Animal rights and media ethics in Australia: advocacy journalism?

This paper considers the role of animal rights-based Australian law in journalism studies and its connection to instruction of graduate students at a large university based in Victoria. Its case study examples illustrate and develop some of the discussions in journalism studies worldwide of the balance between ethical practice balanced against legal considerations, and whether advocacy and journalism can function together for the benefit of the public interest.

Variation in the softness and fibre curvature of cashmere, alpaca, mohair and other rare animal fibres

Softness of apparel textiles is a major attribute sought by consumers. There is surprisingly little objective information on the softness properties of rare animal fibres, particularly cashmere, alpaca and mohair. Samples of these and other rare animal fibres from different origins of production and processors were objectively measured for fibre diameter, fibre curvature (FC, crimp) and resistance to compression (softness). While there were curvilinear responses of resistance to compression to FC and to mean fibre diameter, FC accounted for much more of the variance in resistance to compression. Fibre type was an important determinant of resistance to compression. The softest fibres were alpaca, mohair and cashgora and all of the fibres measured were softer than most Merino wool. Quivet, llama, camel, guanaco, vicuña, yak wool, bison wool, dehaired cow down and Angora rabbit were also differentiated from alpaca, mohair and cashmere. There were important differences in the softness and FC of cashmere from different origins with cashmere from newer origins of production (Australia, New Zealand and USA) having lower resistance to compression than cashmere from traditional sources of China and Iran. Cashmere from different origins was differentiated on the basis of resistance to compression, FC and fibre diameter. Cashgora was differentiated from cashmere by having a lower FC and lower resistance to compression. There were minority effects of colour and fibre diameter variation on resistance to compression of cashmere. The implications of these findings for the identification and use of softer raw materials are discussed.

Mohair fibre quality and production as related to animal size

Mohair is a luxury fibre produced by Angora goats. Mohair has special textile properties and is famed for its lustre. There are many reports of the relationships between mohair attributes and processing. While mohair production can be profitable to farmers there are severe price discounts for faults and poor quality. While genetics is known to affect mohair quality, fundamental relationships between body size and mohair quality have not been determined. We conducted a series of investigations to quantify the relationships between important mohair quality attributes and live weight and other lifetime factors associated with Angora goats.

An interspecific Nicotiana Hybrid as a useful and cost-effective platform for production of animal vaccines

The use of transgenic plants to produce novel products has great biotechnological potential as the relatively inexpensive inputs of light, water, and nutrients are utilised in return for potentially valuable bioactive metabolites, diagnostic proteins and vaccines. Extensive research is ongoing in this area internationally with the aim of producing plant-made vaccines of importance for both animals and humans. Vaccine purification is generally regarded as being integral to the preparation of safe and effective vaccines for use in humans. However, the use of crude plant extracts for animal immunisation may enable plant-made vaccines to become a cost-effective and efficacious approach to safely immunise large numbers of farm animals against diseases such as avian influenza. Since the technology associated with genetic transformation and large-scale propagation is very well established in Nicotiana, the genus has attributes well-suited for the production of plant-made vaccines. However the presence of potentially toxic alkaloids in Nicotiana extracts impedes their use as crude vaccine preparations. In the current study we describe a Nicotiana tabacum and N. glauca hybrid that expresses the HA glycoprotein of influenza A in its leaves but does not synthesize alkaloids. We demonstrate that injection with crude leaf extracts from these interspecific hybrid plants is a safe and effective approach for immunising mice. Moreover, this antigen-producing alkaloid-free, transgenic interspecific hybrid is vigorous, with a high capacity for vegetative shoot regeneration after harvesting. These plants are easily propagated by vegetative cuttings and have the added benefit of not producing viable pollen, thus reducing potential problems associated with bio-containment. Hence, these Nicotiana hybrids provide an advantageous production platform for partially purified, plant-made vaccines which may be particularly well suited for use in veterinary immunization programs.

Tracks to advocacy: journalism studies, animal rights and Australian media law

This article considers the role of animal rights-based journalism and its connection to teaching media law and ethics to undergraduate students in an Australian university arts faculty. An anecdotal discussion of a reflective practice informing the teaching of an undergraduate course in a journalism major relates questions of ethics and law to broader considerations of the role of advocacy in and around journalism, and media practice. It is argued that animal rights-related stories have a role in training media professionals, and also in inspiring journalists to envision their own work as part of the democratic mechanisms of social and legal reform in Australia.