The ABC’S of Animal Well-Being and Protection
The motto of this book is “Always Be Caring and Sharing”—what I call the ABC’S of animal protection. A compassionate and generous attitude toward all living things will be our guide as we look at some of the numerous scientific and ethical issues that we must consider when we discuss relationships between humans and other animals. (To make things simple, I will use the word animal to refer to nonhuman animal beings, recognizing of course that humans are animals as well.) It will become clear that the nature of animal-human encounters—how animals are viewed and treated—has large and often irreversible impacts on the many different environments in which we live.
As you read this book, you will discover that there are close connections among the various kinds of questions we will look at—such as whether or not animals are as valuable as humans, whether or not animals have rights, whether or not animals are conscious, whether or not animals have emotional lives and a point of view on the situations in which they find themselves, whether or not animals feel pain and suffer, and whether or not individual animals count more than entire species. The answers that are given for such questions greatly influence how we humans view other animals and interact with them. I often begin lectures asking, “Does anyone think that dogs don’t experience joy and sadness?” There is never an enthusiastic response to this question, even in scientific gatherings. But when I ask, “Who believes that dogs have feelings?” most hands wave wildly and people smile and nod in agreement, even in scientific venues but often with less passion. And, when someone questions whether dogs experience emotions—the ups and downs of everyday life—I say I’m glad I’m not their dog! The same can be said for many other animals who are routinely used and abused by humans.
Nowadays, more and more people consider these questions to be of great importance. People in all walks of life are asking: Is it right for us to do anything we want to animals, just because we are human beings, supposedly the “master” species—just because we can? Or should we do everything we can to make sure that the animals we come into contact with are happy, respected, and well cared for? In universities, researchers in many areas—including biology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, religious studies, and law—are all working together to provide answers for the many and complex questions concerning animal-human interactions. In addition, many people outside of these professions spend a great deal of time and energy trying to make the lives of animals better for the animals themselves. Fortunately, there are many of us who are convinced that the lives of animals are important—that they matter very much—and we try very hard to make animals’ lives the best they can be. We believe that humans should never interfere negatively in the lives of animals, especially on purpose. Humans are not the “master” species but one among many species on earth.
Why I am writing this book: The view from within biology
I am a biologist, who deeply cherishes the diverse and wondrous life on this splendid planet. My early scientific training as an undergraduate and a beginning graduate student was grounded in the notion of objectivity—what the philosopher Bernard Rollin calls the “common sense of science.” In this approach, science is viewed as a “value-free” activity purely concerned with gathering facts. Of course, science is not value-free—we all come to our lives with a point of view. But it took some time for me to come to this realization, because of the heavy indoctrination and arrogance of my training. Indeed, if science were value-free, my critics would leave me alone.
In supposedly objective science, animals are regarded as objects of study, not as subjects or experiencers of their own lives. In doing research on or about animals, we were taught to number animals instead of giving them names, in order to discourage us from bonding with them. However, naming and bonding with the animals whom I study is one way for me to respect them. Although some researchers believe that naming animals is a bad idea because named animals will be treated differently than numbered animals—usually less objectively—others believe just the opposite: that naming animals is a good idea. As Christopher Manes (1997) observed about many Western cultures, “If the world of our meaningful relationships is measured by the things we call by name, then our universe of meaning is rapidly shrinking. No culture has dispensed personal names as parsimoniously as ours . . . officially limiting personality to humans . . . [and] animals have become increasingly nameless. Something not somebody.”
Even scientists who know what is going on can sometimes have trouble breaking through their own jargon-garbled “objectivity” in order to tell it like it is. To read their convoluted explanations is to feel as if you have entered the theater of the absurd. Recently I read a report about pain in pigs that concluded: “The observed changes of acoustical parameters during the surgical period can be interpreted as vocal indicators for experienced pain and suffering. We conclude that a careful analysis of the vocal behavior of animals may help to gain a deeper knowledge of pain, stress and discomfort that an animal perceives. The results deliver further facts for a critical re-evaluation of the current practice of non-anaesthetized castration of piglets” (Puppe et al. 2005). This is a roundabout way of saying that castrating young pigs (surgically removing their testicles) without anesthesia—a routine procedure in domestic pig production—hurts. The piglets do not like it, as evidenced by their squeals and attempts to struggle and escape their horrible situation. The researchers conclude that perhaps—just perhaps, mind you—the screams of animals really mean something after all.
