Blog Musings

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Is it really safe to feed vegan diets to cats?

Alex Whittaker

Sep 15, 20231 min read

Is it really safe to feed vegan diets to cats?

In this article Alex provides a fact check on a recent article suggesting there are health benefits of vegan diets for cats. Spoiler...

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Alex Whittaker

Sep 15, 20231 min read

Vegan Diets for Cats

There has been a lot of discussion this week about the safety or otherwise of vegan diets after a paper was published suggesting that...

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The Challenges of Reptile Welfare Assessment

Alex Whittaker

Jul 26, 20231 min read

The Challenges of Reptile Welfare Assessment

Alex recently presented at a webinar run by Dr Sabrina Brando at Animal Concepts on welfare assessment in reptiles, highlighting some of...

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How does animal science research influence policy reform?

Alex Whittaker

Apr 17, 20233 min read

How does animal science research influence policy reform?

Animal sciences is a field that encompasses a wide range of disciplines, including animal behavior, physiology, nutrition, genetics, and...

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Animal welfare law reform- have your say

Alex Whittaker

Mar 14, 20231 min read

Animal welfare law reform- have your say

In this explainer I write a little about some of the provisions of animal welfare legislation that are most likely to be reformed during...

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Chemobrain and exercise- what's the deal?

Alex Whittaker

Feb 26, 20232 min read

Chemobrain and exercise- what's the deal?

As someone who is a little bit of a gym fanatic (to put it mildly) and has a research program investigating the impacts of chemotherapy...

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Alex Whittaker

Jan 20, 20231 min read

More on vegan pet diets...

Alex recently gave an interview to Radio Adelaide about the group's new research on health impacts of vegan pet diets. Key take home:...

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Alex Whittaker

Jan 13, 20231 min read

The evidence on vegan pet diets

We recently reviewed the evidence on the health impacts of vegan diets for pets. Get a brief round-up on what we found right here (with...

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Public Perceptions of Animal Welfare Laws

Alex Whittaker

Nov 16, 20221 min read

Public Perceptions of Animal Welfare Laws

Rochelle recently published one of her final PhD studies which involved surveying a representative sample of the Australian public on...

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Cold-blooded but not cold-hearted: reptile emotions

Alex Whittaker

Aug 29, 20221 min read

Cold-blooded but not cold-hearted: reptile emotions

Fresh Science recently released an article about our ongoing work to discover methods to assess reptile welfare. You can read the full...

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Alex Whittaker

Aug 23, 20221 min read

Radio Interviews

Congratulations to Jess who did a radio interview for ABC Perth recently around her Conversation article on Tricia the elephant. This...

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Community Attitudes to Research Animal Use

Alex Whittaker

Jul 28, 20221 min read

Community Attitudes to Research Animal Use

ANZCCART recently commissioned us to conduct a study on Australian public understandings of, and values associated with animal research....

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Alex Whittaker

Jul 17, 20221 min read

Zoo Animal Welfare

Jess and I recently published a Conversation article in response to the death of Tricia the elephant at Perth Zoo. The link to the...

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Alex Whittaker

Apr 5, 20221 min read

Definition of an Animal

Check out this video recently developed by Alex and Rochelle on the changing definition of animals at law.

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Alex Whittaker

Feb 23, 20221 min read

Tilly the Turtle

Here is a link to a story on channel 9 Today about animals and sensing of disasters in which Alex was invited to comment. Fascinating...

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Are you a breast cancer survivor and do you forget things?

Alex Whittaker

Feb 14, 20221 min read

Are you a breast cancer survivor and do you forget things?

Are you a breast cancer survivor and do you forget things? Our latest research suggests that 1 in 3 women who survive breast cancer have...

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3Rs over half a century later- how are we doing?

Alex Whittaker

Sep 11, 20211 min read

3Rs over half a century later- how are we doing?

Russell and Burch's famous book which gave birth to the 3Rs concept that is so important and pervasive in animal-based research today,...

79 views0 comments

Snake study provides impetus for legislative reform

Alex Whittaker

May 31, 20211 min read

Snake study provides impetus for legislative reform

Alex was recently part of a group of international researchers with an interest in reptile welfare that examined the evidence base around...

94 views0 comments

Alex Whittaker

Mar 7, 20204 min read

First Aid for Pets

I’m doing something a little different for this blog- with a flashback to my days in veterinary practice. I recently attended a first aid...

107 views0 comments

The role of animal law in the recent coronavirus emergence

Alex Whittaker

Jan 28, 20205 min read

The role of animal law in the recent coronavirus emergence

Of course the headline news of this week has been the recent novel coronavirus emergence from the Chinese city of Wuhan. At the time of...

159 views0 comments

Hello and welcome to our blog! These articles are really a series of musings, inspired by world news and activities at the time of writing. They will generally relate to our research areas or academic life in general, but we will not always be writing as experts in the field. We will make them as evidence-based as we can though, in the hope of reliably informing, and perhaps inspiring you to do further research on those topics of interest.

For more regular updates, you can follow me on twitter @awhittaker_UofA

ALEXANDRA WHITTAKER PhD

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AWCAN

Animal Welfare and Cognitive Affective Neuroscience

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ALEXANDRA WHITTAKER PhD

________

AWCAN

Animal Welfare and Cognitive Affective Neuroscience

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