I cannot deny the fact the baby monkeys are irresistibly cute. They seem so much like a human infant, it’s difficult not to instantly fall for them and fight the urge to care for them. BUT there are real dangers to keeping monkeys as pets – not just for humans, but for the monkeys themselves too. Primates are highly intelligent, emotionally
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The summer after I traveled with DANTA I had another flare up of the ever-persistent travel bug. My heart was yearning for somewhere new and the hands-on experience I missed during my time with DANTA. Another student from my DANTA group messaged me one day with a possible internship she had found. She was applying and thought that I would
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Targeting might be the most beneficial behavior you could train your pet. When an animal targets, you are asking them to aim a body part towards a specific object. Once trained, this behavior has endless possibilities. A hamster shows aggressive behavior towards hands whenever they enter the cage to change food and water bowls. The hamster could be trained to
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Go to the meat refrigerator in any grocery store, and you’re guaranteed to see it: the organic meats section. Littered with happy-sounding-phrases like “antibiotic free” and “free-range,” it makes you as a consumer feel happier about the choices you’re making both for your own health and for the sake of the animals you’re consuming. But, does antibiotic-free really mean that
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As an organism grows and develops, chemical reactions activate and deactivate parts of the genome at specific locations at critical times. Epigenetics is the study of these chemical reactions and the factors that influence them. Here is a great video that outlines the basic principles of Epigenetics: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/intro/ Why is epigenetics important? It goes against the idea conventional thought that inheritance
Read moreAs a second year Master’s student I am serving as a graduate teaching assistant. There isn’t a need for me to teach every week, but I attend class, grade papers, help students, etc. The students are quickly approaching their mid-term exam which also happens to be their first test. Our most recent class meeting was devoted entirely to answering student
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If it walks like one, talks like one and looks like one — it must be one. Of all the pets I have cared for, ducks have definitely brought me the most attention. I am not talking about getting ducklings on a whim for Easter either. I kept ducks as pets from fifth grade through college. In sixth grade, my
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Veterinary medicine is a public health profession. I’ll be the first to admit that it took a long time for me to come to this realization. Although I have (pretty much) always wanted to be a veterinarian, the focus throughout the greater portion of my life was on animal health. I wanted to save peoples sick pets, and offer them
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Contrafreeloading puts a smile on my face. As a student of animal behavior, it is one of the coolest phenomena I know of. It has been studied in many species from rats to grizzly bears to humans. It is so incredible because these animals do the opposite of what you would expect, hence the “contra” prefix. Contrafreeloading means, when given
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Why Study Elephants? [in captivity] by Lisa Barrett As a research assistant at nonprofit Think Elephants International (TEI) in northern Thailand, I helped design and carryout research on captive Asian elephants as part of a small research team. Our mission was to inform elephant conservation efforts through research and education. Above: The other members of the TEI research
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DANTAisms 