Blood transfusion for dogs and cats

 Somewhat as in human donation around the world, blood donors for veterinary transfusions of cats and dogs are both volunteers and professionals. (Of course all these donors are themselves dogs and cats.)

Here's the NYT on the story:

 The Pet ‘Superheroes’ Who Donate Their Blood.
Transfusions have become an important part of veterinary medicine, but cat and dog blood is not always easy to come by.  By Emily Anthes

 "All kinds of ailments — including injuries, infectious diseases, immune conditions and cancer — can leave a pet in desperate need of blood, and transfusion has become an increasingly routine part of veterinary care.

“It is just as important a part of veterinary medicine as it is for human medicine,” said Dr. Dana LeVine, a small-animal internist at Auburn University and the president of the Association of Veterinary Hematology and Transfusion Medicine.

...

"There is no canine Red Cross. Instead, there are hospitals with in-house blood donation colonies, veterinary clinics with a roster of ad hoc donors on call and a small number of commercial blood banks, with wait lists that can stretch for months. There is also a growing community of pet owners who are signing their animals up to provide blood for other pets in need 

...

"Commercial blood banks for animals began emerging in the 1980s. Some rely on “closed colonies,” a group of cats or dogs that live on site, providing blood for several years before they are put up for adoption.

"Closed colonies have been a critical source of animal blood and can be run humanely, experts said. “I know many places that have fabulous cat rooms for cat donors,” said Dr. LeVine, who adopted her previous cat, Salt, from a blood donation colony.

"But animal rights activists have also exposed mistreatment and abuse at some commercial blood banks with closed colonies, and demand far outstrips the volume of blood they can provide.

"These factors have helped fuel interest in an alternate model, which recruits local pets to become regular donors. At DoveLewis, roughly 90 dogs and 40 cats serve as regular donors, or what the hospital calls “superheroes.”

...

"Community blood banks don’t pay pet owners for blood, but they do offer other perks, which often include free veterinary exams, blood work and flea and tick preventatives. The animals are rewarded, too. At DoveLewis, donor dogs get a jar of chicken or beef baby food. “It’s just the perfect size jar of smelly meat,” said Kelsey Reinauer, the blood bank director. “And then they get to pick out a toy from our toy bucket.”

########

See also

California Animal Blood Banks Program

“Historically, California required commercial blood banks for animals to be closed-colony establishments. On January 1, 2022, Assembly Bill 1282, the California Pet Blood Bank Modernization Act, went into effect. This law aims to address the shortage of animal blood available for veterinary transfusion medicine in California and transition the state from closed-colony blood banks to community blood banks.”

Technology and crime: cloning giant sheep

 There are things you can go to prison for that wouldn't have been possible to do not long ago.

The Washington Post is on the case:

Rancher sentenced to 6 months in prison for illegally cloning giant sheep. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 81, previously pleaded guilty to creating giant hybrid sheep via illegally imported genetic material.  By Kyle Melnick

"The Montana rancher’s illegal scheme began in 2012, when he paid for his son to hunt one of the world’s largest sheep species in Kyrgyzstan, court documents say. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth then used parts of the sheep in the following years to breed an even larger hybrid species and sell those animals to hunters.

"Now, Schubarth is set to spend six months in prison for the ploy after pleading guilty to two felony wildlife counts in March. Both counts stemmed from violations of the Lacey Act, a federal conservation law that prohibits interstate sales of falsely labeled animals and sales of animals to states where they’re illegal to own.

...

"Much of the scheme played out at Schubarth’s 215-acre ranch in Vaughn, Mont., where he bred and sold mountain sheep, mountain goats and similar breeds. Schubarth paid for his son to take multiple trips to Kyrgyzstan in 2012 and 2013. In January 2013, Schubarth’s son brought back viable tissue from a Marco Polo argali, a rare and large species native to central Asia, but didn’t declare the materials when he reentered the United States, court documents allege.

...

"Schubarth sought to create an even more valuable species, according to prosecutors. Sheep with larger horns and bodies are worth more to hunters, including at private shooting preserves, where hunters pay to pursue captive game.

...

"Schubarth agreed to a contract with a cloning facility in 2015, and by late the following year, he had 165 cloned embryos of Marco Polo argali. He implanted embryos in his ewes and in May 2017 bred a male argali, who he named Montana Mountain King.

"In the following years, Schubarth bred Montana Mountain King’s semen with other ewe species, creating more hybrid sheep that he sold to captive hunting facilities, mainly in Texas. To do so, he bought Rocky Mountain bighorn sheeps’ testicles, despite Montana prohibiting trade of game animals."

