Swimming with Whales: A Note from Libby
Posted by jennifer, December 28th, 2006 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Plants and Animals
Hi Russell,
Going back to your points about sentient beings and our perception of other life forms. As you say, there is debate about how intelligent certain species are, how to measure that intelligence, whether they can feel emotions, what this all means. Being human, although we may try to be objective in assessing the cognitive abilities of other species, we are still limited by our own perceptions and interpretations.
I guess you would have come across certain situations with all manner of different species that have amazed you and made you re-evaluate your idea of how these organisms perceive their world. Most people who have pets, domestic animals or who have worked with wild animals can tell you interestng stories of certain encounters, but of course interpreting this into something that will not be labelled anthropomorphising is very hard. Often I think that our shame of anthropomorphising animals means we miss a lot of interesting details.
With regards to whales, I am sure that George, Ann and Peter can related stories that would suggest cetaceans are sentient beings and can feel fear as well as other emotions, and there is literature out there on studies into cetacean ‘intelligence’ and perception. For myself, I have had a few encounters that suggest to me that cetaceans are most definately sentient beings . One was with a southern right whale female I was cautiously observing in the water. I was careful to maintain my distance from her, but she kept positioning herself right next to me. If I would swim away she would follow. When I got tired and was treading water at one stage, she came up underneath me so that I was supported on her back. When I returned to the small boat and placed my hand in the water to say ‘goodbye’, she apporached the boat and lifted it up so that she could touch my hand with her back. Another encounter was observing a mother and calf humpback The mother was snoozing on the reef, but all of a sudden the calf looked up at me, left her side, swam straight up and put me on his belly, before casually rolling over and returning back to mum.
Why did these two animals choose to interact with me the way they did? Was I just a weird looking cetacean, or was I something quite different but that could obviously provide some tactile stimuli as well as perhaps ‘entertainment’? As I said, people who are close to pets and so on would have countless stories of special interactions with them.
Our preception of other species is also as you mentioned dependent upon cultural and religious beliefs. Whether we see ourselves as the pinnacle of all life and thus the ones to control it and dominant it depends often on these factors.
For me, I believe that as animals that can feel empathy, and have an awareness of themselves and others, we have a responsibility to ensure that our actions are not unnecessarily harming those others. Our relationships with animals should be humane and with careful thought for the past, present and future. Humans nowadays divorce themseves from the natural world, but in the end we are animals and part of that natural world, and could do well to remember that.
Cheers Libby.
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This note was originally posted as a comment here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001806.html .
Capt´n Pugwash
I´ll cherry pick as I´m busy with said website ..
” Do people who support sustainable harvesting of whales support the same for elephants?”
Yes
“Elephants have shown signs of mourning”
Human signs or elephant signs? If its elephant signs how do you know Pinxi?? and if it´´s human signs … anthropowhatsit again …. you can´t escape it .. it´s especially a bugger in fieldwork ..
“Is it an equal decision to choose between elephant or sardine on tonight’s menu?”
Depends on which herd or country both come from … As I´m not a big fish person, I´d probably choose the elephalump … but only if it came from a sustainable herd / country utilising sustainable practices with their elephants …
Intelligence does´nt even come into it ..
David in Tokyo may appreciate a little story. A few months ago I was in Kyoto, looking at giant koi in a temple lake. Wishing to jingle the small linguistic change in my pocket, I turned to a nearby Japanese bystander, pointed to the koi, and said ‘oishi’, which I believe means ‘delicious’. His eyes bulged in horror, and he said, in a very deep, loud voice ‘no eat!’, then stalked off, without bowing, which was probably significant. I wonder if he eats whale meat? I like the Japanese. They are fallible humans, just like us.
Yes that’s true Boxer. But one could still ask whether it’s ok to eat an animal (eg pig) if it’s widely known & accepted to be more intelligent than other choices. Or even, is it ok to breed dumber breeds as apparently we’ve inadvertently done? That’s probably a useless question to all of us here. I’m not aware that pigs get upset if their little piggy friend disappears, so if they’re raised humanely perhaps that’s enough. Personally I would definitely put the factory pig issue way ahead of eggs from free range chickens.
