Ondine Sherman with 2010 winners Professor Chris Evans and Dr K-lynn Smith 

For the sixth year in a row Voiceless has sponsored the Eureka Prize for Research that Contributes to Animal Protection in the Australian Museum’s annual Eureka Science Awards. On 17 August the Voiceless team attended the black tie awards ceremony, where Australia’s top scientific researchers and academics mingled with politicians and celebrities for the announcement of this year’s winners.

The Voiceless Eureka Prize for Research that Contributes to Animal Protection was won by Dr K-lynn Smith and Professor Chris Evans, from the Centre for the Integrative Study of Animal Behaviour at Macquarie University in Sydney, for their work on the sentience of chickens.

Happy chickens, courtesy of Emma Bull

Dr Smith and Professor Evans used innovative playback experiments and three-dimensional dynamic images to shed light on the complex communication of chickens. This new understanding of chickens’ cognitive capabilities is helping to change public perception of chickens as simple, egg-laying automatons and reveals them for the intelligent, social creatures they are.

After presenting the award, Voiceless Director Ondine Sherman said it was encouraging to see research that proves what many of us know instinctively: that chickens are sentient, intelligent and social creatures who deserve our respect and compassion.  

Voiceless congratulates all winners of the 2010 Eureka Prizes. For the full list of winners and finalists, please see the Australian Museum Eureka Prize website.

Did you like this article? Share it!