AN HONEST REALITY CHECK ABOUT HOW ANIMALS TRULY ARE AND WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED FROM US by Marc Bekoff
Why Sentience, Compassion, and Decency
Matter – and Why I Get Cranky and You Should
Too When People Don’t Honor and Use What
We Really Know About Them
Look, it’s no longer radical to recognize, respect, and want to protect the emotional lives of animals.
And a person would have to be totally out of touch not to know that human animals (animals) are wantonly, brutally slaughtering nonhuman animals (animals) in a wide variety of anthropocentric (human- centered) activities.
We all know it.
We might well replace our understanding of the “Anthropocene,” often called the “age of humanity,” with a more apt definition: “the rage of inhumanity.”
But I do find that people are expressing more humility toward other animals and nature, perhaps as a consequence of the unmistakable damage our presence has caused.
When I was young and growing up in Brooklyn, I used to say hello to all the local animals and talk with them. While my parents were very tolerant of this behavior, some of our neighbors clearly thought, “There is surely something wrong with this kid.” I’d walk along the streets and ride my tricycle (my field vehicle) and stop for every dog, cat, bird, and insect to say hello and ask them how they were doing. I used to talk to the goldfish who was living in a small glass aquarium on the kitchen counter, never doubting they were smart and emotional. It was their emotions – their expressed feelings – that drew me to them and kept the contact going. I could feel their feelings.
Now, people want me to say more. “What do you mean, you feel their feelings?”
So OK, let me tell you. When I say cranky, this is what I mean. It was first as a child I could feel what I call this crankiness in my entire body when I saw animals getting abused, or when someone told me and my parents that I was (*()))$)&)&@#$%^ing crazy.
Are animals sentient, some folks want to know? What does science say about this animal? What about that animal?
Sentience surrounds us in a spectacular and diverse array of nonhumans.
And yes, I can feel it. I am co-extensive with “it.”
And no, I’m not alone, among humans. (I’m looking at you, reader.)
There’s a certain wholeness when a wolf, coyote, eagle, robin, trout, or snake is allowed to be who they’re supposed to be.
And what befalls animals, befalls us.
I find the word solastalgia, coined by Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht, to be highly appropriate. It describes “the distress caused by the lived experience of the transformation of one’s home and sense of belonging and is experienced through the feeling of desolation about its change.”
We experience solastalgia when we erode our relationships with other beings.
It is a feeling of desolation.
When we’re unsure about how we influence the lives of animals, we should give them the benefit of the doubt and err on the side of the animals. Many animals suffer in silence, and we don’t even realize this until we look into their eyes.
Then we know.
And what is it we should do with what we know?
I admit it. I get cranky and irritable. I’m tired of reading studies and essays about animal behavior, animal cognition, animal emotions, and animal sentience that trumpet new discoveries and end by saying something like, “We need to treat other animals better – with more respect, compassion, kindness, and dignity.”
Of course we do.
These banal platitudes of pain don’t do anything for me.
Why does the US Federal Animal Welfare Act still write off lab rats and mice as not being animals?
And why, as of 2022, can more pigs be killed per hour in slaughterhouses than previously allowed?
One day, the “animal kill clock” that keeps tabs on the number of animals killed annually for food estimated that more than 22,000 animals were killed for food in the United States every ten seconds.
Picture that.
It is, as a 10-year-old once said to me in response, “disgusting. And you adults have to get your act together.”
You don’t have to do anything big. You don’t have to found an organization or write a big check. Still, just doing what you’re able to comfortably do, that’s not enough. Human connections to animals and landscapes may be innate – I believe it is – but it also takes energy and intention to rebuild, strengthen, and maintain these connections.
Perhaps first and foremost, it requires confronting fear.
Fear of going against the grain, fear of coming out of the closet, fear of ridicule, fear of losing grant money and irritating colleagues, fear of admitting what we’ve done or are doing.
In March 2006, I gave a lecture at the annual meeting of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees in Boston. I was received warmly and the discussion that followed my lecture was friendly, even though some in the audience were a bit skeptical of my unflinching stance that we know that certain animals feel pain and a wide spectrum of emotions. After my talk, a man came up to me who’s responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act at a major university. He admitted that he’d been ambivalent about some of the research that’s permitted under the act, and after 104 hearing my lecture, he was even more uncertain. He told me that he’d be stricter with enforcing the current legal standards, and he would work for more stringent regulations. I could tell from his eyes that he meant what he said, and he understood that the researchers under his watch would be less than enthusiastic about his decision. But he needed someone to confirm his intuition that research animals were suffering, that the Animal Welfare Act was not protecting them. I was touched and thanked him. Then he put his head down and mumbled, “Thank you.”
Reflect on how you can make the world a better place – chiefly, how you can contribute to making the lives of animals better.
Do this when you’re alone, away from others.
It’s always a sobering experience to try to view ourselves as we really are.
It’s not radical to care about and protect animals from horrific abuse each and every second of the day.
Calling it radical is one of the dumbest things a person can say.
Emotions are the gifts of our ancestors.
We have them and so do other animals.
We must never forget this.
NOTE
This short essay was inspired by my new book, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy – and Why They Matter.
Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., has published 31 books, including The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age (with Jessica Pierce) (Beacon Press, 2017), Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do (University of Chicago Press, 2018), Unleashing Your Dog: A Field Guide to Giving Your Canine Companion the Best Life Possible (New World Library, 2019) (with Jessica Pierce), A Dog’s World: Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World Without Humans (Princeton University Press, 2021) (with Jessica Pierce), Dogs Demystified: An A to Z Guide to All Things Canine (New World Library, 2023), and the second edition of The Emotional Lives of Animals (New World Library, 2024).