Jane Goodall (1999), the world-famous expert on chimpanzee behavior and tireless crusader for generating human respect for animal lives, notes that early in her career she learned that naming animals and describing their personalities was taboo in science, but because she had not been to university she did not know this. She “thought it was silly and paid no attention.” Dr. Goodall opposed reductionistic, mechanistic science early in her career, as she does now, and her bold efforts have had much influence on developing scientists’ views of animals as thinking and feeling beings.
The eyes of a cat influenced my development as a scientist. I was working on a research project for my doctoral degree in which we were supposed to kill the cats we were studying. However, when I went to get Speedo, a very intelligent cat who I’d secretly named (secretly, because we weren’t supposed to name our “subjects”), his fearlessness disappeared as if he knew that this was his last journey. As I picked him up, he looked at me and seemed to ask, “Why me?” Tears came to my eyes. He wouldn’t break his piercing stare. Though I followed through with what I was required to do and killed him, it broke my heart to do so. To this day I remember his unwavering eyes—they told the whole story of the interminable pain and indignity he had endured. Other students in the program tried to reassure me that it was all worth it, but I never recovered from that experience.
As a scientist, I have been lucky to have studied social behavior in coyotes in the Grand Teton National Park in Jackson, Wyoming; the development of behavior in Adélie penguins in Antarctica near the South Pole; and social behavior in various birds living near my home in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I have learned a lot about these amazing animals and many others. I am very concerned about what humans are doing to other animals and to the planet in general. Some of my views may make it seem as if I want to stop all animal research, including my own, and the human use of all animals everywhere, but this is not so. I am just not very happy with what is happening to the wonderful animals with whom I am privileged to live and share the earth. Are you?
In this short book I will discuss some broad and interrelated topics and raise numerous questions about how animals and humans interact—and about the ways animals are used for mostly human benefit. Each topic makes a number of points. All topics are related to the main issue: the choices people make when we interact with other animals with whom we are privileged to share the planet.
I have also compiled a list of resources in the back of the book, to help readers learn more about these and other topics, because some of the questions that need to be considered are difficult and it is helpful to see what others have to say about them. There is always something to be learned from others’ views.
I hope this book will appeal to people of all ages and in different cultures, because the issues I discuss and the questions I pose have few if any boundaries with respect to age, culture, and time. I am also hoping that this primer will serve to generate many more questions than those I raise, and that perhaps some people will be able to read it together and discuss questions as they arise. Brothers and sisters can read it to one another, and parents, teachers, and other adults can read it along with children. Young children are very interested in most animals. Their initial contacts usually are friendly and show that they do not recognize many large differences between themselves and other animals. When my nephew, Aaron, was two years old, he knelt, went nose-to-nose with a worm, and said, “Hello.” At seventeen, Aaron still is naturally attracted to animals.
Much of what children come to believe about and feel for animals is learned and influenced by early environments. Older children and adults can play major roles in developing children’s attitudes that have long-lasting effects. Jane Goodall’s foreword says this all very nicely.
Moderation and consistency in using animals
Most people take a moderate position on animal use by humans. They accept some uses of animals but not all. They feel all right about the use of some animals rather than others. For these people, not all animals are equal. They often find it difficult to be consistent and objective. Maybe it would be acceptable to use chimpanzees to save their own mother’s or child’s life, but not the life of someone else’s mother or child. Perhaps it is fine to confine a fish to an aquarium or a bird to a cage, but not a gorilla to a zoo. As Lisa Mighetto (1991) emphasizes, “Those who complain of the ‘inconsistencies’ of animal lovers understand neither the complexity of attitudes nor how rapidly they have developed.” Even with our inconsistencies and contradictions when dealing with the difficult issues centering on animal protection, we have come a long way in dealing with many, but not all, of the problems. But we should not be complacent, for there still are far too many animals suffering at the hands of humans, and much work still needs to be done. I am not trying to criticize these people, for the issues are very difficult. But some degree of consistency and perhaps strong guidelines are necessary to guide us so that we can lessen the pain and suffering that humans cause to other animals every second of every day.
Why all the concern about how animals are treated by humans? Why do some people spend a large portion of their lives studying animal-human interactions rather than playing games, going on vacations, or trying to learn about other interesting aspects of the wondrous world in which we all live? When many people sit back and look around at the world, they realize that they are too far removed from the other animals—and even too far removed from plants, rocks, and streams—with whom they share the planet Earth. This distance has made the world a mess—with lethal pollution, too many cars, too much disease, too much stress, too many people, and too many abused animals whose lives have been ruined. Many people are coming to realize that they are a part of the rest of nature and not apart from it. No one is outside nature. These people want to do something for all beings with whom they share the precious and limited resources on earth. What could be a better place to start than with the other animals—our kin—with whom we share our one and only wondrous but increasingly fragile planet.
