advocacy. Out of all the one that stood out to me though was Animals Asia, an organization that advocates for animal welfare in China and Vietnam. Their main concern is specifically on the Asiatic bears that have their bile extracted on a regular basis, which is used in traditional medicine and in various ordinary household products. If it was not for this account I would have not known the great suffering many bears go through in bile farms, where thousands of bears (mostly Asiatic black bears) are caged and deprived of basic needs.
Moreover, a few of my posts were threads that provided basic facts on bears, like my Asiatic black bear thread that explains what specific threat this type of bear specie faces. After creating this thread, later in the week I decided to research the overall threats that all or some bear species face. I found out that the factors that place bears in danger include the following: loss of habitat, poaching, recreational hunting, global warming and human conflicts. Lastly, I also thought of sharing with my followers videos that showed a couple of tasks bears can do, like climbing trees as well as scratching and communicating by rubbing on trees.
It’s week 5 of the quarter, that means I am half-way through this journey of reading, composing, and researching in order to become a better researcher and communicator. So far, I have read a Special Edition of Time titled “The Animal Mind: What they're thinking and feeling, and how to understand,” and an informational book named Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. Those two texts covered the detailed cases of animal behavior along with the latest scientific research that demonstrates each species unique way of thinking, feeling, communication, and behaving. Never before, had I been exposed to the extensive research on the field of animal science, but these sources made me realize of the abilities that non-human species are capable of. It is true I would read occasionally in the news or online about a certain animal doing or having a certain ability, but never did I imagine the extent of their capabilities. I think I was ignorant and unaware of many of the things for one of the reasons mentioned in both the article and the book, which is that many researchers, scientists, and people want to assess and evaluate everything animals do according to human measures. In reality each species is unique while they have similarities with other species including humans, each one should be understood and analyzed not according to what humans are and do. I have learned to look at animals not through my own lens, eyes or mindset as human, but as what they are. Aside from this, I have also became aware of the great similarities the human specie shares with non-human species. Whether it concerns cognition, social groups, friendships, emotions, or communication, the barrier between humans and animals ceases. Humans are animals, so then it is our responsibility to be respectful and aware that we have no right to poach, destroy habitats, trade or abuse of non-human species. Many claim in Twitter having the “right to hunt,” which I consider barbaric because of the instability and chaos caused within those affected is something that can potentially carry on to future generations of the specie. Even though I always heard humans are animals, I now truly understand how close we are to animals besides primates. These five weeks have also been focused around my goal of becoming a better reader, writer, and communicator. I have done work in class, at home, and online all targeted to help me reach higher writing, researching, and communicating skills. One of the things I have learned through this process work is the importance of creating thorough annotations. I would describe good annotations as ones that contain important information on the author, the main theme, the main ideas that the writer is trying to get across the reader, along with a list of unfamiliar and familiar words. Also, annotations can include quotes, paraphrases and summaries of important pieces of the text. With the recent work on Connect with the Process of Power, I feel I have developed better strategies when annotating. Annotations so far have made my research easier, especially after reading, I can go back and remember what the text was covering without having to read the whole text again or complete the chapters again. The second thing that I consider as an important skill developed is the ability to search and navigate through research databases. Before taking this class, my only research engine would be Google. However, with Writing 39C I have learned about other research databases like the Web of Science and the Academic Search Complete that are accessible as a UCI student through the UCI Libraries. Now that I was aware of these search tools, I had to learn to navigate and play around with the different search categories, search fields, and many other click on buttons. The first few times I was on the databases I would struggle either finding the appropriate articles or downloading pdf versions of the articles. Now, through the research databases though I learned to be persistent, a characteristic of a good researcher.
This week on Twitter I followed my routine: searching for potential sources of animal science research findings, making daily posts, and gaining followers!
From my favorite retweet of this week, I also was able to gain new followers. Peter Lombard, a popular animals rights activist was among my new followers!
More in depth, the sources I found on bear cognition consisted mostly of articles that report important scientific research findings of different experiments that tested different bear cognition skills. The first source I came across on bear cognition was through using the UCI Libraries resource the Academic Search Complete. Out of all the results of my bear and cognition search, I was drawn to an article published by The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour in 2012 titled, “Bears ‘count’ too: quantity estimation and comparison in black bears, Ursus americanus,” in which cognitive psychologists Jennifer Vonk and Michael Beran concluded that bears have numerical cognitive abilities like other primates. After “googling” Dr. Jennifer Vonk the lead researcher for this study, I found her personal website and her faculty page at the Oakland University website. Aside from finding out that Dr. Jennifer Vonk, currently focuses her research on animal cognition and cognitive development, I discovered countless of her other research publications on bear cognition along with studies on other species like gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. Thus, I concluded that with so much knowledge and experience with primates, I felt her article possessed the credibility in stating that bears have similar numerical cognitive abilities to primates that are well-known for their cognitive abilities. I also liked this article because it provided figures and charts that helped in understanding what the bears were seeing when tested. Furthermore, the second source I also found in the Academic Search Complete after taking a look at Dr. Jennifer Vonk’s 2012 research publication on black bears’ numerical cognitive abilities. Scrolling through the results of the Academic Search Complete, another one that caught my attention after skimming the abstract and headings was the article, “Understanding of object properties by sloth bears, Melursus ursinus ursinus,” published by The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour in 2017. This research article was written by Federica Amici, Trix Cacchione, and Nereida Bueno-Guerra all psychologists and researchers interested in animal cognition. The main researcher Federica Amici, currently is a post-doc researcher at the Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and is an expert in the field of animal cognition, evolutionary anthropology, ethology, and primatology. After reading through her profile at Researchgate, she has headed research on not only bear cognition, but giraffe and primate cognition as well. What I liked about this research study is that it tested both female and male sloth bears on three tasks that included object permanence, short-term memory and the ability to use acoustic cues to infer food location. In addition, in the article’s introduction it mentioned other studies realized attempting to understand the cognitive skills of other bears like giant pandas, and Andean bears. The introduction also presented some history on what has been some beliefs and thoughts throughout time concerning bear cognition.
These are just two of the many scientific sources I found on bear cognition. I thought both were some of the best because they were not just looking at the learning aspect but also at other cognitive aspects such as numerical abilities and object permanence. Keep up with my next blog posts to see how the research and soon writing process is going! |
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March 2018
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