The emotional lives of animals

[Guest guest]

I was genuinely surprised that The Telegraph actually carried this review in

the most intellectual section of the newspaper. Some of the content is based

on an interview I did with Marc Bekoff in Madras during the last Asia for

Animals conference.

 

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070803/asp/opinion/story_8135248.asp

TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS

 

*The Emotional Lives of Animals By Marc Bekoff, **

New World Library, $23.95*

 

It is commonplace for pet-owners to ascribe emotions to their animals. Dogs

seem happy when they wag their tails and cats look sad when they crouch.

However, in the cold-blooded empirical world of scientists, attributing

human emotions to non-human creatures is still considered to be a cardinal

sin. Such a proclamation may appear strange one-and-a-half centuries after

the pioneering works of Charles Darwin, but many ethologists (scientists who

study animal behaviour) still see red when human feelings are applied to

animals. But Marc Bekoff has thrown the gauntlet to his peers by writing

this book, where he speaks favourably of anthropomorphism while studying the

lives of creatures great and small.

 

Bekoff has ruffled many feathers throughout his working life. As a colleague

of the Nobel laureate, Konrad Lorenz, and legendary chimpanzee researcher,

Jane Goodall, Bekoff has been a renegade in the overwhelmingly stolid

scientific community that in many ways still sticks to the view that

cognitive thought processes are uniquely human, and animals are incapable of

manifesting the qualities of what we see in each other as pleasure and pain.

 

 

He turns the question of non-existence of emotions in animals on its head by

placing a counter question: " If it is acceptable for humans to believe that

fellow humans share the varied sensations that betray their state of mind,

what prevents us from applying the same logic to animals? " According to him,

it is just as important for students of ethology to apply common sense to

conclude how and why sentient creatures behave the way they do.

 

The book reminds readers that men are animals too, an apparently obvious

argument, but widely ignored in the cultural and scientific context of our

daily lives. The debate of 'nature *versus *nurture' in human behavioural

studies is still unresolved after decades of thorough research in

laboratories across North America and Europe. Yet, Bekoff points out that

there is a strange reservation in recognizing the very existence of emotions

in animals because that would radically alter the way we treat them:

" Recognizing animals have emotions is important because animal feelings

matter, " states Bekoff. It matters not only in case of pets but also for

those creatures that are routinely slaughtered for food.

 

Fifty years ago, such claims may have been rubbished, but a steady stream of

research has added credence to Bekoff's position. His writing is a

reflection of the accumulated wisdom of these researchers, including

Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl Ritter von Frisch. Jane Goodall praises Bekoff

for withstanding " the vicious criticism of his peers that has been levelled

at him throughout most of his professional life " and appreciates his

meticulous combination of " scientific methodology with intuition " .

 

Bekoff provides some moving examples of animals displaying human traits. He

describes how a couple of his pet llamas mourned the death of their mates.

The animals' behaviour led him to acknowledge that animals experience

emotional states akin to what we go through ourselves.

 

Bekoff's exploration of moral choices in animals also leads one to think of

the widely-held notion of *Homo sapiens* having exclusive rights on

morality. He also challenges the conventional notions of morality. Urging

the reader to look " at the front page of the newspaper " , Bekoff pricks human

vanity that finds murder unacceptable, but war justifiable.

 

The topics explored by Bekoff may seem trivial in the Indian context, where

even fundamental human rights cannot be ensured. But then, one only has to

remember that Ashoka carved his edicts on animal protection centuries ago.

SHUBHOBROTO GHOSH