Why are you so important? What difference can you make? Why should you care about other animals and the environment? It is very easy to answer this question. We all live on this planet, and we all inherit the earth that others leave behind. By thinking about these issues, it is likely that you will become more closely attached to the other living organisms and inanimate objects around you. Animals count, trees count, and rocks count. But all too often we live as if future generations do not count. What will happen if people in the future inherit the messes we leave? We need to share our lessons with one another, for what people learn will influence how they think and act.
It is important to encourage everyone to explore the ways animals live, important for all of us to want animals’ lives to be the best they can, and important for you to ask questions about how humans treat other animals. It is important for children to know that hamburgers were once cows, that the bacon on a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich was once a pig, and that cows, pigs, chickens, and fish are social animals and have families just like humans. Both the cow and the pig were once someone’s child, brother, or sister. They had lives that were ended so that people could eat them. They were removed from their mothers or families, housed in horrible conditions, shipped to commercial food-processing plants, and killed, suffering all the way. While this description sounds awful, and it could be “cleaned up” and colored by using other words to make it less offensive, this really is what happens to cows, pigs, and other animals who become human meals. If we do not tell it like it is, important messages are lost.
Teaching and practicing tolerance unquestionably are good habits to incorporate into all of our lives. We need to develop and to live an ethic of caring and sharing so that all animals are respected for the individuals they are. Perhaps the best way to state it is that we need to recognize that we are privileged to live on such a wonderfully diverse planet that is full of incredible and bountiful beauty. In order that our children, our children’s children, and their children in turn can fully enjoy the beauty and grandeur that nature offers, everyone must give very serious attention to how animals are viewed and treated. We are so lucky to have so many other animals as our friends.
Habitat loss and planetary biodiversity
Globally and locally, within small communities, there is much interest in the many and difficult questions concerning how humans interact with and treat animals. Of course, as we will see, global and local issues are closely related to one another. How and why humans and animals interact in nature, in industry, in zoos, wildlife theme parks, and aquariums, and in research laboratories are very important and controversial topics all over the world.
Globally, populations of humans are growing rapidly, and many populations of wild animals and plants continue to lose their battle with humans. Global biodiversity—the number of different species that inhabit our planet—is rapidly, and perhaps irreversibly, dwindling. In August 1998 a front-page story in the New York Times declared: “It Is Kenya’s Farmers vs. Wildlife, and the Animals Are Losing.” Indeed, 58% of the animals in Kenya’s Tsavo region, about 106,000 large mammals, vanished between 1973 and 1993. Nowadays, scientists claim that wildlife extinction rates are soaring, and the die-off threatens our planet’s biodiversity, which sustains farming, forestry, and oceans. When 1,200 scientists met at an international conference sponsored by the government of France in 2005, they issued a statement at the end of the five-day event. It said in part, “Biodiversity is being irreversibly destroyed by human activities at an unprecedented rate . . . [demanding] urgent and significant action.”1
Clearly, problems like Kenya’s concerning farming, tourism, human interests and needs, and the fate of wild animals are global issues. They demand close attention now because of the enormous uncontrolled growth in the number of humans all over the planet, the decline of habitat where animals can live (in Kenya it is estimated that wild lands are disappearing at a rate of 2% a year), and the rampant use of animals to meet human needs and desires.
On the global level, many researchers think that the main problem is fairly simple—there are too many people and not enough land for them. Indeed, habitat loss is considered by most conservation biologists to be the biggest threat to animal and plant life. Uncontrolled habitat loss means there will be a loss in global biodiversity. Even if humans want to reintroduce species to the wild or relocate them to suitable habitats where they would be able to thrive and survive, such places will not be available, because while the animals are not there, humans continue to develop the area and make it impossible to place them there at a later time.
Animal use: The numbers speak for themselves
In addition to global issues concerning biodiversity, there are also local concerns centered on individual animals rather than on entire ecosystems, populations, or species. Because there are so many people, the demand for animal products and for dealing with human medical needs and food requirements is rising astronomically.
Let’s first consider the number of animals who are used for food under rampantly inhumane conditions in factory farming and commercial food plants. Animals used for human meals far outnumber individual animals used for other purposes. People usually tell me that they had no idea that the numbers were so high. I’m personally proud that the people who prepared the index for my book Minding Animals became vegetarians after they saw the numbers, so let’s see what the numbers say. In the United States alone, some 26.8 billion (26,843,600,000, to be exact) animals were killed for food in 1998. These figures break down to 73,424,657 animals per day, 3,059,361 animals per hour, 50,989 animals per minute, and 850 animals per second slaughtered for food in the United States. As many as 12% of chickens and 14% of pigs die of stress, injury, or diseases because of the appalling conditions of today’s factory farms. Ingrid Newkirk, founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), notes that animals are also used in commercial pet food, where they find themselves in containers called “4-D bins.” The D’s stand for the Dead, Dying, Diseased, and Disabled individuals who are eaten by our companion animals. Slaughterhouses are truly “weapons of mass destruction.”