Social tendencies and level of awareness do seem to influence animal stress so I don’t believe that all breeds/species facing slaughter experience the same degree of stress. eg the grub v’s the sardine v’s the snail v’s the pig v’s the whale again. But as to how seriously we should treat that is again another question as you can equally say that kinda stress occurs naturally in the wild anyway. Or you could go even further & ask about plant stress but pls don’t! But antoher issue: should farmed animals get a fair crack at a decent lifespan too? I wouldn’t in all seriousness suggest mutton not lamb.
I don’t pretend to have the answers to these grey questions, and I’m certainly no animal rights activist. I’ve had dogs destroyed over sheep attacks too. I’m just saying that these issues can’t be ignored if issues of animal welfare/suffering/stress approaching slaughter come up; and values-based judgements should acknowledge their own implicit values. (That’s an open invitation for the willing to attack me but it’s relevant to all of us). The only thing I would say with confidence is that with the passing of time we raise the standards for acceptable treatment of our children, our pets and our farmed animals too. Therefore I expect these issues to have more influence in the future even if it seems all a bit silly today.
Boxer, as to the separation from nature, I meant not from our innovative products but from ‘nature’ in the sense of butterflies, trees, flowers, mountains, landscapes. There are many people who rarely ever leave the manmade environment, who move from air conditioned home to a/c car to a/c shopping mall and occasionally, from a/c plane to a/c luxury beachside resort. The city-dwellers that Motty particularly despises. There are plenty, no joke, who are intimidated by the prospect of stepping into open areas of the natural environment. Where does milk come from? (Lacking practical knowledge as a result too.) I don’t think calling that separated from the natural environment is by itself creating any separation that isn’t already proliferating. As to its general effects I can’t say myself. Maybe we should implement national service where citykids serve time in the country!?!
george one our biggest lacks is that our language and other communication options has itself evolved from human experience. We perhaps can learn the most by interpreting our closest mammal cousins and not assume without proof which apparently you can’t have that we’re too far removed. If you will abandon yr anthropwhatsit language limitations to discuss this phenomena and kindly paraphrase your point in elephant than I’ll do my best to interpret it.
Re elephants mourning:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1497634.htm
The classification of animals based on their sensory perceptions means that invertebrates draw the short straw when it comes to ethical treatment. For example, in NSW universities you do not need ethics approval to conduct research on inverts, including cephalopods (octopus, squid, etc), nor do captive institutions need to take in to account space requirements or husbandry. No backbone, no worries.
I wouldn’t eat Davey. Not even if I was a starving POW and his legs resembled turkeys’. If he said it was oishi, I’d eat the belly out of a taipan.
“I don’t believe that all breeds/species facing slaughter experience the same degree of stress. eg the grub v’s the sardine v’s the snail v’s the pig v’s the whale again.”
I know that when I cut up live blackworm (apologising profusely as I do it!) those worms that have not been cut but are present in the same dish do their best to escape as fast as possible, which they weren’t doing before.
“Maybe we should implement national service where citykids serve time in the country!?!”
Bring it on. Maybe then they’d learn not to waste water.
Are blackworms normal in this regard, are they smart, intuitive, emitting distress signals, detecting blood? We don’t know how social insects communicate & co-ordinate so we can’t be sure about other animals either.
I recognise george’s problem. He’s suffered the syndrome of some researchers who when confronted by the implicit values in their work and the reality that there’s no such thing as an independent purely objective observer, particularly when dealing with other living creatures, have thrown up their hands in despair and declared it’s all meaningless, futile and too hard. The stayers, like Libby, are just finding ways to admit these difficulties and work with them like you do with any other challenge.
Note the human bias present when critics like George cry against the use of ‘human’ terms to describe animal traits when they can serve as useful shorthand, eg ‘mourning’ instead of a long winded dry scientific description that would essentially convey the same meaning.
Pixie:” “I don’t believe that all breeds/species facing slaughter experience the same degree of stress”
….but Pixie, you have mentioned this before…this stress reaction is a survival mechanism too….
And do you know how to hunt coyotes?
Well, they play sounds from a hare in death anxiety….
So sure 99,9% of all living beings show some kind of a stress reaction.
Re animal mourning etc, I’m sure that in the near future it will be possible to really mesure empirically if an animal mourns or not.
