Research paper topic ideas?

[Tygress]

I'm writing a 6-8 page research paper for an English comp class, and I'd like to write about something veterinary-related. Everything I've come up with so far seems obvious, and I'm hoping someone has an idea or two about important topics I might be missing.

Ideas so far: the pros and cons of no-kill shelters, benefits of animal research, roles vets play in food safety and human health...

I have to pick an argument and write for or against it. Any other good topics? I hope this assignment can give me further insight into veterinary medicine.

Thanks in advance!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Cephal0pod]

Whether mollusks are sort of awesome or super awesome, and the implications of this for the greatness of cephalopods, specifically.

 

[KCgophervet]

You could research:
1) The pros and cons of pet insurance - maybe in relation to the human healthcare model
2) The pros and cons of opening new vet schools (in an oversaturated market yet they still claim there being a shortage of LA vets)
3) Small privately owned clinics vs larger corporate vet hospitals (VCA or Banfield)
4) Terminal surgeries in vet school vs alternate models

The opportunities are endless. You could also just search through the forums here for controversial topics and go with one of those. Good luck on your paper.

 

[Country_roads]

The use of blunt force euthanasia on-farm
The issues with Chipolte's advertising (affect on general public)
GMO-feed used for food animals
Methods that are actually effective at controlling the feral cat population

 

[Lissarae06]

Trap-neuter-release seems like a good subject to me. Pros-cons of early spay/neuter is another that comes to mind.

 

[battie]

There is the obvious animal rights vs animal welfare, particularly from the legal perspective.

You could also do the debate on using growth hormones in food animals
vaccines in food animals
use of animals for fur production
purposely breeding animals in captivity (if you search the internet good enough, you will find a lot of people who are totally against zoos of any kind and this seems to be one of the main reasons why from what I have seen)
convenience euthanasia
breed specific legislation

If I think of more, I will post again.

 

[KCgophervet]

There's also the question of spaying/neutering animals. Not really much of a debate here in the US but in other cultures/countries it's almost seen as abuse to deprive them of their natural instinct to mate (I'm thinking particularly of Scandinavian countries and the recentish issue in Denmark where a zoo fed their excess giraffe to the lions).

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

There's also the question of spaying/neutering animals. Not really much of a debate here in the US but in other cultures/countries it's almost seen as abuse to deprive them of their natural instinct to mate (I'm thinking particularly of Scandinavian countries and the recentish issue in Denmark where a zoo fed their excess giraffe to the lions).

What else would you have them do, just have it rendered or incinerated? I don't see how that is controversial. Seems a better use of meat to me than just throwing it away.

I think the bigger issue in that case was the culling itself.

 

[battie]

I think the bigger issue in that case was the culling itself.

I'd agree that this was the big issue, particularly with the public. A lot of the public seemed to ask, "Why have them breed if you're just going to kill the cute baby?!"

Thought of another one: raw meat diets vs manufactured diets for pets.

 

[futurehealervet]

What else would you have them do, just have it rendered or incinerated? I don't see how that is controversial. Seems a better use of meat to me than just throwing it away.

I think the bigger issue in that case was the culling itself.

I'd agree that this was the big issue, particularly with the public. A lot of the public seemed to ask, "Why have them breed if you're just going to kill the cute baby?!"

Thought of another one: raw meat diets vs manufactured diets for pets.

Just curious if anyone knows more about this. If breeding is going on, why wouldn't they have some sort of reintroduction program or transfer with other zoos. Its not like giraffes are so common that these wouldn't be viable alternatives which would arguably serve a better purpose... why would the zoo do it? It doesn't seem to make sense

 

[battie]

Just curious if anyone knows more about this. If breeding is going on, why wouldn't they have some sort of reintroduction program or transfer with other zoos. Its not like giraffes are so common that these wouldn't be viable alternatives which would arguably serve a better purpose... why would the zoo do it? It doesn't seem to make sense

The baby giraffe in question was something like a year and a half old and the zoo had actually been trying to get the giraffe transferred to a different facility for almost a year and no one could/would take him. The zoo could not keep him because of regulations on animals/square area, I believe. They also could not breed him with any of the females present because he was within a close genetic relationship with all of them. It wasn't that they bred him without purpose, it was that the initial plans to transfer him fell through. I think @WildZoo or @pinkpuppy9 know more about it, and I am just recalling this from memory as well, so I might be off on some of the details. And, from what I understand, most zoos in the world are not lacking in giraffes.

 

[WildZoo]

The baby giraffe in question was something like a year and a half old and the zoo had actually been trying to get the giraffe transferred to a different facility for almost a year and no one could/would take him. The zoo could not keep him because of regulations on animals/square area, I believe. They also could not breed him with any of the females present because he was within a close genetic relationship with all of them. It wasn't that they bred him without purpose, it was that the initial plans to transfer him fell through. I think @WildZoo or @pinkpuppy9 know more about it, and I am just recalling this from memory as well, so I might be off on some of the details. And, from what I understand, most zoos in the world are not lacking in giraffes.

This sounds right to me, though it's also been a while since I last read/talked about it. From what I remember he was getting to big to be transferred. I think near the end there was some talk of other zoos/sanctuaries wanting to take him but they didn't have the means to actually do so.