Kidney transplants for cats

 Kidney transplants for cats are a thing, and they all take the form of kidney exchange with a very short chain, in which the lives of two cats are saved. The donor cat is either an unadopted cat from a 'kill shelter,' or a veteran of a medical research trial, who (as the story below says) would otherwise face a "bleak future." But when such a cat becomes a living kidney donor, it is adopted into the family of the cat who receives the transplant (and I guess it goes without saying that they love cats..)

The Washington Post has the story

.Cat kidney transplants: For some, the pricey procedure is well worth it. The surgery can cost up to $25,000. “I just spent $17,000 on my roof, and I love my cat a lot more than my roof,” one person said.  By Marlene Cimons

"Segal, then living in the Boston area, drove his cat to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia where Despy underwent a kidney transplant in 2018. Today, Despy is thriving. So is Stevie, the kidney donor cat from a local shelter that Segal agreed to adopt as part of the renal transplant.

...

"Chronic kidney disease is one of the most common conditions in aging cats and a leading cause of death. The disease can be heritable, afflicting young cats such as Despy, and can result from toxin exposure, such as eating lilies.

...

"Like humans, cats have two kidneys, which filter waste from the body, and can live with just one if that kidney is healthy.

"Kidney transplants in cats began more than 25 years ago, although they still are rare, and only three facilities perform them: Penn Vet, the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine.

"Penn Vet has performed 185 transplants since 1998, the Georgia school more than 40 since 2009, and Wisconsin 87 since 1996.

...

"Many pet health insurance companies will cover some of the costs for the recipient, but usually not for the donor because “the donor is not the insured pet,” according to the North American Pet Health Insurance Association. The cost for the donor surgery to harvest the kidney is about 25 percent of the $25,000 total, Aronson says.

...

"Matching is easier for cats than it is for humans needing a transplant because there are only two blood types among all cats.

"Donors come from cat research breeding facilities or shelters, where they might otherwise have a bleak future, and families whose cats undergo transplants must adopt the donors. “For the cost of a kidney, [the donor cats] get to move in with a cat-loving household and are universally loved by their new adoptive families,” Schmiedt says.

...

"Transplants other than kidneys in pets aren’t viable because most require the death of the donor. Kidney transplants in dogs can be challenging because, unlike cats, they often suffer problems with immunosuppression, says Aronson, who has performed three. (The dogs survived but did not do as well long-term as cats, she says.)

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Earlier

Monday, November 23, 2020

Colin Sullivan on organ transplant policy (and on the job market this year)

His job market paper is an experiment with an exceptionally creative design. (Spoiler: it involves a cat actually getting a kidney transplant.) 

Eliciting Preferences Over Life And Death: Experimental Evidence From Organ Transplantation by Colin by D. Sullivan

Frans de Waal (1948-2024)

 The eminent primatologist Frans de Waal has passed away. Here's a memoriam from Emory University:

Emory primatologist Frans de Waal remembered for bringing apes ‘a little closer to humans’

I sometimes show the video below about his experiment with monkeys on fairness (and being treated unfairly) to my class on experimental economics (typically when I'm about to talk about the ultimatum game).

"Two capuchins were situated in enclosures next to one another. A researcher would ask them to do a task and if they succeeded give them a treat. The catch was one monkey was always rewarded with a piece of cucumber while the other monkey sometimes got a piece of cucumber and sometimes got a grape — a preferred treat among capuchin monkeys.

"A video de Waal filmed of one of the experiments created a media sensation.

Unequal pay for equal work: When the first monkey gives the researcher a rock, she is rewarded with a cucumber slice. But watch what happens when the first monkey sees the second monkey hand the researcher a rock — and get a much tastier grape instead.

"A monkey that received only cucumber appears perfectly happy until she sees her companion receive a grape. Then her behavior changes. She accepts the next piece of cucumber only to throw it back at the researcher, pounding the surface in front of the enclosure and shaking its Plexiglas walls.

“That video struck home with a lot of people,” Brosnan says. “Who hasn’t felt like that monkey that’s only getting cucumbers? Our research showed something about the evolution of the sense of human fairness.”

Picking the wrong pony: wolves and people in Europe

 The Guardian has the story, within the larger story of controversy about wolves, and endangered species.

A wolf killed the EU president’s precious pony - then the fight to catch the predator began. After being hunted to near extinction, wolves have returned to Europe. But when one killed Ursula von der Leyen’s family pony, it ignited a high-stakes battle. Are the animals’ days numbered? by Patrick Barkham

A wolf killed a pony at night...

"Unluckily for the wolf, and perhaps for the entire wolf population of western Europe, Dolly was a cherished family pet belonging to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, one of the most powerful people in the EU. Last September, a year after Dolly’s death, von der Leyen announced plans that to some wolf-defenders looked like revenge: the commission wants to reduce the wolf’s legal protection.

