Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues: Reflections on Redecorating Nature

Animals, Culture, and Society

by Marc Bekoff, Jane Goodall (Foreword)

Observations of animals playing, solving problems, and behaving fairly toward each other reveal a range of animal behaviors and show that the ethical treatment of animals is a significant issue.

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Please see http://www.literati.net/authors/marc-... and you can read my essays for Psychology Today here -- http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/a... --

Reviews

[Robin Tierney · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those interested in science based on anecdotal evidence and empirical data on nonhuman animals' cognition, emotions and individual and social behavior (ethology...in natural habitats). Plus a truly thoughtful discourse on research approaches and pursuing science with the overarching goal of a better world. Dr. Bekoff presents a series of studies researched over some 30 years illuminated with essays reflecting on their results and value.

Below are my notes taken while reading, not a review:

Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues:
Reflections on Redecorating Nature
by Marc Bekoff

Ethologist - scientific and objective study of animal behavior, usually with a focus on behavior under natural conditions and from a biological perspective. And behavioral ecology.
And cognitive ethology - evolution.

Don’t let protective membrane of statistics shield us from the worlds of other animals, their joys and pains, their wisdom, their uniqueness.
Behavioral variation of individuals.
Science doesn’t tell the value of life.

Animal well-being
Changed ed programs to skip the animal sacrifice and cruelty. After captive mice and chick staged killed by coyotes.

Minding animals, deep ethology.
Ppl have responsibilities to nature.

Jethro his dog.
Some humans aren’t conscious of surroundings, able to reason,...young and mentally challenged, but rightfully considered persons.
Jethro was autonomous, yet people not comfortable called him a person. Dolphins, elephants, and great apes among others warrant being called persons.

Why do we think humans should be the measure of what is right and wrong, given what we’re doing to other animals, other humans, and the environment?

Anecdote and anthropomorphism derided, but valuable as stats. Charge of antropom derails studies.
Animals can do amazing things, but sometimes they do not do what we ask. Doesn’t mean they can’t.
Or they don’t need to. We need to take into account how animals sense their worlds using different sensory modalities that are more or less important to them.
They have their own points of view.

Evidence that compassion begats compassion and the cruelty begets cruelty. Cruelty to animals tied to inflict cruelty to humans.

The notion of wild justice: refers to the evolution of social rules of engagement and fairness and forgiveness.

Cognitive ethology

More discovery in nature than a lab.
(activity mapped in same corresponding regions of brain)

Stimulus-response box of explanations vs assessing consciousness, intentions and beliefs.
those claiming mechanistic haven’t spent much time watching free-range animals.
Different see that more than same...evolutionary continuity.
Emotion display - greet, reunite, pleasure.
Emotion - which and why, evolutionary basis.

Noninvasive techniques to detect neural activity as measured by firing rates and cell metabolism used in human cognitive studies -- ERPs, PET scans, fMRIs….and Transcranial magnetic stimulation.
There are many worlds beyond human experience.
Can they mourn, resent, be embarrassed.
Evolution, adaptation, causation and ontogeny (development).

Cognitive ethologists: want to know what it’s like to be another animal., dog reacts if smell prev’s fear. Rats stop play when cat hair.

Amygdala receives raw sensory information from the thalamus - a neural relay station - and is connected by a bundle of nerves to the brainstem, which allows it to prime the body for fast action.

Smell fear - vet exam room

Iguanas when basking in warmth experience physiological changes associated with pleasure in humans and other vertebrates, such as emotional fever - a boost in body temperature and a raised heart rate. Reptiles experience basic emotional states.
Exhibit enjoyment of playing....dolphins through behaviors and buffaloes ice-skate, excitedly bellowing gwaaa as they slide across the frozen ground.

Play bow ...rules of engagement, learning.

Jaak Panksepp observed rats: produce opiates anticipating play.
Male Diana monkey helped older female in coin slot exercise and let her get the food reward.

Noninvasive.

Soft anecdotal evidence plus hard empirical data.

Study in own envs and with natural behavior settings...play, plover pretend injured to lead predators from nest.

Comparative studies - dogs, coyotes.

Studies wild and captive animals living in groups often have a sense of fair play built on moral codes of conduct that help cement their social relationships. Nature isn’t always ruthlessly and selfishly competitive.
Competition, selfishness and cheating are not the only driving forces; cooperation and fairness can also be driving forces in the evolution of sociality.
Virtue, egalitarianism and morality are more ancient than our own species.