And yeah, as for the last line, the zoo in my hometown seems to have a new baby giraffe every couple months.

 

[KCgophervet]

What else would you have them do, just have it rendered or incinerated? I don't see how that is controversial. Seems a better use of meat to me than just throwing it away.

I think the bigger issue in that case was the culling itself.

That was the issue - that they were letting animals breed so that they ended up having excess animals to "get rid of." I just phrased it that way because it's the easiest way to find the articles about it.

 

[Tygress]

This is all hugely helpful, thank you! I will definitely be looking into these. I've been meaning to look into TNR/feral cat control anyway, so I'm leaning towards that one but there are a lot of awesome ideas here!

 

[Skimble]

TNR
I was heavily involved with it for a while and I found it very rewarding. I still enjoy helping out with it when I can. I recall hearing a theory while ago that it may be good to do a vasectomy on the alpha male instead of neutering him, so that he will still mate with intact females and chase off rival intact males.

 

[pinkpuppy9]

The baby giraffe in question was something like a year and a half old and the zoo had actually been trying to get the giraffe transferred to a different facility for almost a year and no one could/would take him. The zoo could not keep him because of regulations on animals/square area, I believe. They also could not breed him with any of the females present because he was within a close genetic relationship with all of them. It wasn't that they bred him without purpose, it was that the initial plans to transfer him fell through. I think @WildZoo or @pinkpuppy9 know more about it, and I am just recalling this from memory as well, so I might be off on some of the details. And, from what I understand, most zoos in the world are not lacking in giraffes.

The zoo claims there was no interest. Not to insinuate they are lying about that, but you can't exactly prove that they attempted to re-home him, or even the four lions they euthanized just a few weeks after the giraffe. They cited concerns for the new young lion they were getting, and that they feared he would have been killed by the four they put down anyways, that the older female couldn't reproduce so why let her live, etc. I'm not sure if this zoo is part of an AZA-like organization or not. Overall, incidents such as "it was euthanized to make space for another giraffe" don't happen at AZA zoos since each individual breeding event is carefully orchestrated so that extra animals don't happen. I do think there was some irresponsibility in that regard. Again, I don't know what the breeding programs are like outside of AZA.

I do think feeding him out was a good use of resources, but I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it being done in front of zoo guests. Yes, that is what happens in the wild. However, zoos are there to educate guests on the importance of each individual species, and I think their actions made giraffes seem disposable IMO. Public necropsy? When done well, I can see that as being very educational.

I wrote a pretty decent (or, I thought it was) high school paper on vivisection. Whichever side you pick, you can find a lot of good stuff to support your argument. Definitely enough to fill 8 pages or more.

 

[Cephal0pod]

As you can probably tell already from the above posts, OP, the Copenhagen giraffe story opens up a pretty complex, multi-faceted can of worms about different schools of thought and challenges in zoo management, breeding programs, animal welfare, etc that wouldn't be hard to fill up 6-8 pages about. Good thought, Kcoughli et al.

Good luck with your paper!

 

[Country_roads]

An argument against TNR is that feral cats (regardless of if they're fixed or not) still experience some really awful injuries/illnesses when they're released back.
Also, feral cats have a significant effect on the native bird population which isn't solved when they're released back

I know that TNR is generally the go-to solution for feral cats and I don't know how much evidence is out there against TNR, but these are a couple opposing points if you choose this topic

 

[battie]

An argument against TNR is that feral cats (regardless of if they're fixed or not) still experience some really awful injuries/illnesses when they're released back.
Also, feral cats have a significant effect on the native bird population which isn't solved when they're released back

I know that TNR is generally the go-to solution for feral cats and I don't know how much evidence is out there against TNR, but these are a couple opposing points if you choose this topic

It is estimated that cats kill over 2 billion birds a year in the US. I have no idea what the number of small mammals are killed, though. I have also heard the argument that they pose a danger to drivers because people will try to avoid them while driving and therefore put themselves or the cars around them in danger of an accident. I bet there are a few other reasons out there.

 

[eventualeventer]

TNR makes QOL better for those cats that are altered (no more fighting and transmitting FIV, getting bite wounds, etc., among the males; no more hard pregnancies for the females), inproves QOL for the people nearby (no yowling in the middle of the night, less fighting with domestic cats, less spraying, TNR cats are vaccinated for rabies), and some colonies see gradual reduction in size. I wish we had a better answer but trap and euthanize programs are expensive, have a lot less public support (i.e., people willing to help you locate and trap cats), and cause tremendous rates of burnout among those tasked with killing the cats. My understanding is that the so-called vacuum effect means that removing and killing cats is less effective than population models predict because the survivors reproduce more than in a TNR scenario. Both models are far from ideal, and I try to focus on the QOL issues when I volunteer for TNR, because I have no illusions that I'm saving large numbers of birds from being eaten. I think it's telling that the places that have managed to eliminate feral cats were very isolated, were small, spent large amounts of resources, and used methods like shooting and poisoning that are unlikely to be considered acceptable on the mainland.

https://www.avma.org/news/journals/collections/pages/avma-collections-feral-cats.aspx