"Action had already been taken against Dolly’s killer. DNA evidence harvested from the pony’s carcass revealed that the wolf was an individual known as GW950m. This mature male wolf, which heads a pack (a wolf family usually numbering eight to 10) living around the von der Leyen residence, appears to have developed a taste for livestock. DNA tests on other carcasses implicates him in the deaths of about 70 sheep, horses, cattle and goats. Experts believe younger pack members might have copied his hunting methods. Because GW950m was now classified as a “problem wolf”, a permit was issued to allow hunters to shoot him legally (wolves can only be killed under exceptional circumstances, according to EU law). It was the seventh such licence to be issued in Lower Saxony, a state the size of Denmark with a thriving population of at least 500 wolves...

"Against the odds, more than a year after the licence to kill was first issued, GW950m remains at large, living quietly on a diet of mostly deer in forests east of Hanover.

...

"Wolves have adapted swiftly and surely to human-dominated landscapes. But people are struggling to adjust to the wolves. The concentration of packs, von der Leyen declared when announcing the commission’s review of wolf protection laws, “has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans”. In December, the commission proposed to reduce the wolf’s status under the Bern Convention from “strictly protected” to “protected” in order to introduce “further flexibility” – potentially enabling wolves to be hunted and populations reduced across the EU.... “Wolves are a subject that might change elections,” says one German conservationist.

....

"The wolf’s revival in western Europe is actually an interesting accumulation of accidents. Before its return, EU member states including Germany pushed to ensure that this disappearing species was given the highest protection under the EU’s habitats directive in 1992. When the cold war ended, many eastern European farms were abandoned, meaning that Russian populations found it easier to pad westwards. When the wolf reached Germany, it found hiding places on disused military bases – and, initially, sympathy.

“If wolves had returned 50 years ago, they wouldn’t have stood a chance, because our view of nature was very different to today,” says Kenny Kenner, a wolf expert who collects sightings and DNA data on wolves for the Lower Saxony government, and leads walks to educate people about this fascinating, complicated animal. “We see ourselves as part of nature and, much more importantly, as dependent on nature. This led to the possibility that a species as difficult for us as the wolf could come back.”

Black market monkeys for medical research

 Monkeys used in medical research are supposed to come from carefully bred laboratory colonies, but the rising price has led to black markets, which is bad for both monkeys and for medical researchers. (And monkeys are useful for medical research because of their relatively close relation to humans, which makes for difficult conversations regardless of their source...)

The Guardian has the story:

$20,000 monkeys: inside the booming illicit trade for lab animals  by Phoebe Weston

"An international shortage of lab monkeys has driven up prices, incentivising a booming illicit trade. The problem risks undermining research, creating new pandemics, and fuelling wildlife trafficking. As the trade expands, a once-thriving species is now on the edge: in 2022, it was added to the IUCN list of endangered species. Some animal rights activists are calling to end the trade altogether.

"Long-tailed macaques are the most heavily traded primate species in the world, according to a paper published in September, and much of this is for laboratory research. The US National Association for Biological Research says non-human primates remain a critical resource for research, with about 70,000 monkeys imported a year to study infectious diseases, the brain and the creation of new drugs. Difficulty getting monkeys is compromising important research, Sacha says. Before the pandemic he was paying between $2,000 (£1,600) and $5,000 for an animal. Now, it’s about $20,000. “For a couple of years during lockdown it was near impossible to get them,” he says.

"He is not alone. Almost two-thirds of researchers struggled to find monkeys in 2021, according to a report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which found that the supply of monkeys for research is at crisis point. According to an article in Science, the report is the “strongest government statement yet on the precarious state of monkey research”. A similar picture is coming from Europe, where a shortage of monkeys has resulted in some research being abandoned.

"Long-tailed macaques (the monkey most commonly used in medical research) are protected under international trade law and special permits are required to import the animals into the US.

"Laboratories need pathogen-free primates that are in good condition and so do not want monkeys that have been wild-caught. With prices so high, however, traffickers are incentivised to catch them in the wild and launder them in via established breeding colonies.

"For decades, China was the largest supplier, but it banned the wild animal trade in 2020 in light of the Covid pandemic. Demand for monkeys increased significantly in the following years, but supply did not. Cambodia has since significantly increased exports to plug the gap and tap into this increasingly lucrative market.

...

"Animal rights campaigners want the US government to end the “cruel trade”, saying it poses a significant threat to public health. The National Academies report says investing in non-animal “organ on a chip” technology could reduce overall demand.

"It also recommended that the US expand its domestic breeding facilities – which it can then regulate. Sacha says: “We shouldn’t be reliant on external countries for these animals that are really critical to our ability to test new therapeutics and vaccines and medicines.”

