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Dr. Elisabeth Ormandy, Executive Director, Animals in Science Policy Institute
Dr. Elisabeth Ormandy is the executive director and co-founder of Animals in Science Policy Institute (AiSPI). She joins us to talk about the work of this Canadian non-profit. AiSPI provides education on 
ethics and non-animal alternatives in research, testing and teaching. Their mission is to build an ethical culture in science that respects animal life.
To this end they are currently involved in assessing how well students learn when using virtual dissection tools compared to dissecting animals.
Elisabeth has worked with school teachers and students in the Greater Vancouver area to bring non-animal alternatives to the classroom. AiSPI welcomes science students and teachers interested in alternatives to dissection to get in touch and to use the resources on their website.
What A Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe
Jonathan Balcombe is a biologist with a doctorate in Ethology, the study of animal behaviour. He uses knowledge from this discipline to educate us and promote compassion, often through his writing. He has authored four popular science books on the inner lives of animals, including Pleasurable Kingdom, Second Nature, and What a Fish Knows. He has also published over 60 scientific papers and book chapters on animal behaviour and animal protection.
We caught Jonathan just before his outstanding presentation on What a Fish Knows at The Cultch and asked him a few questions about fishes.
Why the word “fishes” instead of the more common term, “fish”? As Jonathan explains pluralizing the word indicates that they are several fish individuals. We think it gives each fish a little more respect.