Methink it could be measured through levels of hormones or neurotransmittors( signal substances ) etc.
yes Ann I worded that poorly and ended up saying nothing – trying to be general to address intelligence in the broad sense, ie not getting lost in the finer distinctions of intelligence and similar terms (which themselves are contentious let alone which species we can attribute them to). I realised that after teh blackworms. Stress response can simply be an instinctive reaction, not necessarily the same as what I was getting at with raising intelligence/awareness/sentience emotional stress or conscious awareness of approaching harm or for the surviving partner, memory of a loss, even ‘mourning/. Same applies with your point on pain that can be felt by all animals. The values issue still applies though on what values you consider and which you ignore in choosing which to eat.
Capt´n Pugwash ..
Assumption ..
” I recognise george’s problem. He’s suffered the syndrome of some researchers who when confronted by the implicit values in their work and the reality that there’s no such thing as an independent purely objective observer, particularly when dealing with other living creatures, have thrown up their hands in despair and declared it’s all meaningless, futile and too hard”
You´re assuming that´s the case – wrong … I quite happily interpret what ie, a killer whale / group is doing in ” our” human terms and will describe it as such to colleagues etc … when collecting the data though, it´s all about the numbers / data … ( despite whatever emotional bond I may or may not have )
Case in point .. Carousel feeding by killer whales … I know and anybody else knows when they see it that it´s a co-órdinated activity – the killer whales ( generally speaking ) co-operate with each other to achieve a desired end .. Lunch … try putting that in a paper and publish it and watch it being shot down in flames – you have to dance around what is plainly obvious ( Or is it? lol .. )in order not to make assumptions about the behaviour of individuals or a group … it´s plainly obvious to me that it´s co-operative behaviour – point being though, it may not be obvious to next researcher in line who sees things a bit differently … You need to be able to communicate your findings to other researchers and thats where the dry science bit comes in ..
If you can do it in such a way that joe public understands it then even better …
I usually just tell em ( Joe public ) that ” yes, they do co -operate with each other ” saves time and gets me home to my Malt supply quicker ;O) ( a very important feature of field work in the arctic winter – trust me on this
)
Truly independant observation? Does not exist Pinx … you just have to do the best you can
On an aside, I find it facinating when discussing Whaling with some other folk in my field – when faced with logic and facts that MAY show whaling in a good light or to be sustainable – the scientific objectivity flies out the window – or as another colleague put it ” it´s like they left part their brain at home to give it a rest ” ..LOL ..
Thats a broad generalisation of course … but it is fun in the pub at conferences
Chickens go off the lay for some days after you chop the head off one of them even within distant sight of the others.
Oops .. Should read ” part OF their brain ”
ummm durrrrr
so McWhaleBurger why are you happy enough to use anthrowhatsit terms yourself but quick to question other such uses? We’ve agreed before that science should shared with the general public as much as possible and they have limited time and low tolerance for academic speak. Soundbites help as you’ve observed. BTW, isn’t biology generally resistent to co-operative behaviours?
when faced with YOUR McCetacean logic and YOUR VERSION of the facts THEIR scientific objectivity flies out the window!
We recall that truly independant observation doesn’t exist.
Oh give me strength God, it IS all just a headmess, I’ll throw my hands up too and join McCetacean for a SS bluetongue beer. Cheers to Libby & her kind who soldier on.
” so McWhaleBurger why are you happy enough to use anthrowhatsit terms yourself but quick to question other such uses?”
I question my own uses as well Capt´n Pugwash … human contrariness ( is that a word? Durrrr )
” BTW, isn’t biology generally resistent to co-operative behaviours?”
Hole in one Capt´n …. and thats why you have to dance around explaining why say 14 killer whales are swimming around a herring school, forcing it against the surface into a tight ball ( having driven it ip from say 100m depth ) slapping it with their tails to stun the herring, which of course, another whale may eat and in addition, when they´ve all stuffed themselves, keep the herring ball there at the surface sometimes and let another group take it over , all without saying or hinting that they co operate in the process ….
I have nothing but total awe for the lady that actually managed it – I keep telling her she´d make a lot more money as a tax accountant – with such a creative flair for words, the taxman wouldn´t have a hope in hell – she´d be indundated with customers ;O)
Re interpreting animal behaviour.
