click it to watch the video about the department!
College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Science (ACES) is one of the first departments of UIUC founded in mid-1800s.The department is pursuing goals, such as ensuring nutritious and safe food, sustainable and innovative agriculture, etc. The Department of Animal Science (ANSC), founded lately, is a part of ACES. ANSC is not only pursuing ACES’s goals but also focusing more on animal welfare. Its goals extend to enhance the well-being of humans and animals. Students of ANSC have done tons of research and articles involving in both companion animals and livestock in order to bring a better life for animals.
According to ACES website data, animal sciences department is the second largest department of ACES. It has 498 undergraduate students, which occupies almost 20% of the total (total undergraduate students: 2732). The reason that more and more students are interested in animal sciences is that companion animals become an important part of our life. How to give our pets a high quality life? How much exercise is the animal suppose to do everyday? Does human behaviors effect heavily on animals? Varies aspects of studies including these interesting topics have done by animal sciences major students in UIUC. Students dedicate to promote animals welfare passionately.
Here are two articles about life styles of cats and dogs.
The first one is a study of how to help fat cat losing weight. The research shows the result that cats weight loss is similar to human. Cats would lose a lot of weight during first few weeks and then hit a road block. This results in that food has to be kept cutting every week. Another result is that cats is influenced by owner’s behavior. If owners over-feed their cats it would be really hard to maintain healthy. Taking care of cats carefully is necessary.
The second one is a survey about dog’s food. The survey mainly focus on what type of food would owners feed their dogs to maintain nutrition and keep healthy. The humanization of pets leads to diversified pet foods, so that the survey of choosing pet foods can help researchers explore more on pet healthy.
This blog is talking about a student experience of watching a bullfight in Madrid. The writer was sorrowful for a dying bull. Even if she knows bullfight is a part of the Spanish culture, as an ACEs major student in UIUC, she holds a very negative view of this experience and thinks it should be abandoned.
I think bullfight will be gradually abolished in the future with the improvement of the animal rights. This is similar to the death penalty. It used to be legal before the development of human rights. However, most of the countries have abandoned death penalty and change to life imprisonment. I believe that promoting the animal rights is an crucial way to fight against bullfight as well as other killing.
Furthermore, the writer mentions that education is the first step to make changes. I assume that more people would be well-educated, so that animal killing would be decreasing in the future.
Some students are interested not only companion animals but also wild animals welfare. This article talks about conservation elephants to protect ecosystems. The study shows that 94 elephants from six different areas have similar DNA, so the reason people protect these elephants is not to save their DNA. Protecting local elephants is very important to preserve the ecosystem in local area. Therefore, promoting animal rights and animal welfare will benefit human as well.