Illegal to sell fur coats in California

 The NY Times has the story. (And you still can't eat horsemeat here.)

Fur Sales Are Illegal in California. Does Anyone Care?.The popularity of fur products had been diminishing in the state even before the new ban. By Max Berlinger

"a law banning the sale and manufacture of luxury pelts like mink, sable, chinchilla, lynx, fox, rabbit and beaver that went into effect in California in January has so far been largely met with a shrug 

...

“There was a bigger ripple when Chanel stopped selling crocodile.” 

"With California’s mild climate and eco-conscious reputation, some have said that a ban on fur sales in the state is more of a symbolic gesture than practical measure.

"The statewide ban, the first of its kind in the country, codifies what was a growing movement happening at the city level in recent years. (Los Angeles, West Hollywood, San Francisco and Berkeley had similar bans before.) This law extends the city bans already in effect in some areas across the country’s most populous state, one that, despite certain clichés, encompasses a wide variety of landscapes and political affiliations."

**********

Here's the bill, California Assembly Bill 44, which forbids sale or manufacture of new fur products (but permits sale of existing garments):

"This bill would make it unlawful to sell, offer for sale, display for sale, trade, or otherwise distribute for monetary or nonmonetary consideration a fur product, as defined, in the state. The bill would also make it unlawful to manufacture a fur product in the state for sale. The bill would exempt from these prohibitions used fur products, as defined, fur products used for specified purposes, and any activity expressly authorized by federal law."

Who is a person?

 The question of who is a person (in law, and in welfare economics) is sometimes vexing. Arguments about abortion focus on the personhood of a fetus. The growing possibility of successful transplants of pig organs into humans might be viewed with less optimism if we thought of pigs as people (and transplants from great apes would probably be repugnant because apes are uncomfortably close to being human).  In economic theory we often speak of Pareto improvements as those that raise the welfare of "everyone," with the assumption that the model takes care of specifying the full set of people we are concerned with.  As we make progress in artificial intelligence, we may find ourselves asking about the personhood of machines.

In the meantime, here's a New Yorker story about a lawsuit brought on behalf of an elephant in the Bronx zoo:

The Elephant in the Courtroom. A curious legal crusade to redefine personhood is raising profound questions about the interdependence of the animal and human kingdoms.   By Lawrence Wright

"The subject of the petition was Happy, an Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo. American law treats all animals as “things”—the same category as rocks or roller skates. However, if the Justice granted the habeas petition to move Happy from the zoo to a sanctuary, in the eyes of the law she would be a person. She would have rights.

"Humanity seems to be edging toward a radical new accommodation with the animal kingdom. In 2013, the government of India banned the capture and confinement of dolphins and orcas, because cetaceans have been proved to be sensitive and highly intelligent, and “should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ ” with “their own specific rights.” The governments of Hungary, Costa Rica, and Chile, among others, have issued similar restrictions, and Finland went so far as to draft a Declaration of Rights for cetaceans. In Argentina, a judge ruled that an orangutan at the Buenos Aires Eco-Park, named Sandra, was a “nonhuman person” and entitled to freedom—which, in practical terms, meant being sent to a sanctuary in Florida. The chief justice of the Islamabad High Court, in Pakistan, asserted that nonhuman animals have rights when he ordered the release of an elephant named Kaavan, along with other zoo animals, to sanctuaries; he even recommended the teaching of animal welfare in schools, as part of Islamic studies. In October, a U.S. court recognized a herd of hippopotamuses originally brought to Colombia by the drug lord Pablo Escobar as “interested persons” in a lawsuit that would prevent their extermination. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is currently weighing a bill, backed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, that would consider the effect of government action on any sentient animal.

"Although the immediate question before Justice Tuitt was the future of a solitary elephant, the case raised the broader question of whether animals represent the latest frontier in the expansion of rights in America—a progression marked by the end of slavery and by the adoption of women’s suffrage and gay marriage. 

...

"Having lost the chimpanzee cases in New York, Wise and his team armed themselves with dozens of friend-of-the-court briefs in support of personhood for Happy. One of them came from Laurence Tribe, the Harvard legal scholar. “It cannot pass notice that African Americans who had been enslaved famously used the common law writ of habeas corpus in New York to challenge their bondage and to proclaim their humanity, even when the law otherwise treated them as mere things,” Tribe wrote. “Women in England were once considered the property of their husbands and had no legal recourse against abuse until the Court of King’s Bench began in the 17th century to permit women and their children to utilize habeas corpus to escape abusive men. Indeed, the overdue transition from thinghood to personhood through the legal vehicle of habeas corpus must be deemed among the proudest elements of the heritage of that great writ of liberation.”