It could as well be all wrong…
For example, an owl that is wounded and is hand fed , will close its eyes, be calm and really look comfortable…
The truth however is the opposite. This ” comfy” behaviour is actually a sign of distress…but it is very easy to interpret as something different…
Capt´n Puggy,
My? .. bugger that ..
The population of Minkies in the North east Atlantic is accepted at 107,000 ( or thereabouts ) Do you accept this? ( a hint, most of the boffins do )
Old Norway has been taking a varying catch of between 3 – 700 the last 12 years .. also accepted bumph …
Previously, Old Norway was taking a few thou from same population for a much longer period of time ..
So which version of the facts above to you wish to contest ?
( another hint – none of the facts above are MY facts / version )
So IF you take say 1% from a population by hunting for my MCwhaleburger … it fills the criteria of being a sustainable hunt .. or ? ( another hint – the last para was my opinion )
Factor in bycatch, ship strike etc etc and it still will not effect the population size by any great deal or at least enough for concern ..
Pollution is however another matter … and is more likely to cause the death of whaling than any NGO ever will
Simplified of course Capt´n but valid all the same..
apart from all that, I certainly will not tell anybody in Norway that they cannot do what they want with resources within their own territory – same as I would´nt tell you not to eat mutton, pork, mine for opals, de-forest queensland ( or wherever )
If you however want to impose your morals upon me or them then bugger you too – if you have a compelling reason why Norway should not exploit a resource in their own territory because it would directly affect the same resource in another nation then lets have it – but I would imagine that nation 1 would then say to nation 2 that if nation 2 doesn´t want to utilise said resource then fine by us – we do
Is the norwegian Minke whale hunt sustainable? I think it is … do you?
seem to have hit a nerve. Just when we were all getting along nicely too. From what I Dumb Pinky Citizen know, I think the Norwegian rates are currently sustainable (other unexpected factors notwithstanding). From prior digging into the info, I have stated on this blog some time back that I reckon the Norwegian take and approach both seem sustainable, which I guess means that I’m reasonable and we can be friends and agree on the facts and agree those others must be twits in distress.
Gosh, the sustainability issue got raised again. And I thought this was about the ‘other’ issues.
No nerve pinky ..
Just pointing out what I percieve ( when faced with YOUR McCetacean logic and YOUR VERSION of the facts THEIR scientific objectivity flies out the window! )
as a load of old cobblers … careful now, the lukeylook side of the force is influencing your usual deep gobbledegook umm reasoned posts ..
friends? .. only if I get to wear the walrus suit ( it´s duh damn big TEEV y´see ) handy for slashing swathes all about ..;)
Twits in distress? Hole in one Pinky – describes Lukeylook to a tee on arguing whaling ( both of his personalities that is );O9 … hur de hur
He does a mightly fine Job with anything with the letters AGW in it, but switches to something else ( nobodies figured it out yet ) when he slums with us mortals ..
An article in a December 2006 issue of New Scientist “Make love, not war” looks at the behaviour of our two closest relatives – chimpanzees and bonobos. I have extracted pieces from the article, which I hope doesn’t bore everyone senseless.
Bonobos are considered by many to be our closest living relative. They are considered “docile towards one another, never aggressive or murderous, and possess many of the psychological traits we value most, including altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience and sensitivity.” “Common chimps also have a reputation for aggression and bloodshed.”
Regarding bonobo behaviour “ what is becoming clear now though is that its behaviour is influenced less by nature – the genes – and more by its environment, culture and learning. What bonobos eat, how they structure their social interactions, and their ability to pass on certain psychological attitudes from one generation to another all seem to play a part.”
“When communities of bonobos from different areas of a forest meet, the females of each tribe initiate sex with males from the other. When chimp tribes meet, the encounters are extremely violent and it isn’t unusual for at least a few individuals to end up mauled or even dead. Chimps create despotic male-controlled societies where males beat up females to display dominance. Bonobo society is egalitarian, until it is time to feed, at which point females tend to get preferential access.”
There are other differences too. So far, no wild bonobo has been observed using a tool (although they can easily learn to use them in captivity if the need arises). And there are differences with sex too. Bonobos engage in “creative” sex, and it seems the only restriction is incest between mothers and their children. Chimps engage in female/male sex only, and with less overall frequency than bonobos. With chimps, “males are dominant, frequently use food to lure females into having sex with them, and sometimes beat uncooperative females.”
