Ravens, Right Relationships and Ice Trucks
Posted by jennifer, May 20th, 2009 - under Opinion.
Tags: Birds, Philosophy
IN Canada’s remote freezing Northwest Territories, near the diamond mine of Ekati, a black raven follows ice road trucks. A youtube video has been made of the bird’s antics which include surfing the turbulence created by the big rigs.
Yesterday at the Sydney Writers Festival, I heard Eva Hornung, author of ‘Dogboy’, the story of a child who grows up with wolfs in Moscow, talking about animals and our relationship with them. She suggested that the divide between humans and animals is much closer than popular culture suggests and that we humans have a “vested interest” in suggesting otherwise.
I was also interested in a comment she made that we cannot have a completely “right relationship” with animals – it was in the context of domesticated dogs being necessarily submissive in character in order to coexist with humans. It is probably also impossible for humans to have a completely “right relationship” with nature?
Like dogs, black ravens are considered relatively intelligent and have an ability to solve complex problems, imitate, amuse and be amused.
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Notes and Links
Common Ravens, Corvus corax, have among the largest brains of any bird species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Raven
Dogboy, by Eva Hornung
http://www.librarything.com/work/8191112
“Dog boy is haunting, disturbing and throughout upsetting. A wake-up-to-reality story of modern life, set in Moscow with history to back it up. Eva Hornung has done her research and has presented an eloquently visual and smellable believable picture of what necessity of survival can lead to and the role of dogs in our lives and the role of humans in dogs’ lives.”
Dear Jennifer and all readers,
Unfortunaley it seems like my computer and the Windows Photo Gallery has crashed , and I have no back up. So this time I can’t post my promised photos and guest blog. I’m waiting for the computer wizard right now.
PS. Apologies to all! Hopefully my computer will be fixed soon and I might be back with some funny animal pics:)
Cheers,
Ann
spangled drongo “When you kill your own domestics for meat you usually have a herd of “killers” and they are in no doubt of their destiny after they have been yarded a couple of times and one of them slaughtered”.
We humans tend to get a bit choked up about our fellow humans being killed, why would animals feel any different? That’s basically the reason I stopped eating meat. We humans in civilized centres like cities no longer need it to survive, we kill animals for our own enjoyment.
janama “We readily accept that we have developed and advanced as a species over the past 2000 years. That’s how DNA works”.
We are all born with an intelligence in our DNA that can be expressed as love, compassion or empathy. No one learns how to be compassionate, it is a property that unfolds, if it’s allowed to, just as a human grows naturally in a physical sense. At the same time, as we grow, we are conditioned by others, mainly our parents, to turn off our natural intelligence in order to fit into a society. In that sense, we are not evolving, we are suppressing an intelligence that is already there. Maybe that’s why we are having so much trouble with reality.
I’m not religious in that I belong to no religious orthodoxy or have no beliefs. You did mention 2000 years ago as a reference point and that coincides with the time of Jesus Christ. There is a saying attributed to Jesus by the apostle Thomas Didymus (Doubting Thomas), that we humans are born with everything we need to know to survive in life. Funny enough, Krishnamurti, the man refered to earlier by Louis, said much the same thing.
When you become aware of your inner processes that becomes apparent. We have the ability to watch our minds operate, or to be aware of what they are doing. That seems to indicate that a part of the mind has the intelligence to watch the part that we normally live in…the part that flits back and forth in imagination between the past and the future…the part credited with day dreaming.
When you go into that deeper, it becomes fascinating. Essentially, we have suppressed an intelligence system that is responsible for keeping us alive. We wouldn’t get very far if the unconscious life support system was suddenly the responsibility of the conscious mind. Yet we have a situation in which a minor mechanism of the mind, the conscious mind, is trying to run the show through ego and other bs.
I don’t think it’s a matter of us evolving as much as it is a matter of realizing how stupid we really are. That can occur in a few seconds, if we want it to, it doesn’t take 2000 years. The question posed by Krishnamurti had to do with what it is that stops us seeing our stupidity. Once we see it, we can change immediately, but we simply don’t want to see it. We prefer the superficial qualities of the unevolved mind to those of the natural intelligence that came in our DNA.
Gordon wrote:
“K. went on at length about the illusions we have created about time and how we have set ourselves up in a neurotic space dependent on the illusion of psychological time. In other words, we tend to live, as you said, in an illusion of the past and the future rather than in the reality of now.”