What about the use of animals in laboratory research? According to Larry Carbone (2004), about 690,800 guinea pigs, rabbits, and hamsters were used in American laboratories in 2001, along with 70,000 dogs, 49,400 primates, 22,800 cats, 161,700 farm animals (they get no break), and 80 million mice and rats. While these numbers are small compared with the commercial food industry, in which billions of animals suffer horrifically and interminably, it’s sickening to think about the lives that laboratory animals live and to know what they must be feeling in their cages. Recent studies demonstrate that mice feel empathy for other mice who are in pain, so not only do they suffer from the way in which they themselves are treated, but they also feel the pain of other mice. In 2006, researchers discovered that mice who watch their peers in pain are more sensitive to it themselves and that an injected mouse writhed more if its partner was also writhing. Mice used visual cues to generate the empathic response, although they typically use odor in many of their social encounters. In response to this recent discovery, it was suggested by one researcher that an opaque barrier be used to separate mice so that they can’t know what’s happening to another mouse, because mice who observe each other during experiments may be “contaminating” the data.
The scientific community has created a set of professional standards that is supposed to guide scientists in how to develop and conduct their research so as to preserve animal welfare as much as possible, and in theory animals used in research in the United States are protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act. But these safeguards have so far been inadequate. Only about 1% of animals used in research in the United States are protected by this legislation, and the legislation is sometimes amended in nonsensical ways to accommodate the “needs” of researchers. For instance, here is a quote from the Federal Register 69, no. 108, June 4, 2004: “We are amending the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations to reflect an amendment to the Act’s definition of the term animal. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 amended the definition of animal to specifically exclude birds, rats of the genus Rattus, and mice of the genus Mus, bred for use in research.”
It may surprise you to hear that birds, rats, and mice are not considered animals, but that’s the sort of logic that epitomizes federal legislators: since researchers are not “allowed” to abuse animals, the definition of “animal” is simply revised until it only refers to creatures researchers don’t need.
After this scientific study of empathy in mice appeared, I received numerous stories about empathy in a wide variety of animals, including rodents. People who live with animals weren’t surprised by the findings. CeAnn Lambert, who runs the Indiana Coyote Rescue Center, told that me that one hot summer morning she saw two baby mice in a deep sink in her garage. They were trying to get out of the sink but couldn’t get up the steep, slick sides. One of the mice seemed to be less exhausted than the other. CeAnn put some water in a lid and placed it in the sink, and immediately the more lively baby went over to get a drink. On the way to the water, the mouse found a piece of food and picked it up and took it over to its littermate. The weak mouse tried to take a bite of the food while the other kept moving the food slowly toward the water. Finally, the weaker mouse got a drink. Both gained some strength and climbed out using a board that CeAnn placed in the sink.
Government workers also kill numerous animals. For example, some people who work for the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “recreationally shoot” and kill prairie dogs in order to control populations of these beautiful rodents. The Animal Damage Control (ADC) unit (now called Wildlife Services) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for cruelly and indiscriminately killing hundreds of thousands animals—“varmints” or “pests” as officials call them—including coyotes (about 76,000 in 2004), foxes (about 4,300), and mountain lions (359) in the name of control and management.2 Wildlife Services killed about 83,000 mammalian predators in 2004. However, only about 1% of livestock losses are due to predators, and 99% are due to disease, exposure to bad weather, illness, starvation, dehydration, and deaths at birth. The ADC has also been responsible for reducing the populations of at least eleven endangered species.3
Numerous animals are subject to genetic engineering, bred by scientists to develop heart failure, for example, at an early age, for the purposes of research. Although some animals are genetically engineered to develop resistance to disease, this is done for the benefit of people, not for the animals themselves, and the degree of suffering and death of “designer animals” makes the practice of genetic tampering controversial. Genetically altered food—dubbed “frankenfood” by critics also is becoming very widespread.4 Furthermore, bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is being used to increase milk production by cows, despite its demonstrated risks to the health of cattle (increased udder infections and foot diseases) and humans (possible increased risk of breast cancer). The Humane Farming Association is leading a national campaign to protect consumers from the dangers of antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals used on factory farms, and to protect farm animals from being abused for profit. Bernard Rollin has written about these issues in his book The Frankenstein Syndrome (1995), as has Michael W. Fox in Beyond Evolution (1999).
