Last week’s in-class discussion with the cohort really helped me to narrow down the research topic into more specifics.
My assigned keywords “kinship” and “grafting” first went to a broader scope of “human evolution and actions of plants & animal domestication”. At this point in time, my research focuses on the ethics and animal welfare of breeding and husbandry.
In order to include different stakeholders’ perspectives, in the interview, I ask a researcher in correlated industries (my father) and a friend of mine (an experienced pet owner) to be my interviewees. Considering different standpoints of their own, I designed 2 question rundowns according to what I understand about their context.
My father holds the title of a senior veterinarian. He has rich knowledge in both animal nutrition and pharmaceutical practice. My primary goal for interviewing him is to gain some insiders view on animals being used in research experiments. Throughout the interview, he educated me with some basic context of current husbandry and pet industry of China, which really has set every regulation based on human needs (health, cheaper protein, higher profits, etc. ) I asked whether we have specific laws and regulation enacted for animals being used in research. He said no. The reason for asking is that within my own research, I have noticed the passage of the bill”(Laboratory) Animal Welfare Act” in 1966 within the states, the bill was intended to protect cats, dogs, and pet animals from using in research facilities and inhumane treatment.
My second interviewee has three Garfield. One of the Garfield has only 3 legs when born. From my research I learned into order to get a purer breed of a certain kind, breeder or industrialized breeding facilities will force inbreeding. The consequences are, many babies congenitally defect. Also, female animals will continuously give birth to new babies until they are not able to deliver anymore, which is also another strong factor of defective pets. Though my friend has 3 Garfield, she said that all three are adopted, and was pure coincidence that three of them are all Garfield. She also mentioned that she probably will never purchase a pet for any reason. She wishes adoption in lieu of purchase.