Larry Carbone, a veterinarian who is in charge of the lab animal welfare assurance program at a major research university, presents this scholarly history of animal rights. Biomedical researchers, and the less fanatical among the animal rights activists will find this book reasonable, humane, and novel in its perspective. It brings a novel, sociological perspective to an area that has been addressed largely from a philosophical perspective, or from the entrenched positions of highly committed advocates of a particular position in the debate.

All animals need food, water and shelter. But what about their social and emotional needs? Modern science tells us that animals experience a wide range of emotions—from fear and anxiety to friendship and happiness. What Animals Want is an animal-care book with a difference. It introduces young readers to the Five Freedoms and helps them think about their pets’ physical and emotional needs, providing a framework for thinking about the welfare of all animals in human care, including farm, exotic and wild animals. Author Jacqueline Pearce wrote this book in consultation with the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BC SPCA), an organization internationally recognized for its innovative humane education and animal welfare work.

In many people's eyes, the ability for animals to be able to behave 'naturally' is essential for their welfare. However, animals do not necessarily want to do behaviour just because it is 'natural' or is seen in wild animals. Being chased by a predator is not necessarily good for welfare. Natural behaviour is important because it gives us a baseline for what animals might want to do but it cannot define good welfare on its own. It has to be validated in exactly the same way as other behavioural correlates of welfare, as either contributing to health or being what the animals want to do.

When the National Animal Chorus gathers to perform the immortal works of Mr Herbert Timberteeth, the performance doesn't go exactly as planned. Mr Timberteeth has some preconceived notions of what animals like to do that are reflected in his songs, but it turns out lions prefer flower-arranging to prowling.

Foot-and-mouth and mad-cow disease are but two of the results of treating animals as commodities, subject only to commercial constraints and ignoring all natural and moral considerations. Chickens hanging by their necks on conveyor belts, caged pigs with sores, bloated dead sheep with their legs in the air, mutilated dogs waiting to die after undergoing horrendous experiments in the name of science or just product-testing—these are some of the images that illustrate the indifference of a consumerist society to the suffering of animals. Few are willing to recognize that the packaged, sanitized supermarket meat that materializes on their dinner tables every day is the result of an industrial process involving unimaginable pain and suffering. We would be horrified if our pets were harmed, yet every day we eat animals that have been tortured and executed. Mark Rowlands claims that it is simply unjust to harm animals. As conscious, sentient beings, biologically continuous with humans, they have interests that cannot simply be disregarded. Using simple principles of justice, he argues that animals have moral rights, and examines the consequences of this claim in the contexts of vegetarianism, animal experimentation, zoos and hunting, and animal rights activism.

The author of "Animals in Translation" employs her own experience with autism and her background as an animal scientist to show how to give animals the best and happiest life.

Packed with fun, incredible and often downright disgusting facts about the animal world.