We also need to be deeply concerned about the well-being of the millions of companion animals (“pets”). A survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association showed that in 2001 there were about 61,572,000 dogs, 70,796,000 cats, and 10,105,000 birds kept in homes in the United States. There were also about 5,107,000 companion horses. Millions of exotic animals also are kept as companions, including about 50 million fish (though it is very difficult to estimate the number of fish kept in homes), 1 million ferrets, 5 million rabbits, 630,000 gerbils, and 1 million turtles.5
A lot of money is spent on companion animals. One study found that money spent on pets in the United States will have more than doubled from $17 billion in 1994 to about $35.9 billion for 2005. In 2004, U.S. pet owners spent $34.4 billion on their pets, making the pet industry larger than the toy industry, in which about $20 billion was spent. According to this study, in 2004, dog owners spent an average $211 on routine veterinary visits, and cat owners spent $179.6
Far too many companion animals are permitted to reproduce, resulting in an overpopulation of unwanted individuals. Many are ignored or abused when they become burdensome to their human companions. Programs directly concerned with the well-being and fate of companion animals include First Strike, run by the Humane Society of the United States, devoted to raising awareness about the relationship between cruelty to animals and human violence. It has been found that violence toward pets is often a predictor of abuse of family members in the same home. First Strike works to prevent such cruelty and domestic abuse and to promote anti-cruelty legislation.
When human populations show explosive growth, it is other animals that suffer—entire ecosystems, species, populations, and individuals. The end result is clear: animals lose when human interests come into conflict with animal interests.
The problems we face in the area of animal-human interactions raise numerous questions, many of which I consider below. For example, how should humans treat animals? There is much interest in whether or not humans should treat animals in particular ways. Do we have to treat animals in certain ways? Are there right and wrong ways for humans to treat animals? Can we do whatever we want to animals? Do we need to respect animals’ rights? Do animals even have rights? And if animals have rights, what exactly are those rights? People interested in issues of animal-human relationships are concerned with the ethics of these interactions.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerned with issues of rightness or fairness and how we should behave toward one another. However, it is important to emphasize that for questions about the treatment of animals, there are often no clearcut “right” and “wrong” answers. Instead, there are “better” and “worse” answers. Open discussion of all sides will help us make progress. We can’t dismiss anyone’s point of view by pretending that it does not exist. Ignoring conflicts will not make them disappear. How we relate to animals is closely related to how we relate to ourselves and to other humans. We are all in this life together, and if we are not part of the solution, most likely we are part of the problem.
David Abram (1996), a philosopher and storyteller, reminds us that we live in a “more-than-human world.” Native Americans are proud to proclaim that “animals are all our relations.” These are important messages because they stress the close, intimate, and reciprocal relationships that exist between animals and humans. Animals are our kin. It is important to realize how much animals do for us. They teach us about trust and respect. Animals also teach us about responsibility. In return, we need to make sure that all animals have every opportunity to be happy and content. Compassion and respect are the least that we can give back to them.
It is also important to remember that when humans choose to use animals, the animals invariably have no say in these decisions. They cannot give their consent. Animals depend on our goodwill and mercy. They depend on humans to have their best interests in mind.
Speaking for voiceless animals
Humans are constantly making decisions for numerous animals. We are their voices. However, we also know that animals tell us how they are feeling using many types of vocalizations—ranging from purring by cats to show contentment to squealing by young unanesthetized pigs when their teeth are ground down on a grindstone or their tail is cut off with a pair of scissors. But when we speak for them, in order for there to be balance, we need to be sure that we are taking into account their best interests. As Jane Goodall (1990) has said: “The least I can do is to speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from the metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.” My companion dog Jethro cannot tell me in any human language whether it is all right for me to feed or walk him now, nor can laboratory rats tell me that they agree to be used in an experiment in which they will feel pain and suffer, and perhaps be killed. When scientists use chimpanzees for behavioral or medical research, they do not ask them if they agree to be kept in a small cage alone, be injected with a virus, have blood drawn, and then perhaps be “sacrificed”—killed—so that the psychological and physiological effects of the experiment can be studied in more detail.