"A precedent that Wise particularly favors is a 1772 case in England concerning James Somerset, a Black man enslaved to Charles Stewart, a customs officer in Boston. When Stewart brought him to England, Somerset briefly escaped, and upon his recapture Stewart had him imprisoned on a ship bound for Jamaica, where he was to be sold on the slave market. English supporters of Somerset filed for a writ of habeas corpus to gain his freedom. The case came before Lord Mansfield, a consequential figure in the British legal tradition. Although slavery had not been legally endorsed in Britain, an estimated fifteen thousand enslaved people lived there, and hundreds of thousands lived in British territories. Recognizing Somerset as a legal person would not just liberate a single individual but set a precedent that could be financially ruinous for slaveholders. Mansfield declared, “Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.” He ruled that slavery was “so odious” that common law could not support it.

“That was the beginning of the end of slavery, first in England, then at least in the northern part of the U.S.,” Wise said in Tuitt’s court.

“Did they actually say the person who was enslaved was a person?” the Justice asked.

“No, they said he was free, he had rights,” Wise responded. “A person is an entity who has the capacity for rights, any entity who has a right was automatically a person.”

Will NYC ban fur sales?

The NY Times has the story:

Proposed Fur Ban in New York Pits Animal Rights Advocates Against Black Ministers

"As Corey Johnson, the speaker of the New York City Council, urged his colleagues on Wednesday to ban the sale of fur in the city, he argued that it was the “moral thing to do.”

"But the proposed ban, backed by animal rights advocates, has met an unexpected challenge from a diverse set of opponents, including black pastors and Hasidic leaders. They say a prohibition would fly in the face of centuries of religious and cultural tradition.

"Black ministers have staged protests, saying that for many African-Americans, wearing furs is a treasured hallmark of achievement. Hasidic rabbis point to the many men who wear fur hats on the Sabbath. And fur shop owners and garment manufacturers have raised alarms over the potential loss of jobs and an attack on an industry with a deep history in New York
...
"The bill being considered by the Council would ban the sale of fur garments and accessories, but it would allow the sale of used fur garments and new apparel using fur from older garments. Violators would be subject to fines of $500 to $1,500, and any money made from selling banned fur would be subject to forfeiture. The bill would not ban wearing fur.

"Los Angeles is the largest city in the country to have banned the sale of fur; other cities include San Francisco and West Hollywood. But New York City is the largest fur retail market in the United States, according to FurNYC, a trade group representing 130 fur retailers in the city. The 150 fur businesses in the city create 1,100 jobs and produce $400 million in revenue per year, according to the group."

Xenotransplants, Baby Fae, and the complex pioneering efforts of Dr. Leonard Bailey, RIP

The recent death of Dr. Leonard Bailey (who performed the first successful heart transplant to an infant) reminded me of how so many ultimately successful stories in organ transplantation begin with rather wild shots in the dark, involving patients who have little to lose.

Here's the NY Times obituary:

Dr. Leonard Bailey, Who Gave a Baby a Baboon’s Heart, Dies at 76
By Denise Grady, May 22, 2019

"Dr. Leonard L. Bailey, who elicited both admiration and outrage by transplanting the heart of a baboon into a dying infant in 1984, died on May 12 at his home in Redlands, Calif. He was 76.
...
"Although Dr. Bailey went on to pioneer human heart transplants for infants, and to build a renowned center for children’s cardiac surgery at Loma Linda University in Southern California, he remained best known to the public as the doctor behind the wrenching story of the infant known as Baby Fae.

...
"“I knew she was going to die, and I had to try,” Ms. Beauclair [Baby Fae's mom] said in a telephone interview. “If I hadn’t tried, I always would have wondered, could we have saved her?
...
"The operation took place on Oct. 26, 1984. At first, Stephanie seemed to thrive. During a news conference at the hospital, Dr. Bailey was ebullient, describing her as a “beautiful, healthy baby” whose transplanted heart was doing “everything it should.”

"Baby Fae made headlines around the world. The public was enchanted by her. But reactions to the surgery ranged from awe to horror.
...
"Animal rights groups said killing the baboon was immoral and held demonstrations outside the hospital and Dr. Bailey’s home. He and the hospital received threats.

“This wasn’t a wild whim,” Dr. Roger Hadley, dean of Loma Linda University School of Medicine, said in an interview. “He had worked for years on doing cross-species transplants in animals. We had a whole lab of animals who had somebody else’s heart.”

"Dr. Hadley added that the hospital at Loma Linda is faith-based — the hospital and the university are run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church — and said that all its ethicists and theologians had thought that the transplant was the right thing to do.

“We stood by him here,” he said.
...
"Stephanie’s initial rally after the surgery did not last. Rejection and organ failure set in, and she died on Nov. 15, 1984. She had survived for 21 days.

