Animal Advocacy Research Guide

This research guide is intended to assist animal advocates in their work, either through providing research or continuing education opportunities. Here you will find a variety of resources for researching animal advocacy, including information on how to be more effective, where to connect with other advocates, job opportunities in the field, and other resources to help you in your work.

Research Information

Faunalytics – Faunalytics hosts a free online library of over 4500 study summaries relating to all animal advocacy areas. The search field supports the same as google, with use of quotes to keep words and phrases together.

Once a search has been performed, you can sort by “most relevant” or “most recent”. Filters include Category (Animals Used for Food, Animals Used in Science, Our Blog, Companion Animals, Effective Advocacy, Other Topics, and Wildlife), Peer Reviewed (Yes or No), Full Text or Abstract (Abstract, Full Text, Not Applicable), and a sliding range for publication year (from 1931-2022). There are also dozens of tags that can be used to further narrow the search by regions or subject area:

Animals & Society Institute – Animals & Society Institute offers a number of resources for human-animal studies scholars, researchers and others interested in promoting the human-animal relationship. The resources included on their website are the Social & Animals journal and the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare. Unfortunately, the two journals are paywalled, but they do provide a video series covering recent research, called their Colloquium series. Check with your library to see if they have access to the journals. Beyond their two journals, they also provide a list of Human-Animal Studies Journals:

Animal Legal & Historical Center – The Animal Legal & Historical Center provides a comprehensive repository of information about animal law, including: over 1200 full text cases (US, historical, and UK), over 1400 US statutes, over 60 topics and comprehensive explanations, legal articles on a variety of animal topics and an international collection.

The site offers many search options to narrow to the area of interest, including by topic (examples include animal fighting, trade, and pet waste), species (examples include bears, dogs, and whales), legal material type (examples include case, statue, and treaty), country, state/federal (choosing federal or a specific state in the United States), and the ability to include or not include keywords or citations (includes “starts with”, “ends with”, “is equal to” among others).

The site also includes articles that can be searched by topic area.

Maddie’s Fund – Their focus is on dogs and cats in the animal advocacy field. Resources include blogs, research, articles, and presentations covering all areas concerning sheltering and saving dogs and cats. It is a basic search field, with options to sort (new to old, old to new, title a-z, or title z-a), select dog, cat, or all species, narrow by topic (including access to care, live outcomes, and foster programs), select preferred media (blog, research, etc), and narrow by appropriate audience (public, shelter staff, veterinary team, etc).

Human Animal Bond Research Institute – The focus is on the human-animal bond and research that supports this area. There are three main categories of research (child health and development, healthy aging, and mental health), and each of these three then has further areas of specialty to search by narrow with. There is no search function.

Continuing Education

Maddie’s Fund University – Their site offers both a quick search and advanced search options. Quick search options include category (including live outcomes, foster programs, community outreach. etc), format (live or on demand), type (self-paced, instructor-led, on-demand, live), and a sort by function (new to old, old to new, title a-z, or title z-a). It is a basic keyword search.

University of Florida Shelter Medicine Program – Their focus is mainly on companion animals, but some work does venture into the farmed animals area as well. They provide both a webpage on their research, as well as continuing education opportunities. None of their resources are searchable, but rather just listed, so using the “control f” function on your keyboard to search the webpages for words included in a title is the best option.

Animals & Society Institute – Provides a comprehensive webpage listing educational opportunities including degree and non-degree programs, legal centers, conferences, databases, libraries, and blogs. It is highly recommended to bookmark this page for future use and when conducting any research.

Books

Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies by Margo DeMello

Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare by Marc Bekoff

In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave by Peter Singer

The University of Connecticut School of Law provides a list of books, searchable with a basic search function and broken into three categories: politics and policy, introductory texts, and animals and ethics.

The National Animal Interest Alliance also provides an extensive list of books, broken out by topic area. While there is no search function, using the “control f” function on your keyboard to search the webpage for words included in a title is the best option.