- BERG - University of Stirling Mailing Lists

Hannah Buchanan-Smith awarded 2019 Osman Hill Medal
by Liz Williamson 14 May '19

14 May '19

Hearty congratulations to Hannah! From: List for members of the Primate Society of Great Britain <PSGB(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK> on behalf of Lewis Dean <lewis.g.dean(a)GMAIL.COM> Date: Tuesday, 14 May 2019 at 09:17 To: "PSGB(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK" <PSGB(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK> Subject: Osman Hill Medal 2019 Dear all, We are delighted to announce that Professor Hannah Buchanan-Smith has been awarded the 2019 Osman Hill Medal for her research on animal welfare, her service to PSGB and her contributions to primatology. Hannah will be delivering the Osman Hill Lecture at the EFP/ PSGB conference in Oxford in September. Best wishes, Lewis PSGB Secretary

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BERG Meetings - 17th and 24th April 2019
by Deborah Bruce 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

Dear BERGers, Just a reminder that there is no BERG Meeting this week (17th April), but we do have one final date for this Semester. On Wednesday 24th April 2019 Hannah Buchanan-Smith will be hosting Sabrina Brando who will give a talk on, "Global Collaboration for Animal Welfare". Please note that this will be a full length seminar but will start at our usual time of 5.30 p.m., in the common room (3A94). Best, Deborah

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BERG Meeting - Wednesday 10th April 2019
by Deborah Bruce 09 Apr '19

09 Apr '19

Dear BERGers, This week at BERG our meeting is devoted to Final year dissertation opportunities at the Safari Park, when we will be joined by our colleagues from Blair Drummond. Our meeting is at the usual time and venue: 5.30 p.m. in the Common Room (3A94), with the usual drinks and nibbles. It would be good to see as many regular BERGers come along as possible. An up to date copy of our schedule can be found at: https://stir.app.box.com/s/rwzik2tsai3kausdtekqvgayv34otmgt Best Wishes, Deborah

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Re: [BERG] [TEAC] STEB Meeting
by Fiona Maisels 03 Apr '19

03 Apr '19

Hi all Who's coming to the British Ecological Society/ Society for Tropical Ecology meeting in Edinburgh next week? I'm going to some things, as I live in Edinburgh it's easy. Kind wishes Boo

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BERG Meeting - Wdnesday 3rd April 2019
by Deborah Bruce 01 Apr '19

01 Apr '19

Dear BERGers, This week at BERG our we have an external speaker Mary-Anne Collis, who is Conservation Officer for Argyll, The Trossachs & Stirlingshire with the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels. Mary-Anne will present an illustrative talk about the work of the "Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels" project both Nationwide and locally, to include the threats facing red squirrels, what is being done to help combat these threats and track the squirrel populations. She will also explain how we can get involved. [cid:cfef4590-eb1b-434a-b694-90b74598a126][cid:d79ab1ff-934a-4c06-b7bc-b2a059658e37][cid:b05e3414-5293-451f-8642-61d38dc6d7f2] Our meeting is at the usual time and venue: 5.30 p.m. in the Common Room (3A94), with the usual drinks and nibbles. If you have students who might wish to be on the BERG mailing list, please send them this e-mail. To sign up to the BERG mailing list please use the following link: http://lists.stir.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/berg (You can also use this link to unsubscribe) An up to date copy of our schedule can be found at: https://stir.app.box.com/s/rwzik2tsai3kausdtekqvgayv34otmgt See you all on Wednesday. Best Wishes, Deborah

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Re: [BERG] No BERG: Mid-semester break!
by Guillermo Hidalgo Gadea 29 Mar '19

29 Mar '19

For: berg Mailing List Read Lists Message <http://lists.stir.ac.uk.readweb-tnn.live/msgviewer?id=5c9e4f8b40529f0001da0…> 13:02:03 Re: [BERG] No BERG: Mid-semester break! Take action before Saturday ________________________________ The University is ranked in the QS World Rankings of the top 5% of universities in the world (QS World University Rankings, 2016/17) The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

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Seminar 4th April, 4pm University of Stirling
by Hannah Buchanan-Smith 26 Mar '19

26 Mar '19

Dear all Dr. Mandy Paterson, Principal Scientist at RSPCA Queensland, Australia will give a talk entitled "Adoption success, behaviour assessment and other research at RSPCA Queensland" (abstract below) Thursday 4th April, 3A94, Cottrell Building , University of Stirling. External visitors please see: https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/getting-here/ Note you need to pay for parking between 9am-5pm. If anyone would like to join us for dinner after Mandy's talk please let me know by Tuesday 2nd April so I may book a table (h.m.buchanan-smith(a)stir.ac.uk) Please feel free to share amongst colleagues/other potentially interested parties. "Adoption success, behaviour assessment and other research at RSPCA Queensland" Abstract RSPCA Qld rehomes over 6,000 dogs and 10,000 cats a year as well as approximately 2,000 other species (birds, livestock, rodents and reptiles). We aim to achieve a successful match between adopted pet and new owner but this, unfortunately is not always the case. Animals brought back within 14 days are named 'returns', are accepted back and the owner receives a refund. Pets brought back after 14 days, in most cases, are treated the same as any other 'surrender' and are not tagged as a 'return' in our database (although the animal will have the same identification number). The 'return rate' for RSPCA Qld is around 3% but the true number of animals that comes back to us (returns and surrenders) has not been examined. When an animal is returned or surrendered a reason for this is recorded. However, whether the reasons given paint an accurate picture is not known. Initial analysis reveals that between 4% (kittens) and 13% (adult dogs) are brought back to the shelter and 70% of these are in the first 14 days. A better understanding of the animals coming back - how long they are staying in the new home, and why they are being brought back - will allow us to improve our adoption processes, animal preparation for adoption and support given for animals after adoption. In shelters around the world, dogs' behaviour is assessed prior to adoption to gauge suitability for adoption, ensure public safety (aggressive dogs are not allowed into the community), and instigate behaviour modification programs where necessary. However, the validity and predictability of such assessments is currently under fire with some shelters even stopping assessments altogether. RSPCA Qld believes there is value in canine behaviour assessment and we have conducted several studies with the aim to improve overall assessment processes and gauge just how predicative our testing is. We found the following post-adoption behaviours were significantly correlated with shelter behaviour assessment: friendliness and social behaviour including interactions with children, strangers and known and unknown dogs and cats; anxiousness; and fear. When asked about their adopted dog's behaviour around food, 91% of new owners were not concerned, and when asked about their dog when it had been left alone, 80% were not concerned about its behaviour. Hannah M. Buchanan-Smith Professor, Behaviour and Evolution Research Group<https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties-and-services/natural-sciences/our-re…> Stirling Human Animal Interaction Research (SHAIR<https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties-and-services/natural-sciences/our-re…>) Group Room 3A79, Cottrell Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences University of Stirling Stirling, FK9 4LA Scotland Tel: 01786 467674 Fax: 01786 467641 E-mail: h.m.buchanan-smith(a)stir.ac.uk<mailto:h.m.buchanan-smith@stir.ac.uk> Home page: https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/257464 http://marmosetcare.com/ http://www.247animalwelfare.eu/ http://refiningdogcare.com/

