This study demonstrates that only a minimal time investment was needed to train a large troop of laboratory non-human primates to co-operate in the catching procedure. A group of 45 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) was trained to enter a chute system voluntarily and be caught one by one. The total duration of the training sessions was under six hours, with less than 15 total work-hours invested by three people. The result was an improved capture procedure which minimized risk to personnel and distress to the animals.

Although the hunters known as ‘terrier men ‘are known to play a significant role in the illicit and cruel persecution of the badger in Britain, very little information is available upon their activities. In this study, detailed records of the hunting practices of a single terrier man, covering a period of seven years, are analysed This provides the first insight into the activities of illegal badger-digging groups, and also emphasizes the extreme stress that may be caused to quarry species during the practice of this illegal sport.

Many animal preference experiments involve test stimuli that have been chosen by the experimenter to represent different strengths of a single attribute. It is assumed that the animals also scale the test stimuli along a single dimension. This paper shows how it is possible to use the ‘Unfolding Technique' developed by Coombs (1964) to check the validity of this assumption. A simple experiment is described which used Coombs' technique to verify that three visual test stimuli were ranked by laboratory rats along a single dimension. These stimuli were subsequently used in an experiment to see how different housing conditions changed rats' preferences for visual complexity.

Soiling of nests in modified cages for laying hens might be reduced by using a wire mesh floor for the nest. However, use of such a material might be contrary to the preferences of the hens and compromise their welfare. Twenty-four laying hens were housed singly in modified cages which incorporated two nests. One nest had the standard perforated plastic floor whilst the other had one of two types of metal mesh floor. To determine whether hens preferred any one of the floor types for oviposition, the positions of the nest floors were swapped three times during 110 days. The hens showed a dichotomy in their behaviour after the nestfloors were swapped: the majority (12 of those making a consistent choice) continued to lay in the same nest location (ie location conservative) whereas 6-9 hens changed the nest in which they laid (ie floor type conservative). Only one of the floor type conservative hens preferred to lay on metal mesh. These results show that although the majority of hens showed no apparent aversion to laying in nests with metal mesh floors, 57-68 per cent preferred plastic floors and changed location to lay on this substrate.

Learning tests in animal psychology are highly standardized with regard to both the formulation of scientific questions and the methods employed to obtain reliable answers. The Skinnerian technique of conditioning rats or pigeons in small test chambers has established itself as the main laboratory method in this field. Despite the undeniable advantages of highly controlled and manipulated test conditions, a number of problems with respect to the welfare of the test animals arise from the standard application of this method. These problems are specified here along with the presentation of new techniques that have been developed at the University of Vienna. The methodological improvements are related to the housing, testing and weighing of the pigeons and ameliorate the conditions these animals previously confronted within the laboratory.

The welfare of farmed animals can be greatly influenced by the availability of appropriately designed and tested handling systems. Farmers who start a new enterprise, such as deer farming, with a small herd may be reluctant to invest in a permanently located handling facility, and this may have an adverse effect on the welfare of the deer. The design, construction and use of a portable handling facility for farmed deer is described. The advantages to management and the benefits to the welfare of deer of being able to transport the handling system to where the deer are grazing are illustrated. The system enhances the ability to monitor the incidence of disease and injury in a deer herd and provides for proper therapeutic or prophylactic treatments to be given as required.

There are now 22 titles in the Independence publishing company's series Issues for the Nineties (we reported on Animal Rights in Volume 3 Number 1 of Animal Welfare). As in previous volumes, Genetic Engineering provides a collection of reprinted up-to-date articles on the subject in question from a variety of sources (Government, newspaper and magazine articles and literature from lobby groups and charitable organizations). The target audience is educators and probably college students, but the book would be a useful introduction to the subject for any reader.

The seventeenth report of a series on bovine tuberculosis in badgers has been published by MAFF. It was prepared by the Consultative Panel on Badgers and Bovine Tuberculosis which was set up by the Ministry with the remit of:

• i) keeping under review the evidence relating to bovine tuberculosis in badgers, including its distribution, its prevalence and its relationship to bovine tuberculosis in cattle;

• ii) advising on the operations to be undertaken by the Ministry in order to limit the transmission of tuberculosis from badgers to cattle;

• iii) recommending research appropriate to the problem of badgers and bovine tuberculosis.

There have been a number of changes in the legal regulations controlling the use of animals in biomedical research institutes in the United States of America. A short summary-booklet has been written by Robert R Smeby and published in February 1994 by the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW), and is a useful and reasonably detailed account of the current statutory requirements. The summary cannot be used as a replacement to the complete regulations as published in the Federal Register but it will still be found most helpful by scientists, research animal care personnel and by others wanting or needing to know something of the details of the regulations covering laboratory animal care and use in the United States.

A recently published, easy-to-read booklet containing many useful items of information will be of interest to those wishing to know more about the trapping issue. Despite the number of animals trapped for their fur being on the decrease for several years, it is a topic that is currently being hotly debated internationally. Trapping Animals for Fur comes at a time when the International Standards Organisation (ISO) is developing a standard on Animal (Mammal) Traps. This move by the ISO was prompted by pro-trapping interests aiming to circumvent European Community legislation which in 1995 will ban the import of furs from countries which have not effectively prohibited the leghold (gin) trap, or where trapping methods used do not meet internationally agreed humane trapping standards.

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has produced a second edition of its stranded whales booklet. The first version was published out of the RSPCA's 1983 Stranded Whale Workshop and this 1994 edition incorporates additional information from a follow-up seminar run by the Society in November 1992.

The edited proceedings of a conference sponsored by SCAW and WARDS, held in Washington DC on 21 May 1993 has now been published by the sponsors. The main parts of the publication consist of the full texts of the papers given at the meeting: