【推荐1】Dogs began to branch out from wolves tens of thousands of years ago, when their wild ancestors started interacting with humans. Over time, domestication shaped their behavior, and today pet dogs are especially expert at understanding cues(暗示)from humans. For example, when a person points at a bowl, a pet dog will usually approach it’ll kinds of complex pointing gestures have been tried with pet dogs, and they seem to do well.

Wolves are a different story, however. When the same experiments are done with wolves, hey seem to be quite poor at it. So there’s this big open question of how dogs became dogs.

Bhadra, an Indian behavioral biologist, is interested in whether dogs require training to understand cues like pointing or if the behavior is inborn. Most studies have focused on pet dogs in developed countries but Bhadra thinks it’s an error to neglect how stray dogs respond to human cues.

In India, there’s a huge population of stray dogs that live on the streets for generations. The researchers felt that the free-ranging dogs were a very nice system, which could give them inputs about what dogs could have been like before being made parts of human families.

For the study, the researchers approached stray dogs on the Indian streets. One experimenter presented the dogs with a piece of raw chicken in a plastic bowl. About half of the time, the dogs ran away, scared. But the friendlier dogs that stuck around were tested for their ability to respond to pointing. Once a dog proved interested, the first experimenter put chicken in one of two bowls and covered both bowls. A second experimenter, who had no knowledge of which bowl contained the meat and thus couldn’t give subconscious cue information, pointed at one of the bowls while the dog watched. About 80 percent actually followed the point and went to the bowl that the second experimenter pointed toward.

Bhadra thinks this demonstration provides evidence that training is not required for dogs to understand complex pointing cues. Perhaps further studies with stray dogs can help reveal more about what makes dogs the best friends of human beings.

【推荐2】Has Iceland had its last whaling season?

Iceland’s last whaler has no plans to stop. But as global demand slows for whale meat, his business may be over anyway.

Iceland is a member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) but goes against the 88-nation body’s ban on commercial whaling, in force since 1986. In 2006, the country began setting quotas(配额) for whale hunts in its waters. This year, after a four-year suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hvalur’s hunt restarted, from June through September. Iceland’s current quota of 161 fin whales(长须鲸) applies to the western region covered by the company’s license, which will be out of date at the end of 2023.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which last assessed fin whales in 2018, lists them in danger, largely because of their decrease by commercial whaling during the 20th century. Fin whales are speedy swimmers, and with the appearance of steam-powered ships and explosive harpoons, they became easier to catch. Since the 1970s, however, hunting restrictions have allowed these whales to rebound. The most recent estimate, in 2007, of fin whale numbers in the Iceland region was about 30,000.

In February, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, Iceland’s Minister of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries, told local news outlets that “there is little to justify allowing whaling” because of the controversial nature of the industry and the low demand these days for whale meat.

The percentage of Icelanders who oppose fin whaling has more than doubled since 2013, while the percentage of supporters ‘has fallen more than 20 percent, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Only 2 percent of Icelanders say they eat whale meat regularly, and 84 percent had never tried it, a 2018 Gallup poll found.

“Continued whaling is a fool’s game, really, on the cost of the planet, biodiversity, the climate,” says Astrid Fuchs, policy manager at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a nonprofit dedicated to marine conservation and welfare.

【推荐3】A five-year-old dog named Millie is helping to keep the streets of Hereford, England, clean with her 80-year-old owner Alfie Kitson. Kitson only has to point at a bit of rubbish on the floor and say, “Put that in the bin,” and Millie will do what he bids.

Millie was just eight months old when she was found abandoned in a rubbish bag tied to a tree branch in Spain, where Kitson and his family lived for 20 years. After giving her a new home, Kitson later spotted a soldier and his dog doing the trick in a park and set about trying to get Millie to do the same.

He began putting a box, of similar size to a public bin, in their Spanish garden, and bit by bit, he raised its height as she understood to drop things in the box. And luckily, the bins in Hereford were just the right size for Millie to showcase her talent when she moved to Britain with Kitson and his wife.

“Obviously, environmental concerns are a hot topic at the moment, so if we can help clear up rubbish and plastic off the street, then we’re doing our bit to help,” Kitson said. “We rescued her because our house felt empty without an animal. Dogs and cats are a big part of the life of anyone who loves animals. She is the family, and we are glad we can show her off to neighbors as she is really an amazing dog.”

Hereford office worker Samuel Tiler regularly spots Millie working her magic in the city center.

“The first time I saw her do it, I thought I might be going mad. I thought, ‘Is that really a dog tidying up people’s litter?’” he said of the dog. “I just wish people could be more thoughtful as it shouldn’t take a dog to clear up after them,” Tiler added. “If you’ve got a dog taking responsibility for the environment — surely we can do the same.”