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BERG Meeting - Wednesday 27th March 2019
by Deborah Bruce 25 Mar '19

25 Mar '19

Dear BERGers, This week at BERG our speaker is Guillermo Hidalgo Gadea who will be talking about his MSc Project in Evolutionary Psychology titled, "Spontaneous numerical cognition in human and non-human primates". Guillermo plans to focus his talk on the combination of discrete and continuous magnitude features in a quantity discrimination task. Along with very preliminary results for human and chimpanzee performance, there will be a short outlook on further data analysis and lots of fun videos. Abstract: "Much work has been conducted in human and non-human animals' performance in relative quantity discrimination (Agrillo & Bisaza, 2014; Gallistel & Gelman, 2000), and results indicate that human and non-human animals may share a magnitude scale, i.e. the approximate number system (ANS; Cantlon, Platt & Brannon, 2009). Discrimination performance has been shown to be subject to Weber's law, resulting in lower performance discriminating between similar quantities, and lower performance discriminating between large quantities, thus varying as a function of the ratio between the smaller and the larger quantity (Beran & Parrish, 2016). Nevertheless, little is known about how accurate primates mentally represent and combine different magnitude features, e.g. continuous (size) and discrete (numerosity) magnitudes, to discriminate total quantities. This research aims to explore quantity representation and feature preferences in different primate species, analysing limits of spontaneous quantity discrimination in competing magnitude features. " [cid:ce5525cf-f3aa-403e-9405-d749af5b5c73] Our meeting is at the usual time and venue: 5.30 p.m. in the Common Room (3A94), with the usual drinks and nibbles. If you have students who might wish to be on the BERG mailing list, please send them this e-mail. To sign up to the BERG mailing list please use the following link: http://lists.stir.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/berg (You can also use this link to unsubscribe) An up to date copy of our schedule can be found at: https://stir.app.box.com/s/rwzik2tsai3kausdtekqvgayv34otmgt See you all on Wednesday. Best Wishes, Deborah

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BERG Meeting - Wednesday 20th March 2019
by Deborah Bruce 18 Mar '19

18 Mar '19

Dear BERGers, This is an earlier than usual mailing so that you all have plenty time to do your homework for next week's BERG meeting. Instead of a talk, our very own Jade Hooper will be leading a reading group session around the question: When is a bite a bite, and why does this matter? For this session we will be discussing the attached paper by Oxley et al (2019). This short paper is on the topic of dog bites and how these are defined. Please read the paper prior to the meeting so we can discuss some of the issues raised within. Topics of discussion will be led by the interests of the group, but may focus on issues such as - When is a bite a bite and why might this matter? What are the implications of this for research methodologies and outcomes? What does this mean for victims and their families, and how might the physical and psychological implications differ? What can we do about this as researchers and practitioners? [cid:62928cb0-54a8-41e2-9cf9-e712bd021f9a] Paper - Oxley, J. A., Christley, R., & Westgarth, C. (2019). What is a dog bite? Perceptions of UK dog bite victims. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 29, 40-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2018.09.002 Jade has provided a couple of items (attached to this email hopefully), for you to get your teeth into before the meeting - sincere apologies for that very bad pun! Our meeting will be at the usual time of 5.30 p.m. in the Common Room (3A94). To sign up to the BERG mailing list please use the following link: http://lists.stir.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/berg (You can also use this link to unsubscribe) An up to date copy of our schedule can be found at: https://stir.app.box.com/s/rwzik2tsai3kausdtekqvgayv34otmgt See you all on Wednesday. Best Wishes, Deborah

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BERG Meeting 13th March
by Deborah Bruce 12 Mar '19

12 Mar '19

Dear BERGers, This week at BERG our speaker is Gemma Mackintosh who will be giving the following talk: "Sending clues for success: The role of intentional communication in facilitating cumulative cultural evolution". Our meeting is at the usual time and venue: 5.30 p.m. in the Common Room (3A94), with customary drinks and nibbles. If you have students who might wish to be on the BERG mailing list, please send them this e-mail. To sign up to the BERG mailing list please use the following link: http://lists.stir.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/berg (You can also use this link to unsubscribe) An up to date copy of our schedule can be found at: https://stir.app.box.com/s/rwzik2tsai3kausdtekqvgayv34otmgt See you all on Wednesday. Best Wishes, Deborah

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