Yerkes Primate Center in Atl and U of So Miss in Hattiesburg: empathy more widespread among animals -- research suggests non-human primates, dolphins, whales, elephants and hippopotamuses, and even some rodents, behave in ways that support the claim that empathy has deep evolutionary roots.

Rhesus monkeys not take food if doing so meant another monkey got an electric shock. In similar situations rates also hold back when they know their actions would cause pain to another individual. Diana monkeys insert token into slot for food, a male helped oldest female...allowed her to have the ood. Studies going back to late 50s.

Cognition and emotions as Chs Darwin noted 1959 evolutionary continuum, differ in degree not kind.

Social play dev skills, manners, fairness.
Self-handicap: role-reversal, bite inhibition, gauge intensity.

Evolution (phylogeny), function (adaptation), causation, ontogeny (development).

Neurobiological basis for sharing intentions.
Mirror neurons found in macaques fire when a monkey executes an action and also when the monkey observes the same action performed by another monkey. (NYT Oct 2014 article: learning from video of monkey operating a box tool.)

(Park City Ut Olympic ski center luge chutes deer or elk.)

Genes associated with good behavior will accumulate in future gens when adaptive for group.

Human-animal interactions:
Flame retardant found in polar bears and seagulls in the Arctic.
Trophy hunters picking off large horn sheep, less head butting, chg behavior and population.
Fast food dumpsters night roaming bears and fat lazy.
Sex changes induced in fish.
Habituating predators and prey b/c wild areas shrinking.
Hormones from cattle feedlots changing fish, amphibians.
Encroachment.
Coexistence to benefit humans (look at recent articles about beavers dams, reclaiming and cleaning habitat, conserving and filtering, incr fish pops water).
Compromising and destroying water bodies and habitat.

Anthropogenic Effects of animal behavior.
Humans are a force in nature, from removing habitat and resources and water, to traffic, to noise, to sprawl, to taking animals for zoos, hunting, etc. and even studying/tracking them. Zebra finches -- color bands on legs affect mate choices.
[we are the ultimate invasive species]

Tags on ruddy ducks decrease rates of courtship, and devices on Little penguins decreased foraging efficiency.
Smaller radio collars not disrupt.
Traffic noise chg elk and other movement patterns.
Aircraft Adelie penguins.
Translocation (such as prairie dogs in Great Plains to translocate from native now agric/dev lands, colony bounded by service roads in Boulder CO).

Colo open space off leash dogs main interest other off leash dogs.
Prairie dogs opted for more concealment with presence of dogs and ppl, and main problems reported by park users were unruly ppl 28% and dog-poop 20%.

Sonar -- Low frequency active sonar used to detect subs by US Navy whales, turtles, some fish, can be carried 400 miles through water and animals can suffer 140 decibels of sound pressure, about the noise produced by an earthquake.

[trophic cascade]
Remove wolf, puma/cougar venture to human areas and attack.
Changing wild/urban interface.

Webs of life fragile.
Canadian lynx introduction, several translocated died, he organized peaceful protest. The project was not researched well enough.

Ethics
Science with hearts and minds
Activism a part, compassion, eco scientists many want to help heal a world of wounds (Paul Ehrlich)
Do no intentional harm
Respect all life (recognize and resist stranglehold of mindlessly accepted speciesism)
Treat all individuals with compassion
Step lightly into the lives of other beings, water bodies and landscapes

Jane Goodall, The 10 Trusts.
Learn, discuss competing agendas.

Philosophical considerations: animal welfare, animal rights.
Peter Singer utilitarian view proposed by Jeremy Bentham and Mill: use of animals only seems OK for public good because of ignoring the effects on the individual animals and the species.
Harming, killing individuals adds up. To justify imposition of mass misery, deny animals any rights and cast doubts on their capacity to think and feel and suffer, capabilities that are well-documented.
Tom Regan: invasive animal research immoral.

Humans face an environmental crisis in part because of their attempts to control, dominate and manage nature. These attempts have led to the destruction of important aspects of nature, and even to serious threats to human well-being.
[bees, pollinate our food crops, and we keep destroying them; still wide use of neonicotinoids. And culling of wolves deleterious effects]

In attempts reverse damage, we further try to control nature.
Wildlife management, animal experimentation (refute the guise of “helping other animals too”), manipulation and trapping.