I hope that I’m not taking this out of context, and please correct me if I’m mistaken. But it appears that Krishnamurti would approve more of the psychopathic lifestyle than of a normal one. How so?
The defining characteristic of a psychopath is a total absence of conscience. However CLASSICAL psychopaths tend to have a cluster of other characteristics that go along with the primary one. Example: impulsivity. They tend to live in the moment, and to have precious little regard for the long term consequences of their actions–even to themselves. In a way, that’s very New-Age-y, but it’s hardly a model of the worldview that we should cultivate within ourselves.
GR,
“we kill animals for our own enjoyment.”
I have to disagree with that, anyone who does that, will do it to humans just as easily, if he can get away with it, it’s not a common human trait.
Killing animals in an abattoir, or by hunting for food is not “killing for enjoyment”!
If you are happy as vegetarian, good for you.
Interesting comment Gordon, I find it surprising that you can have your obvious level of awareness and still feel the need to spend a lot of time on this blog arguing your beliefs which you seem very attached to, doesn’t this indicate an over attachment to an artificial mind created sense of self / ego which constantly needs to be right. If enlightenment is what you seek I would give up the blogging, people on this blog who argue from opposite points of view have far more in common than they realize, from a spiritual point of view.
Gordon,
Yes cattle are particularly aware of death, sheep not so much but they are much gentler animals so it’s hard to be sure.
These days I eat kangaroo for many reasons one of which is they are killed by a bullet on their home range without really knowing what hit them. They taste good too.
The roo shooter has to be good to make a living but he doesn’t really do it for enjoyment.
@Larry
I’ve read that a pair of perenties will sometimes play a similar trick on a female crocodile. One distracts the croc, while the other steals its eggs. We expect craftiness from corvids, but not from reptiles.
Your reference on perenties’ strategy for stealing crocodile eggs makes me to consider that perhaps it is a set of genes which has been transferred horizontally or vertically from lower phyla towards other phylogenetically related classes, including mammals.
@Gordon Robertson…
There are histories told by people working at slaughter houses about cows that cry when taken towards the slaughter house. Actually, I have not seen that personally, but I’ve seen how cows desperately cry when we take their yearlings apart from their mothers.
spangled drongo wrote:
“These days I eat kangaroo for many reasons one of which is they are killed by a bullet on their home range without really knowing what hit them. They taste good too.”
Just out of idle curiosity, what do roos taste like? Beef, venison, pork, chicken?
“Just out of idle curiosity, what do roos taste like? Beef, venison, pork, chicken?”
Larry, the best cuts taste like venison, to me even better. But I should not be saying this as it is bargain priced.
N N, I don’t know what you mean by “cry”. They bellow, and my impression is, is that it’s not for themselves but for those that have gone before.
When you shoot and butcher a cow on an open plain, sometimes the remaining herd will virtually have a requiem mass over the carcass.
Nasif, I have not seen cows actually cry either, but a neighbour of mine did, years ago. He had a cow bailed and was trying to milk her. She was in a cranky mood, and kicked, planting her foot in the bucket. He got wild, threw the spoilt milk over her and stormed off, leaving her pinned. An hour or so later he came back to check on her. She was quietly standing there with tears running down her cheeks. He felt awful as he let her go.
One advantage of paddock killing cattle is that they are felled by a bullet without knowing what hit them. But the herd does get upset. I have not heard of kangaroos grieving for lost mates.
Jen,
I’ve seen instances where people, in country areas where there is significant biodiversity, have agreed to a pet moratorium on cats and dogs on the basis of: keep your existing pets but when they die don’t replace them.
As a result there has been an exponential increase in native wildlife numbers and while it is a different type of relationship with animals, many humans prefer it.
As a dog owner I proposed in my area but with no success.
Comment from: spangled drongo May 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 am
N N, I don’t know what you mean by “cry”. They bellow, and my impression is, is that it’s not for themselves but for those that have gone before.
When you shoot and butcher a cow on an open plain, sometimes the remaining herd will virtually have a requiem mass over the carcass.
Sorry, English is not my native language, but Helen’s description is exactly what I meant, i.e. dropping tears by their cheeks. I’ve not seen them doing that; I was referring to something that butchers relate.
