This post summarizes research into the Chinese mantis, focusing on the genes associated with nociception (the ability to perceive noxious stimuli). This type of research may help to improve the conditions on farms to better meet the needs of insects.

Researcher Sagar Shah estimated how cost effective farmed fish slaughter commitments from retailers might be in Europe. His research focused on France, Italy, and Spain because of the large scale of consumption of farmed fish species that don’t benefit from stunning in these countries.

This is the third report in Rethink Priorities’ Shrimp Welfare Sequence, a series that addresses whether and how to best protect the welfare of shrimp. After outlining the welfare threats farmed shrimp may face, this report investigates the effect of these welfare threats on pre-slaughter mortality.

This post is a short summary of research on farmed cricket welfare considerations funded by Rethink Priorities as part of our research agenda on understanding the welfare of insects on farms. The paper includes recommendations.

This post is a short summary of research on yellow mealworm welfare that was funded by Rethink Priorities. The full paper on this research was published in a peer-reviewed, open access journal.

Given the number of wild animals that exist, interventions to improve their welfare could have greater expected value than interventions on behalf of other groups. Yet, wild animals receive only a small share of resources earmarked for animal welfare causes. This report explores how different risk aversion frameworks might help increase advocates’ reasoning transparency.

This report summarizes results from Rethink Priorities’ second annual gathering of animal advocates (held in July 2023). Highlights include advocates’ perceptions about how the field should allocate resources.

This blog post examines why people adapt vegetarian and vegan diets. RP’s 2019 survey indicated that the greatest sources of influence were personal interactions, as well as interactions with animals. The importance attributed to social media, online videos, and documentaries is also high, particularly among more recent adopters.

This report builds a strategy based on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the animal advocacy movement in the European Union (EU) farmed fish policy space.

Rethink Priorities hosted the “Dimensions of Pain” workshop in April 2023 with experts in pain research. The goal was to identify empirical methods to test whether brief but severe pains (e.g. botched slaughter) or milder but longer pains (e.g. lameness) have a greater overall negative impact on farmed animals' welfare. This report summarizes the results and our researchers' updated conclusions.

Much of the optimism around plant-based meats derives from the hypothesis that matching animal-based meats in price, taste, and convenience (PTC) will shift consumption. However, Jacob Peacock’s review of the available evidence suggests that PTC are not the primary determinants of food choice. Even if plant-based meats were price, taste, and convenience competitive, many consumers would still primarily choose animal-based meats.

Decapod crustaceans or, for short, decapods (e.g., crabs, shrimp, or crayfish) represent a major food source for humans across the globe. If these animals are sentient, the growing decapod production industry likely poses serious welfare concerns for these animals.

This report analyzes the results of a survey of attendees at the Effective Animal Advocacy (EAA) Coordination Forum held in September 2022. The attendees represented approximately 20 key groups in the animal advocacy space.

This report estimates the impact and cost-effectiveness of four historical U.S. ballot initiatives that either restricted the use of common animal confinement methods, set minimum per-animal space requirements, and/or mandated cage-free systems for egg-laying hens.

The massive scale of invasive (e.g., non-native) Lymantria dispar dispar (spongy moth) outbreaks represents an unappreciated wild animal welfare issue.

This is a linkpost for a preprint paper submitted for peer review. The report explains how vaccine baits can be used to reduce the costs of dog vaccination campaigns, which are the key to controlling rabies amongst humans.

This post is the third installment in the Rodenticide Reduction sequence. This report describes and ranks interventions to reduce rodenticide use in the U.S. according to their expected impact, neglectedness, and tractability.

While decreasing the prices of plant-based substitutes is a prominent animal welfare strategy, it's possible this approach could increase animal consumption. In a review of 19 studies, Samara Mendez et al. observed wide variation in the relationship between butter and margarine prices and demand.

This post is the second installment in the Rodenticide Reduction sequence. This report explores the reasons why rodenticides are used, under what circumstances they could be replaced, and whether they are replaceable with currently available alternatives.

Senior Researcher Sagar Shah and Senior Research Manager Jacob Peacock conducted a preregistered reanalysis of data from a series of hypothetical discrete choice experiments from Brachem et al. (2019). They explored how meat-free meal selection correlated with the number of meat-free options and the availability of options containing fish/poultry meat or meat-analogues.