"Her case helped focus concern on the plight of babies born with fatal heart defects, and the desperate need for organs. The next year, Dr. Bailey performed the first successful heart transplant in an infant, from a human donor. He went on to perform 375 more over the course of his career, as well as other types of pediatric heart surgery. He continued operating until 2017.

"Because of growing ethical concerns about experimenting on primates, research on using them as a source of organ transplants has mostly been abandoned. But efforts are underway to genetically alter pigs to make their organs compatible with humans."

Kosher and halal slaughtering banned in Belgium

The coalition of liberal animal rights activists and European anti-Semites and Islamophobes doesn't make the new laws easy to parse:

Belgium Bans Religious Slaughtering Practices, Drawing Praise and Protest

"BRUSSELS — A Belgian ban on the Muslim and Jewish ways of ritually slaughtering animals went into effect on New Year’s Day, part of a clash across Europe over the balance between animal welfare and religious freedom.

"With both animal rights advocates and right-wing nationalists pushing to ban ritual slaughter, religious minorities in Belgium and other countries fear that they are the targets of bigotry under the guise of animal protection.
...
"Laws across Europe and European Union regulations require that animals be rendered insensible to pain before slaughter, to make the process more humane. For larger animals, stunning before slaughter usually means using a “captive bolt” device that fires a metal rod into the brain; for poultry it usually means an electric shock.
...
"But slaughter by Muslim halal and Jewish kosher rules requires that an animal be in perfect health — which religious authorities say rules out stunning it first — and be killed with a single cut to the neck that severs critical blood vessels. The animal loses consciousness in seconds, and advocates say it may cause less suffering than other methods, not more.

"Most countries and the European Union allow religious exceptions to the stunning requirement, though in some places — like the Netherlands, where a new law took effect last year, and Germany — the exceptions are very narrow. Belgium is joining Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia among the nations that do not provide for any exceptions.
...
"The idea for the ban was first proposed by Ben Weyts, a right-wing Flemish nationalist and the minister in the Flanders government who is responsible for animal welfare. Mr. Weyts was heavily criticized in 2014 for attending the 90th birthday of Bob Maes, who had collaborated with the Nazi occupation of Belgium in World War II and later became a far-right politician."

Laboratory grown meat: coming ...soon?

For omnivores concerned about cruelty in the food supply, laboratory grown meat offers an attractive possibility.  It's being explored in many places: here's an optimistic recent story that caught my eye on an Israeli Lab Meat Startup.

"Future Meat Technologies is developing a manufacturing platform for the production of meat products directly from animal cells. By the end of 2018, Future Meats intends to have a dish based on its cultured chicken meat served at a Jerusalem chef restaurant, the company’s chief scientist Yaakov Nahmias said in an interview with Calcalist Wednesday. The company is set to launch its first line of meat products by 2020, he said.

"Founded in February, Future Meat Technologies sprung from research conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by a team led by Mr. Nahmias. The technology is licensed to the company by the university's knowledge transfer company Yissum Research Development.


"Companies producing lab-cultured meat state that in addition to eliminating the need to raise animals for slaughter, lab-grown meat products reduce exposure to food-borne illnesses and reduce pollution and water consumption.


"The world’s first cultured beef hamburger was grown at a Maastricht University lab in 2013 by Mosa Meat, a Maastricht, the Netherlands-based company backed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Other companies have since attempted to create meat from single cells.


"New York-based early-stage biotechnology startup Finless Foods Inc. is aiming to develop and mass manufacture lab-cultured alternatives to conventionally-caught and commercially-farmed seafood. San Francisco-based Memphis Meats produces beef, chicken, and duck products by culturing animal cells, and released the world’s first cultured meatball in February 2016 and the world’s first cultured poultry in March 2017.

...
"The first lab-grown burger, produced in 2013, cost about $2.3 million per kilogram. The price of cultured meat production has since plummeted. Production costs for Future Meats currently stand at $500 per kilo, and the company aims to reach a $5 per kilo cost by 2020, Mr. Nahmias said."

Illegal trade in wildlife--photographic art recording a black market

The WSJ has a story about a photographer who has created still-life photos from animal remains confiscated  by Canadian customs agents.

‘The illegal trade of wildlife is one of the great disgraces of humanity

"To create “Trafficked,” Fitzgerald holed up for days with the Wildlife Enforcement Branch of the Canadian government in a locked area containing cases of confiscated specimens from the illegal wildlife trade. She created all of the images using the laborious 19th century wet collodion process that involves exposing chemically treated photographic plates and then developing them in a darkroom. What resulted is a poetically compelling look at the evidence of human beings’ sometimes illegal, often abusive, relationship in wildlife trading."