Because of our dominant position in the world, because we can freely speak and express our feelings about animals, who do not have much say in the matter, it might seem as if animals exist for humans to use in any way we choose. However, ethical values tell us that animals should not be viewed as property, as resources, or as disposable machines who exist for human consumption, treated like bicycles or backpacks. Just because we can exercise power doesn’t mean we have to do it; we have a choice. And just because certain activities seem to have worked in the past does not mean that they truly have worked. For example, in the past, most people believed that in order to make human life better, we had to perform experimental research on animals, even if that meant disrupting their lives and bodies in violent ways. Eating the flesh of animals was also believed to be indispensable to human health. Today we know that both of these practices—invasive experimentation and meat eating—are not necessary to a good life for humans, and people increasingly consider them to be cruel and unethical. Although we cannot undo all the mistakes people have made with animals, there is still time—perhaps not a lot of time—to make changes that will help both us and other animals to have better lives.
Unfortunately, modern people are largely detached from nature and the outdoors in general. A recent survey showed that most people spend more than 95% of their lives indoors. One result of this alienation from nature is that it causes us to lose our feeling of kinship with animals and encourages us to treat them like mere objects, to do with whatever we want. Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet.
I hope that this book promotes open discussion about the way we treat animals. Open discussion, in which we listen to everyone’s point of view, can make us better people and also can make the world a better place to live in. We will therefore look at some opposing viewpoints in this book, because it can be useful to adopt the position opposite to the one that you agree with and try to defend it. You then can imagine what your opponents are thinking and how they developed their own thoughts and feelings about animal-human interactions.
Minding animals: A personal story
A good place to begin is with a few anecdotes about my own experiences with animals. Growing up, I did not have the company of many animals. From time to time there were some goldfish and little painted turtles with whom to share my life. I loved them and watched them do what they do.
When I was very young, my parents tell me, I always “minded” animals. “Minding animals” means that I cared for them and simply assumed that they had very active brains. I also knew that they had minds! I never doubted that they were very smart. I always asked, “What do you think they’re thinking? What’s on their minds? What do you think they’re feeling?” I never doubted that animals had minds and were just like us in many ways.
Of course, later I came to realize that animals have their own points of view, but by using human terms to describe animal emotions and behavior—they are happy, sad, angry, jealous—it made it easier to tell myself and others what might be happening in their heads. It also struck me as odd that many people who thought that animals could have negative emotions—that they could be angry, mean, or depressed and treated with antidepressants—were uncomfortable when people ascribed positive emotions to animals—that they could be happy and enjoy life.
Not until I was twenty-six years old did I have the wonderful experience of sharing my life with a companion dog. Moses was a large white malamute who blessed my life for only a short period of time. He was a bundle of joy who made me realize how much I had missed as a kid. Because I was in graduate school studying animal behavior, it was natural to include Moses in my circle of dearest friends. When he was two and a half years old, he died while being treated for a hangnail. Really, a simple hangnail. The veterinarian gave him a mild sedative, and Moses had an allergic reaction to it and died suddenly. I was devastated. How could this happen? How could I cope with his absence? It was the first time in a long while that I had experienced such a great loss, and it made me even more determined to live with and to study animals for the rest of my life. I wanted to learn more about how they perceive their own lives, how and why animals come to mean so much to so many people, and what I could do to make their lives better for them, regardless of what I or other humans wanted or needed.
Here is a story that always creeps into my mind when I think about animal tales that show how “minding animals” can help us understand their lives. Years after this incident happened, it still rings clearly in my memory.
My students and I studied coyotes for seven years around Blacktail Butte, in the Grand Teton National Park, south of Jackson, Wyoming. A female whom we called “Mom” was a mother and a wife from the beginning of the study until late 1980 when she began leaving her family for short forays. She would just take off and disappear for a few hours and then return to the pack as if nothing had happened. I wondered if her family missed her when she wandered about. It sure seemed that they did. When Mom left for forays that lasted for longer and longer periods of time, often a day or two, some pack members would look at her curiously before she left—they would cock their head to the side and squint and furrow their brows as if they were asking, “Where are you going now?” Some of her children would even follow her for a while. When Mom returned, they would greet her effusively by whining loudly, licking her muzzle, wagging their tails like windmills, and rolling over in front of her in glee. “Mom’s back!”
One day Mom left the pack and never again returned. The pack waited impatiently for days and days. Some coyotes paced nervously about like expectant parents, while others went off on short trips, only to return alone. They traveled in the direction she had gone, sniffed in places she might have visited, and howled as if calling her home. For more than a week, some spark seemed to be gone. Her family missed her. I think the coyotes would have cried if they could have.