“Jane Goodall revealed that chimps have a taste for meat. Capable predators, Goodall observed them hunting in groups for monkeys, wild pigs and even antelope. Their attacks were anything but swift and merciful. Chimps have been seen slamming monkeys into rocks and then feasting on their flesh.” Bonobos do “sometimes hunt, kill and communally feast on other forest mammals.” “Unlike chimps, however, where males get the lion’s share, bonobo females always control the prey and share it primarily with other females and with youngsters.”
Bonobos though are primarily herbivorous, and the plants they consume are high in nutrients and low in indigestible components. One plant, the herb Haumania liebrechtsiana, is described as a “bonobo power bar.” Chimps don’t eat the herb, which is rare or absent in their habitat, and the vegetation in chimp habitats is also significantly higher in levels of tannins. Chimps “expend much time and ingenuity preparing their food to avoid ingesting tannins and similar chemicals.” Many researchers believe this is a driving force for tool use.
Bonobo forests contain tannins at lower levels, so bonobos don’t waste as much time preparing food. This means no need to make tools or think about what plants they will eat, and so feeding time has become “a social activity, allowing highly gregarious behaviour to emerge.” With abundant, nutritious vegetation and little need to hunt for meat or compete, researchers think this is a major contributor to their peaceful lifestyle. “Put bluntly, bonobos are nice because the environment they live in is nice.”
“Studies of other primates also show they can quickly learn to be more or less aggressive as their environment changes.” One researcher claims “I think what all of this shows is that if aggression works, an animal will use it. It isn’t an inherited characteristic. With the bonobos, team work currently pays off, violence does not. If their environment were to change, so too would their behaviours.”
“Gosh, the sustainability issue got raised again. And I thought this was about the ‘other’ issues.”
It´s all pinxi´s fault – honest Guv – I mean twit
Hope´s always the last thing to die Libby… sad but true ..
Good article – thanks for the excerpts..
Libby says that “[b]onobos are considered by many to be our closest living relative,” but one has to wonder how much of that is wishful thinking.
Many see in bonobos a reflection of the human ideal, while they’re horrified to see chimps acting the way humans do. After all, humans–so the story goes–are the only “bad” animals. Seeing chimps “behaving badly” is tantamount to suggesting that humans might be acting *naturally*! What an unpalatable notion!
I smell a misanthropic bias.
I smell something worse Schiller. You of all people can’t deny genetic research techniques. If we stopped whenever there was a wee risk of bias we wouldn’t do any science at all.
I read into the bonobos & chimps some time back and don’t recall the specifics of the genetic connections offhand but there are different approaches to assessing genetic lineages and depending on which technique is applied it could be argued that bonobos or chimps are our closest relatives. Applying social behavioural assessments they could similarly argue either way. Assuming for arguments sake that the case for chimps or bonobos being our closest relative is equally convincing, why do chimps get so much airplay and bonobos not? Is it mostly because of the passion & dedication of Goodall? A chimp clan was recorded over time performing systemic genocide of a rival clan. Does chimp behaviour hold more appeal? In terms of allocating attention & research, Bonobos are more appealing IMHO.
… the bonobo shares more than 98 percent of our genetic profile, making it as close to a human as, say, a fox is to a dog. The split between the human line of ancestry and the line of the chimpanzee and the bonobo is believed to have occurred a mere eight million years ago. The subsequent divergence of the chimpanzee and the bonobo lines came much later, perhaps prompted by the chimpanzee’s need to adapt to relatively open, dry habitats [see "East Side Story: The Origin of Humankind," by Yves Coppens; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, May 1994].
In contrast, bonobos probably never left the protection of the trees. Their present range lies in humid forests south of the Zaire River, where perhaps fewer than 10,000 bonobos survive. (Given the species’ slow rate of reproduction, the rapid destruction of its tropical habitat and the political instability of central Africa, there is reason for much concern about its future.)
