Humane Thinking, from HRC

Every year, the Humane Research Council conducts the Animal Tracker survey to determine attitudes and beliefs regarding issues of relevance to animal advocates. In Wave 1 of this study, conducted in 2008, we asked over 1,500 people the following question: "Social and political movements use a variety of tactics to create change for their issues. In general, how much do you support or oppose each of the following tactics?" We asked specifically about the following tactics: anti-cruelty investigations, using media to reach the public, speaking in schools, filling lawsuits to protect animals, state ballot initiatives lobbying government officials, calling for product boycotts, and demonstrating or protesting.

[Excerpt from the interview] As a movement, we can engage in self-expression, which is great, but if we want to achieve meaningful, lasting change for animals, we will need to reach out to people who don’t have this top of mind. What I mean is, it's hard when we have our heads in this 24/7 to put ourselves in the position of the person on the receiving end of the message. The only real way to know is to research that.

There is a lack of understanding as to the efficacy of different tactics available to animal advocates, as HRC has noted in the past. In this series, I present the available research in the hopes it can help animal advocates direct their campaigns. In this first post I define and discuss tactics in general. In Part 2 of the series I will examine public attitudes toward different types of tactics. Part 3 will review the efficacy of “shock advocacy” and Part 4 will look at the current use social media to effect change for animals.

For many families, summer is a time for entertainment and family field trips. Many of the most popular theme parks and special events of the summer involve the use of animals for entertainment: county fairs have petting zoos; water parks have dolphin-shows; circuses entertain audiences by having large animals perform tricks; and zoos and aquariums leave animals in enclosures so that they can be observed by human visitors.

Gender is a very important factor when considering people's perceptions toward animal issues, including vegetarianism and veganism (veg*nism). Although estimates vary, it is clear that the majority of people who are sympathetic toward animal issues and identify as veg*n are women. In a 2005 survey of the literature on veg*nism, HRC concluded that about 63% of vegetarians are female.