After a while, life returned to normal on Blacktail Butte: sleep, eat, play a little, hunt, defend the territory, rest, and travel. A new and unfamiliar female joined the pack, was accepted by all the coyotes, formed a partnership with the breeding dominant male, and eventually gave birth to eight babies. Now she was mom and wife. But every now and again it seemed that some of the pack members still missed the original Mom—maybe she was lost; maybe she would return if we went to look for her. The coyotes would sit up, look around, raise their noses to the wind, head off on short trips in the direction that Mom last went, and return weary without her. It took about three or four months until these searches ended. Pack members still seemed to miss Mom, but it was time for them to move on.
It was clear to me and my students that coyotes, like many other animals, have deep and complicated feelings. I’ll never forget this lesson in animal emotions that Mom and her family taught me.
A “rabbit punch” changes my life
Here is another story of some events that changed my life. One afternoon, during a graduate course in physiology, one of my professors strutted into class sporting a wide grin while carrying a live rabbit and calmly announced that he was going to kill a rabbit for us to use in a later experiment, by using a method named after the rabbit himself, namely a “rabbit punch.” He killed the rabbit in front of the class by breaking his neck by chopping him with the side of his hand. I was astonished and sickened by the entire spectacle. I refused to partake in the laboratory exercise and also decided that the graduate program in which I was enrolled was not for me. I began to think seriously about alternatives. I enjoyed science and continue to enjoy doing scientific research, but I imagined that there were other ways of doing science that incorporated respect for animals and allowed individuals to conduct science according to their own ethical values instead of being forced to follow cruel conventions of the field. I went on to another graduate program, but dropped out because I did not want to kill dogs in physiology laboratories or cats in a research project. (I later learned that the famous biologist Charles Darwin also dropped out of medical school after one year, quite possibly because of his repulsion at experiments on dogs. In his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin wrote about someone who experimented on dogs: “ . . . this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his death.”) Finally, I found a graduate program in which I could watch animals and record what they did, without having to kill them to learn about their exciting and unique lives.
It is all right to care about animals
Now, the reason I am telling you some of my personal stories is not to preach that my approach to science is the only right one. Rather, it is to make a few points. First, while having contact with animals early in life might be important for developing empathy and feelings for them, it is not necessary to have been raised alongside animals. Also, it is possible for people to change their views on animals. I have changed my mind about what I can and cannot do to animals, and so have a number of my colleagues.
Some researchers do not like to form close bonds with the animals they study because they think it influences their research, which is supposed to be objective. However, Konrad Lorenz—the famous Nobel Prize–winning ethologist, or specialist in animal behavior—believed that it is all right for researchers to bond with the animals they study, that in fact we should love the animals we study. Respecting and forming bonds with the animals you study might make you view them very differently than if you considered them to be mere objects. When we love animals instead of just treating them like “things,” we begin to appreciate them for who they are in their own worlds, and to view them as subjects of a life and not mere objects. Such an attitude can only make science better and more reliable. Why? Because when we respect each animal’s point of view, we will stop thinking of animals exclusively from our own points of view and will start to truly understand theirs. As we come to understand how they are and how they sense their world, we will appreciate them and respect them more. And increased appreciation and respect will then mean that we will exert greater efforts to make their lives better because they are living beings, not because they can serve us in one way or another. Although other animals may be different from us, this does not make them less than us.
Animals have their own lives and their own points of view, and it is important to recognize this. Maybe it is easier to harm animals if we distance ourselves from them—we may think that since they are so different from us that it is okay for us to harm them. But this only makes matters worse, in the end, for us humans. People who do this get so removed from the world around them they cannot appreciate its remarkable beauty and splendor.
It is all right to care about animals. Caring about animals makes us more humane and more human, for we know when we are choosing cruelty over compassion. When we recognize the beauty and value of each and every life, I believe, the world will become a better place, and that better science will result. A compassionate view of the world on the part of humans will make the world a happier place for all of its residents. We are animals’ guardians and spokespersons, and we owe them unconditional compassion, respect, and support—just as we do with our fellow human beings. We may have control and “dominion” over other animals, but this does not mean that we have the right to exploit and dominate them. Most importantly, each and every one of us makes a difference.
My views on animal minds, animal rights, and doing science with animals have been strongly influenced by the animals’ unselfish sharing of their lives with me. I consider myself lucky and privileged to have been able to have made the intimate acquaintance of many different animals, to be touched by who they are as both individuals and members of diverse species. I am sure that in some instances they were watching, smelling, hearing, and studying me as closely as I was observing them. People are often not aware that they are interfering in the lives of the animals in whom they are interested. The following guiding principles for interactions with animals thus stress that it is a privilege to share our lives with other animals; we should respect their interests and lives at all times, and give serious attention to the animals’ own views of the world.