If this evolutionary scenario of ecological continuity is true, the bonobo may have undergone less transformation than either humans or chimpanzees. It could most closely resemble the common ancestor of all three modern species. Indeed, in the 1930s Harold J. Coolidge–the American anatomist who gave the bonobo its eventual taxonomic status–suggested that the animal might be most similar to the primogenitor, since its anatomy is less specialized than is the chimpanzee’s. Bonobo body proportions have been compared with those of the australopithecines, a form of prehuman. When the apes stand or walk upright, they look as if they stepped straight out of an artist’s impression of early hominids.
Not too long ago the savanna baboon was regarded as the best living model of the human ancestor. That primate is adapted to the kinds of ecological conditions that prehumans may have faced after descending from the trees. But in the late 1970s, chimpanzees, which are much more closely related to humans, became the model of choice. Traits that are observed in chimpanzees–including cooperative hunting, food sharing, tool use, power politics and primitive warfare–were absent or not as developed in baboons. In the laboratory the apes have been able to learn sign language and to recognize themselves in a mirror, a sign of self-awareness not yet demonstrated in monkeys.
Although selecting the chimpanzee as the touchstone of hominid evolution represented a great improvement, at least one aspect of the former model did not need to be revised: male superiority remained the natural state of affairs. In both baboons and chimpanzees, males are conspicuously dominant over females; they reign supremely and often brutally. It is highly unusual for a fully grown male chimpanzee to be dominated by any female.
Enter the bonobo. Despite their common name–the pygmy chimpanzee–bonobos cannot be distinguished from the chimpanzee by size. Adult males of the smallest subspecies of chimpanzee weigh some 43 kilograms (95 pounds) and females 33 kilograms (73 pounds), about the same as bonobos. Although female bonobos are much smaller than the males, they seem to rule.
http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html
Interesting though Bonobos are we maybe have another icon species in trouble.
Yes it’s those dang baaaars !!!
The Times December 28, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2520955,00.html
Plight of the polar bear forces Bush to recognise climate threat
TIM REID IN WASHINGTON
The Bush Administration conceded yesterday that global warming is threatening the polar bear with extinction, the first time that it has singled out climate change as a grave threat to the Arctic and its most iconic inhabitant.
In a move that will have profound consequences not only for the polar bear but potentially for America’s polluting industries, the Administration declared last night that the polar bear should be added to its endangered species list because of the drastic melting of its habitat.
Dirk Kempthorne, the Interior Secretary, said: “We are concerned the polar bear’s habitat may literally be melting.”
By placing the polar bear under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the US Government must prevent any activity that could further jeopardise the animal or its habitat.
Environmentalists hope that the move will therefore compel the Administration to force US industries into cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, shrinking the sea ice and making it increasingly difficult for the world’s 22,000 to 25,000 polar bears to survive. Without ice, bears cannot hunt for seals and must swim huge distances to find hunting grounds.
Experts say that the bears are losing weight as their hunting grounds diminish, making it even harder for them to hunt and reproduce. In northern Canada, females that once averaged 620lb (281kg) are down to 485lb. Scientists also say that bears are drowning during long swims from ice to land, and a rise in cannibalism is another sign of how desperate the bears’ search for food has become.
In a stark warning this year, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said that the total Arctic ice cover had melted back to the lowest level in modern records, and that if melting rates continued apace the summertime Arctic could be ice-free within 80 years.
Last year three environmental groups sued the US Government to force it to review the status of the polar bear. Andrew Wetzler, a lawyer for one of them, the Natural Resources Defence Council, said: “It’s such a loud recognition that global warming is real. It is rapidly threatening the polar bear and, in fact, an entire ecosystem with utter destruction.”
Cub survival and physical stature issues
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1337/pdf/ofr20061337.pdf
Lots of projection going on here!
Animals always lose weight when they are taken out of their environment; a prize bull will shed kilos when going to the local show. Nothing at all about “smelling death”, animals dont fear death they fear prey animals and like humans avoid situations where they feel vulnerable to attack. When cattle from remote areas go to the meatworks they become highly stressed, not used to all this machinery and noise etc and getting them into a crush can be a problem. A farm killed animal is relaxed, you walk up to it and shoot it and thats that.
“Domesticated” animals dont “lose intelligence”; when in the wild they revert back – dogs hunt in packs by night like wolves. Domestic dogs go round and round before they lie down, it’s to flatten the grass and make a nest.
