UT directs pet shops to follow guidelines against cruelty

In order to ensure that pets, including birds, at the pet shops across the city are not cramped, the UT Administration’s Department of Animal Husbandry has adopted the ruling by the Gujarat High Court against cruelty to birds, and the practice of keeping them inhumanly in cages.

According to the orders, the rules have been implemented by the Chandigarh Administration while adopting a judgement of the Gujarat High Court titled Abdulkadar Mohamad Azam Sheikh versus state of Gujarat. In this case, the Gujarat High Court had held that pet birds cannot be kept in the cages in inhuman conditions.

Residents will now be empowered to take the assistance of the Police Department, if any bird is found in captivity in inhuman conditions.

The Administration has directed the pet shop owners to follow “pet shop guidelines and animal enclosure standards”

The Administration has also prohibited shop owners from exhibiting the pets and birds and trading them like commodities. Pet shop owners should not cram the pet animals and birds in cages outside their shops along with hoardings or in front of their shops in open sunlight.

According to the guidelines issued by the UT Administration, all reasonable precautions should be taken to prevent unnatural deaths and spread of infectious diseases in the pet shops.

Also, the pets or animals should not be sold at too early an age i.e. before at least eight weeks of age. Pregnant animals should not be put on sale.

Continued:  http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ut-directs-pet-shops-to-follow-guidelines-against-cruelty/1029557/

First Guidelines for Lab Chimps Drawn Up

Guidelines now govern the use of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, in federally funded U.S. research, and because of them, some biomedical studies are likely to come to an end.

In fact, nearly all research using chimpanzees to develop drugs or answer other questions with medical applications for humans should end, according to a committee charged with establishing the first set of criteria for research on chimpanzees. The committee released its report Thursday (Dec. 15).

Research into genetic or behavioral questions — such as looking for insight into human behavior by studying how chimpanzees help one another out, or searching for the genetic underpinnings of language — are acceptable, or could become so with only minor modifications, according the committee convened by the National Academy of Sciences.

These types of projects are typically less invasive than biomedical research, which could involve, for instance, infecting chimpanzees with a virus.

For example, in behavioral research, chimpanzees — which, like humans, are social — must live with others, and may not be anesthetized by being shot with a dart. However, chimpanzees can be trained to offer their arms to have blood drawn or accept anesthesia so they can be examined, according to the committee. [Chimps vs. Humans: How Different Are We?]

New principles
The criteria for both types of research are based upon three general guidelines: The knowledge gained by the research must be necessary to advance public health; the research cannot ethically be done on a human being, or is not possible on another animal or in something that is not a living organism; and the chimpanzees used in the research must be given appropriate places to live.

In practice, this means the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will not award any new grants for research until an assessment process is in place, and a project-by-project review will be conducted to determine if ongoing research fits the criteria, said NIH Director Francis Collins, who accepted the committee's recommendations.

"Chimpanzees are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, providing exceptional insights into human biology, and the need for special consideration and respect," Collins said in a statement on Thursday.

He estimated that about 37 research projects might be affected, and that, of these, about half may not be continued.

These criteria will only apply to research projects that receive some kind of NIH support, including animals used by private groups but housed using federal money, according to committee member Warner Greene, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

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