Kidney exchange for cats

When you read about a kidney transplant for a cat (see below), you might wonder about the kidney donor.  It turns out the transplant involved a living-donor kidney donation in exchange for a home and a life saving rescue from an animal shelter (in which un-adopted animals are euthanized):

Here's the Baltimore Sun:

A $19,000 kidney transplant for a 17-year-old cat? His Baltimore owner says it was money well spent

"Not quite four months ago, Betsy Boyd spent 41 percent of her annual salary on a kidney transplant for her ailing 17-year-old cat, Stanley.

As a condition of the $19,000 surgery, she also adopted the kidney donor, a 2-year-old tabby named Jay"

Tech Times tells us more about the donor Jay:

"Boyd was able to save the life of Stanley, but in the process, also saved the life of another cat.

"One of the conditions of the kidney transplant procedure was that Boyd would have to adopt the cat that donated the kidney to Stanley. The cat was named Jay, a 2-year-old cat who was rescued from the streets and was in a shelter.

"We are just as concerned with the life of the donor as the recipient," said Dr. Lillian Aronson from the Ryan Veterinary Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. "They are saving another animal's life and we owe it to them to save their life and give them a good home."

Boyd not only gave Stanley more years at life, but she also gave Jay a new home."
************
I don't know if there are journals that publish papers on Veterinary Ethics, but if there are, I anticipate heated discussion of the ethics of kidney donation in exchange for being saved from a shelter.  (Authors will speak with certainty both for and against.)

The fact that most shelters euthanize animals who don't find a home fairly quickly is another issue that arouses some repugnance and controversy: e.g. here's a statement from PETA on why they support that practice:
 ‘No-Kill’ Label Slowly Killing Animals

Bestiality: legal in some states and illegal in others

Here's a repugnance story from the Guardian:
'A great victory for animals': bestiality may finally be outlawed in Ohio
A bill banning sexual abuse of animals passed the state legislature as a result of a campaign by an animal welfare charity is aiming to prohibit bestiality nationwide

"Ohio has moved one step closer to outlawing bestiality after a bill banning sexual abuse of animals passed the state legislature.
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"The bill is the result of a lengthy campaign by the Humane Society of the United States, an animal welfare charity which is aiming to ban bestiality nationwide.

“The passage of animal sexual abuse legislation is a great victory for the animals of Ohio,” said Leighann Lassiter, animal cruelty policy director at the Humane Society.

"Lassiter and the bill’s sponsors, Ohio senators Jim Hughes and Jay Hottinger, have stated that animal abuse can often be a precursor to the abuse of children.
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"The bill prohibits a person from “sexual conduct” with an animal, but also targets what Lassiter described as “organized sex rings”.

“There are people out there who train animals for sex,” she said. “You can give them your dog and they will train your dog to have sex with a human and send it back to you. And they get paid for it.
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"States where bestiality is illegal do have animal cruelty laws, Lassiter said, but these are often inadequate when it comes to people sexually abusing animals. A person sexually abusing an animal might only be prosecuted if the animal is injured, while livestock or wild animals may be exempt from existing law.
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"Lassiter said some states are lacking specific bestiality laws because animal sex abuse was covered under historic laws that also banned gay sex. In some cases when those laws were repealed bestiality was not reintroduced as an offense.

"Bestiality is currently legal in Vermont, Texas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Nevada, Hawaii, Wyoming, New Mexico and Ohio, and in Washington DC."
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Repugnance watch: China Bans Its Ivory Trade, Moving Against Elephant Poaching

The NY Times has the story: China Bans Its Ivory Trade, Moving Against Elephant Poaching

"China announced on Friday that it was banning all commerce in ivory by the end of 2017, a move that would shut down the world’s largest ivory market and could deal a critical blow to the practice of elephant poaching in Africa.

The decision by China follows years of growing international and domestic pressure and gives wildlife protection advocates hope that the threatened extinction of certain elephant populations in Africa can be averted.

“China’s announcement is a game changer for elephant conservation,” Carter Roberts, the president and chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund, said in a written statement. “With the United States also ending its domestic ivory trade earlier this year, two of the largest ivory markets have taken action that will reverberate around the world.”

According to some estimates, more than 100,000 elephants have been wiped out in Africa over the past 10 years in a ruthless scramble for ivory driven by Chinese demand.
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Wildlife advocates have said for years that the most important step in putting poachers out of business would be shutting down the ivory industry in China.

The advocates have promoted long-running public campaigns to shame China and raise questions about its global responsibilities, at a time when China has been assuming a higher profile on the world stage. But the success of the new policy depends on how strictly it is enforced."

Repugnance watch: US ceases efforts to end global trade of polar bear parts

The Guardian has the story: US ceases efforts to end global trade of polar bear parts

"The US government has quietly dropped its campaign for an international ban in the trade of polar bear parts, which would have given the practice the same outlaw status as the elephant ivory market.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has spent several years attempting to ban the overseas trade of polar bear skins, teeth, paws and other parts from Canada, which permits the hunting of the Arctic predators.

