15. Learn More About The Emotional Lives Of Animals
“Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.” - Theodor Adorno
Unfortunately, out of all those on the Earth who are made to suffer, animals get a pretty rough deal. Generally treated worldwide as commodities and deemed as less likely to suffer due to a lack of intelligence and emotional capacity, their feelings are seldom taken into account. No matter what your view of animals may be, it’s worth learning more about their lives which are often richly emotional. It’s also worth considering that we have downplayed certain groups of people’s emotions and intelligence, including slaves, women and people of differing religions, in the past in order to exploit or scape-goat them.
There are many books now detailing the emotional lives of animals which would be worth a read so that we can all generally treat them with a lot more respect and consider how we may be unknowingly contributing to their abuse.
Did You Know…?
Ø Pigs are more intelligent than a three year old human child.
Ø Pigs dream and they sing to their young.
Ø Chickens have more than 30 different calls, and chicks start communicating with their mother while they are still inside the egg.
Ø A sheep can recognise 250 other sheep by sight.
Ø Cows have escaped and travelled miles in search of their calves when they have been taken from them.
Ø In 1959 Russell Church set up an experiment where rats were trained to press levers in order to get food. When these levers were pressed, another rat in a neighbouring chamber would receive an electric shock. Rats refused to press the lever if they could see that it caused the other rats electrical shocks even if it meant going without food.
Ø A study in 2004, revealed that fish respond similarly to fish hooks as they do to an electric shock in the roof of their mouth. Fish have pain receptors and respond to pain in similar ways to humans.
In the 1930s, a work elephant in Burma, Ma Shwe, was trapped in rising flood waters along with her calf. Elephant handlers couldn’t help as the steep banks were twelve to fifteen foot high. Ma Shwe held onto her baby to stop her floating away and often had to retrieve her as the water washed her away from her grip. Eventually, she managed to place her on land using her trunk but she was pulled away by the tide. J.H. Williams, the manager of the elephant camp, described how later, he heard ‘the grandest sounds of a mother’s love I can remember. Ma Shwe had crossed the river and got up the bank and was making her way back as fast as she could, calling the whole time - a defiant roar, but to her calf it was music. The two little ears, like maps of India, were cocked for-ward listening to the only sound that mattered, the call of her mother.’ The two elephants were left where they were and by morning the mother had crossed the river with her calf when it was no longer in flood.
The True Story Of Flipper
Although dolphins in aquariums tend to be well-treated, we never really know the effect it has on an intelligent creature to be stuck inside a contained environment their whole life.
Once Flipper was finished, Kathy (who played Flipper) was stored in a warehouse as there was to be no further financial gain from her. Unlike other mammals, dolphins aren’t automatic breathers; each breath is a conscious decision. Many dolphins when kept in captivity will simply stop breathing and effectively commit suicide.
Below, the trainer of Flipper, Ric O’ Barry tells us about his last moments with Kathy (Flipper).
‘She swam right over into my arms, looked me in the eye, took a deep breath, and never took another one. I let her go and she sank very slowly to the bottom of the tank.’
Ric described how he jumped into the tank and desperately tried to revive her before realising it was too late. He never trained dolphins again.
In England a calf had been bought at market and trucked to another farm. The next morning the people who had bought the calf came in to find him suckling from his mum in his stall, the gate having been knocked down. The cow had travelled several miles overnight to find her son. Similarly in West Virginia, a cow called Winnie was sold without her calf, Beauty. She escaped and was found twenty miles away with her calf in his new placement.
Koko
In 1984 the famous gorilla Koko, lost her pet kitten when he was run over by a car after slipping out of a doorway. Koko cried when the news was broken to her. Three days later she signed ‘cry’ when she was asked if she wanted to see a picture of her kitten. Five years later when shown a picture of herself and her kitten, she signed ‘that bad frown sorry inattention’. Before that, when asked why gorillas died she signed ‘trouble, old’ and when asked where gorillas go when they die, she signed ‘comfortable hole bye.’
Lulu
In ‘The Pig Who Sang To The Moon’ by Jeffrey Masson, the author tells the story of a pig who was kept as a pet, called Lulu. When her owner suddenly started to feel unwell, she rushed out of the dog door, scraping her sides to the point where they bled and lay in the middle of the road until someone followed her back to the house. Her owner, Joanne Altsmann, was having a heart attack and credits Lulu with having saved her life.