Comment from: Helen Mahar May 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
Nasif, I have not seen cows actually cry either, but a neighbour of mine did, years ago. He had a cow bailed and was trying to milk her. She was in a cranky mood, and kicked, planting her foot in the bucket. He got wild, threw the spoilt milk over her and stormed off, leaving her pinned. An hour or so later he came back to check on her. She was quietly standing there with tears running down her cheeks. He felt awful as he let her go.
One advantage of paddock killing cattle is that they are felled by a bullet without knowing what hit them. But the herd does get upset. I have not heard of kangaroos grieving for lost mates.
That’s what butchers relate on cows that are being driven to the slaughterhouse. I’ve not heard of kangaroos grieving for lost mates either; however, barn swallows do it through brief rituals before a dead mate or when their chicks accidentally fall outside the nest.
Regardless of being familiarized on seeing animals dying for my profession, I’m still distressed at their suffering; no matter if it is an ant or a cow.
Helen, it’s drawing a longish bow to say that a cranky cow left jammed in a bail for an hour or so and seen to have fluid running from her eyes and down her cheeks, was crying.
Branding toey cattle on an open camp produces snot, fluid and blood from about every orifice they possess.
Somehow, that doesn’t relate to hurt feelings as much as to wild, bovine aggression.
But better handling techniques these days certainly helps those emotions, whatever they are.
I’ve often seen cattle happen upon a spot where an out of sight beast was recently dispatched and removed for butchering, and then to see a dominant animal pawing at the area and emitting a deep “whorrr” for a bit. Soon they’re OK and off they wander.
Happy cows on the other hand will kick their legs up as they charge towards you and at the last second come to a screeching halt. If the expected hay bale is missing they might get a bit pushy as if to say, ” Hey, where’s my hay”. Also you often see the younger calves get caught up in the moment, and as they wheel around they lose their footing in their exurburance and go for a side slide.
Yep! Sometimes, happy days!
Helen Mahar,
Cows cry? Sure do – reminds me of an incident when I was working on Wooleen station (Brett Pollock) when a killer was needed. (Wooleen has since been destocked of sheep and now runs cattle).
Out to the paddock we went, a suitable beast (cow) was picked and despatched with a 308. The rest of the small herd only needed a couple of minutes before they realised what happened. Butchering the beast necessitated us putting a ring of vehicles around the deceased and to protect us from the bulls.
The herd of cattle were clearly distressed but having memories slightly longer lasting than goldfish, calm took some time to occur, about 1/ 2 an hour as I recall.
Bovines might be a tad dense in the brain area but they, non the less, are emotional animals and sense loss as much as we do, albeit with a shorter memory span.
Now killing an elephant for food is not a wise act – for elephants have prodigious memories. Perhaps why humans don’t have steak-pachydermus as a staple.
Spangles,
Scrub bulls – had a close encounter with one some years back on Carson River Station (Kimberley Region).
I was using a 4WD quad bike, a bunch of star pickets strapped on it for mining lease pegging purposes, and navigating by the GPS (attached on the handle bar).
The Quad was a water cooled Yamaha and thus somewhat quiet in operation.
After about 15 minutes traversing the country to the corner peg of the lease. I realised I was, well not lost since I knew exactly where I was, but needed to look at the topographic map to plan the next leg of the route. So I stopped, as you do, to captain cook the ground.
My problem was I stopped next to a scrub bull, (with his RH horn missing). As I stopped the quad he startled, nudged me from my left, (no horn thank heavens) and I then instantly moved the quad forward 10 meters. Both of us were equally startled – the bull on encountering an alien machine, I an half horned scrub bull. Sort of Mexican standoff :-)
And both of us were very wary when either of us spotted the other afterwards.
It’s moments like these that on needs minties or other stimulants.
Louis,
I was crazy enough once to take on “mustering” scrub bulls on contract. It was for the US hamburger meat trade because bullmeat can apparently absorb its own weight in water and such bulls only exist as wild scrubbers. Huge, old and extremely cunning.
But it is a mad caper. They call it moonlighting only you can’t use the moon. It has to be pitch dark. Lots of gored horses, dead dogs and broken limbs but good money.
Some people have posted comments here that show compassion for animals. Thanks!
Greens should celebrate the fundamental relationship between man and beast, not condemn it.
Great footage, Jennifer.