Horses intelligence is predominantly occupied by cordinating 4 limbs into 3 paces and eating, the rest is used up by staring at other horses to see where the herd is. They arent very bright but do have good memories, they usually lie down to sleep mid morning when all the lions and tigers have finished for the night.
“Many see in bonobos a reflection of the human ideal, while they’re horrified to see chimps acting the way humans do.”
If it makes you feel any better Schiller, the same article says:
“In contrast we never compare ourselvs to bonobos. Yet we have a remarkable capacity for peaceful cooperation not just in our daily dealings with each other but also in international organisations.”
I think our ability to get along harmoniously has been amply shown here at Jennifer’s blog!
Boxer:” Animals that have mammalian baby features – large round eyes, big heads – are a hot topic and that’s not surprising. Killing baby seals wouldn’t be an issue if they weren’t cute to look at and the blood didn’t contrast so strongly with the white snow. ”
Konrad Lorenz, the etolog( etology= the study of animal behaviour), who received the Nobel Prize in the 70′s, showed that big baby eyes make people as well as animal protecting. That is why babies have those big eyes. It’s an inbuilt instinct in us to protect the big eye ones!!
Maybe a bit unfair….
On an other note…
The EU will probably ban all trade with Norwegian seal products in the near future, due to increased concern about animal welfare issues. The decision is based upon that many believe that the seals are flogged alive( however , I don’t know if this is completely true).
Here’s the Norwegian link on this issue:
http://www.fiskeribladet.no/default.asp?lesmer=4750
Rog:” Horses intelligence is predominantly occupied by cordinating 4 limbs into 3 paces ”
But Rog….the Icelandic horse has 5 gaits.
Walking, trotting, galopping, pass and tölt!
They are extremely well tempered, easy for a beginner to ride…often used for tourists….horseback riding in Iceland must be at least as big an industry as whale watching
Pixie and George were discussing elephants and sustainable use….
Off topic here…. but it is about elephants…
I got a gift once, a bracelet made from hair from an elephant tail, bought from the Masai’s in Kenya. It is very beautiful, but I have never dared to use it because I have been a bit of an animal activist…
However, lately I think it is a pity to keep it in a drawer and wonder if it is ethically OK the use/ wear it.
What do ya think???
Ann some horsey types don’t count walk as a gait (otherwise rog’s horses would be very deficient). But if their brains are already so busy, how do they learn those elaborate dressage, tricks & other dancing school moves? And such amazing partnership & trust with human riders to jump obstacles they can’t see themselves. Not necessarily intelligence in the standard human school exam or IQ test sense but then we get into a messy distinction again between types of intelligence. As Libby’s posts remind us, and as so wonderfully parodied in that Onion article, we introduce a human bias in perceiving (& usually, rejecting) animal intelligence and depth of their inner landscape. The co-operative & caring tendencies of horses, where blind horses in the wild are guided by their herd members, apparently makes (minature) horses good guides for the blind. http://www.guidehorse.org/
Did the elephant give willingly of its tail hairs? You can’t give them back. I’d wear it. It would probably match that fur coat magnificently.
Hi Ann,
Maybe you can convince yourself that the hair was caught on a thorny bush as the animal passed by and consequently no elephants were harmed in its making?!
Keeping it in a drawer is not of much use. Perhaps since you think it is so beautiful, others will think it is beautiful too if you wear it. Then you can tell them that it was a gift but that it is a beautifully sad gift. Then the elephant’s memory lives on, which is kind of fitting for an elephant. Maybe that sounds a bit corny though.
Regarding the seal culls, I too thought it was more about the way way the animals are killed rather than the resulting colour scheme.
Note that with this biologically correct way of reporting observed behaviours and accusations of anthrowhatsit bias, eventually results are confirmed and finally science can state quite clearly what the layperson knew all along. There was a recent research discovery where a scientist watching dogs at play recorded a change in behaviour of the dog that was initiating play depending on how the attention of the other dog was directed. In other words, in human terms, awareness of self! Consciousness! But it might have just been human bias. What the scientist interpreted as a dog might have actually been a rog.
Thanks Libby and Pixie for your opinion!
Guess I can carry the elephant tail bracelet if I can convince myself that I carry on the elephants soul or something on the line…