1. Take seriously the animals’ own points of view.
2. Give priority to respect, compassion, and admiration for other animals.
3. When uncertain about whether animals are feeling pain or suffering, assume that they are and act accordingly.
4. Recognize that almost all of the methods used to study animals, even in the wild, are intrusions on their lives, and step into their lives as lightly as possible, if at all.
5. Focus on the importance of individuals, and the diversity of the lives of individual animals in the worlds within which they live, rather than on species or ecosystems.
6. Appreciate individual variations in behavior and temperament: not all coyotes are the same.
7. Use compassion and empathy when doing scientific research.
Although I have always been concerned with animal protection, I have not always applied the highest standards of conduct to my own research. When I studied predatory behavior in infant coyotes in the mid-1970s, I provided mice and chickens as bait. The coyotes were allowed to chase and kill the mice and chickens, who could not escape. I regret this type of research, and I apologize to the animals that I allowed to be killed. I never again engaged in this kind of research.
Now, what are some questions that must be considered when talking about how humans and animals get along? Why should we care about other animals? First, I will list some questions. You will see that many of the questions are related to one another and that we cannot discuss one without discussing others.
Let me stress once again that there are no “right” and “wrong” answers for many, but not for all, of these questions. People who disagree with one another cannot always be called “good” or “bad.” There are shades of grey—but perhaps some of the grey areas will become more black or white as they are discussed openly. What is needed now is for each of us to sit down and think about these and other questions in a way that helps make animals’ lives become better in the future.
When people tell me that they love animals and then go on to abuse them, I tell them that I’m glad they don’t love me. I often ask researchers who conduct invasive work with animals or people who slaughter animals on factory farms, “Would you do it to your dog?” Some are startled to hear this question. If someone won’t do something to their dog that they do daily to other dogs or to mice, rats, cats, monkeys, pigs, cows, elephants, or chimpanzees, we need to know why. There’s no doubt whatsoever that, when it comes to what we may and may not do to other animals, it’s their emotions that should inform our discussions and our actions on their behalf.
We all make choices, and the reasons why certain choices are made need to be carefully analyzed and discussed. Some people justify their cruel treatment of animals by saying that animals are cruel to one another, so why can’t we be cruel to animals? We will see later on that this is a bad argument and simply not true. It’s not a dog-eat-dog world; indeed, dogs do not eat other dogs. Rather, we know that many animals show compassion and empathy toward one another and that they truly care about how their friends are feeling.
While I was watching a group of wild elephants living in the Samburu Reserve in northern Kenya, I noted that one of them, Babyl, walked very slowly. I learned that she was crippled and that she couldn’t travel as fast as the rest of the herd. However, the elephants in Babyl’s group didn’t leave her behind when they traveled. When I asked the elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton about this, he replied that these elephants always waited for Babyl, and they’d been doing so for years. They’d walk for a while, then stop and look around to see where Babyl was. Depending on how she was doing, they’d either wait or proceed. Iain said the matriarch even fed her on occasion. Why did the other elephants in the herd act this way? Babyl could do little for them, so there was no reason or practical gain for helping her. The obvious explanation is that the other elephants cared for Babyl, and so they adjusted their behavior to allow her to remain with the group. Friendship and empathy go a long way.
Joyce Poole, who has studied African elephants for decades, was told a story about a teenage female who was suffering from a withered leg on which she could put no weight. When a young male from another group began attacking the injured female, a large adult female chased the attacking male, returned to the young female, and touched her crippled leg with her trunk. Poole is certain that the adult female was showing empathy and sympathy.
Bears also display empathy. While I was in Homer, Alaska, I read about two grizzly bear cubs who stuck together after they were orphaned when their mother was shot near the Russian River. The female cub remained with her wounded sibling, who limped and swam very slowly, allowing her brother to eat fish she hauled ashore. An observer noted, “She came out and got a fish, and pulled it back, and then she let the other one eat.” The young female obviously cared for her brother, and her support was crucial for his survival.
Animals often support one another and we must support them too. Their lives must be taken seriously, and it is not enough to argue that the ends justify the means—that human benefits justify our uses and treatment of animals. Often what we claim is “good welfare” is not “good enough.” Our emotions are the gifts of our ancestors, our animal kin. We have feelings and so do other animals. We must never forget this.
1. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/01/31_olsond_biodiversity.
2. www.goagro.org/WS04Kill.pdf.
3. For a summary see www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/tables/TABLE%2010Killed,%20FY%202004.pdf.
4. See www.organicconsumers.org, www.biointegrity.org, and www.safe-food.org.