However, the federal agency has said it won’t pursue the matter further at an international summit of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), in September. Instead, the US will focus on the threat posed to polar bears from climate change.

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"The US’s bid to ban the polar bear trade has garnered support from the UK, Germany and Russia but has been opposed by Canada, which insists that hunting is sustainable and an important cultural practice of the native Inuit people. Hunting can also generate income for communities, with tourists paying up to $50,000 for the chance to shoot a polar bear."

Burning ivory to educate the world about the illegal poaching of elephants

Kenya burns world's biggest ivory stockpile worth $105m in conservation effort

"Kenya set light to 105 tonnes of elephant ivory in the biggest burn in history on Saturday, aimed at crushing poaching and the illicit wildlife trade.

The country’s president set light to 11 pyres containing a total of 25,000 pieces of wildlife contraband including elephant tusks, rhino horns, exotic animal skins and medicinal bark.

"If sold on the black market, the tusks alone, from around 8,000 elephants, would fetch more than $105m. But the Kenyan authorities are burning burn the ivory to show the world it should have no value without a live elephant attached to it.
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"Speaking to delegates at the Giants’ Club summit of conservation experts, Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kenyan president, said poaching was not just about animals, it was holding Africa back.

“There is convincing evidence poaching is aided by international criminal syndicates; it fuels corruption; it undermines the rule of law and security; it even provides funding for other trans-national crime,” he said.

“This directly threatens the capacity of our nations to achieve sustainable and meaningful socio-economic development.”

"Each year, between 20,000 and 33,000 elephants are thought to be lost to poaching, which is driven by a mainly Chinese market for their tusks to be carved into trinkets and jewellery.

"Despite millions of dollars in foreign aid and from local government budgets being poured into clamping down on poachers and criminal syndicates, elephants are still being killed faster than they are being born. As few as 470,000 African elephants are now thought to remain in the wild.

"This year so far, Kenya lost at least 94 elephants to poachers and, according to Dr Richard Leakey, the renowned palaeontologist and chair of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, the country’s pachyderm population remains in a “terrible, perilous state”.

“We are burning the ivory because we believe ivory should be worthless. We believe not just in putting it out of economic reach but getting rid of it completely forever,” he said.

"Advertisements for the burn were broadcast on big screens onto Shanghai’s Bund building in its equivalent of Times Square and live-streamed on the internet accompanied by commentaries by some of the country’s best-known celebrities.

"Aisling Ryan, from the American charity WildAid which has focused on disrupting the Chinese market, said the Chinese word for “tusk” is the same as for “teeth” and many consumers had been unaware an elephant had to die for it to be harvested."

Sri Lanka Destroys Illegal Elephant Tusks

 The NY Times has the story: Sri Lanka Destroys Illegal Elephant Tusks

"A group of saffron-robed monks chanted as officials crushed more than 300 elephant tusks in a seaside ceremony on Tuesday, as the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena sought to differentiate itself from its predecessor by sending a powerful message of intolerance for elephant poaching.

Sri Lanka is the first South Asian nation to publicly destroy ivory obtained through elephant poaching and the 16th country in the world to destroy confiscated elephant tusks so that they cannot be traded in the black market.

The previous Sri Lankan government, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, had planned to distribute the tusks to Buddhist temples around the island, including the Sacred Temple of the Tooth, the country’s most revered. That spurred an outcry from Sri Lankan environmentalists and international wildlife agencies, who argued that the ivory would later be traded."

Repugnant transactions in zoos

The NY Times ran the following story a little while ago:
Zoo’s Public Dissection of Lion Makes Denmark Again a Target of Outrage

"On Thursday, staff members at a zoo in Odense, the country’s third-largest city, publicly dissected the corpse of a 9-month-old lion in front of an audience including children. The lion, a healthy female, was put to death in February after the zoo sought in vain to find her another home.

"The move comes more than a year after another Danish zoo, in Copenhagen, generated global outrage when it killed a healthy 2-year-old giraffe named Marius, ostensibly to reduce the risk of inbreeding, before dissecting him and feeding him to lions.
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"Ms. Christensen said the lion was put down to prevent inbreeding, since she was living in the same enclosure as her father and the two would have been likely to mate. The lion had since been kept in a freezer.

"She noted that while it was a preference in some countries, like the United States, to use contraception to keep zoo populations under control and prevent inbreeding, many zoos in Denmark and across Europe considered it better for animal welfare officers to let animals breed and express their natural instincts, even if that meant culling some of the offspring, as a last resort, for reasons of conservation."