Err on the side of animals, stop ignoring potential and actual consequences.
Questions:
Do wild animals have different moral status than domestic animals? Consider moral responsibility for the care of individual organisms in agriculture, zoos and gardens.
Are we ever justified, and if so under what conditions, in bringing wild animals into captivity? Are we really “preserving endangered species” while forcing animals to live in artificial tiny confined habitat. Some captive-breeding produces positive results, not others.
What is the relationship between good science and animal welfare? Can’t generalize from captive to wild envs. Also, the introduce of shiny equipment into wild environments introduces variables.
Should we subject individuals to harmful or painful or disturbing experiences so that we can learn how animals deal with these types of situations and how their behavior is induced? Like trapping carnivores in leg-hold and live trips. Or, can you make the experience less harmful or painful, physically and psychologically? So what is actually learned? [this kind of research seems a waste of time and money]
How can we minimize the number of animals who are used? Including lab animals? Changes in experimental designs and statistical methods?
What is the proper relationship between researchers and the animals they study? Bonding considerations? Seems a dirty double-cross to enter into a relationship of trust and affection with any creature, and then participate in its premeditated and premature destruction. And why not name instead of number the animals? [Goodall with chimps starting decades ago.]
Should humans interfere with natural predation? Don’t intervene? Hands-off approach may not always be warranted, especially in cases when human changes to the environment contribute to the situation.
Should studies be allowed that employ staged encounters between predators and prey? Staging introduces variables; many such as Bekoff decided the research did not justify the psychological pain and suffering of, for instance, mice and young chickens subjected to when placed in staged environment with no possibility for escape from predators who then stalked, chased, caught, maimed and killed them.
Should humans interfere with infanticide, or use staged encounters to study it?
How can the knowledge that we gain from studies of wild carnivores inform us of their cognitive abilities and of our ethical obligations to them?
What principles should we use as ethical guides? Too often, pain infliction rationalized with no regard to the welfare of the animals.
Are scientists responsible for how their results are use? For example, should we make sure that what’s learned about how wolves live not be used to harm theme? Such as reducing their populations, using allowing use by people who want to make rugs out of tigers and wolves? Tracking migration routes and behavior of marine mammals for commercial exploitation of them? (Goodall and Dian Fossey exemplified this ethic with primates.)
What responsibility does the research community bear in preventing ethical misconduct, and how should this responsibility be exercised? Whistle-blowing, protecting peers, fraud, falsification, plagiarism.

Regulatory for ethics and welfare. Stipulations for type, color, weight, shape of tags, weight of radio transmitters, behavior of the researchers, their dress, the color and noise of cameras. If lure, or scare off, for example, the animals (such as migratory birds) burn precious energy.

Use of euphemisms to downplay the consequences: cull and euthanize instead of kill.
“Objectivity” used to allow, excuse careless, cruel and exploitative handling (and disposal) of research subjects.

Behave with humanity and strive for a world in which humans and other animals will be able to share peaceably the resources of a finite planet.

Put an end of useless “us/them” dualisms.

This book was published in 2006; it is troubling that so many members of the research community still lack awareness of or interest in these issues and continue to distance themselves, and those of us who read their research results, from nature and other living beings. All while humans consume animals and earth’s resources at unprecedented rates.
The author suggests we/researchers reconnect with nature and drop the us vs. them worldview.

Develop a sense of caring about the earth and other living beings.
Be open to animal wisdom.
Replace heartless “science” involving defiling and destruction with engagement and holistic science.

Macroscopic view, wide and long-term, considering consequences.
Remember traditional knowledge of the land and nature [islanders and their progeny who used up the natural resources... Jared Diamond].

[Stop the reliance on the idea that businesses and govts will nourish and save us as they overharvest and devour resources.]

Realize and resist sacrificing another animal’s well-being for our own wishes.
Imagine loss of voices, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”.
Ask “what is it like to be another person, another animal?”

Chief Seattle of the Suwamish tribe in a letter to President Franklin Pierce: “If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit….”

Appreciate different species, their knowledge, their right to live and not be harassed, abused, driven from natural habitats. Kinship.

Land: precautionary principle. Avoid further impoverishing and reverse endeavors that are damaging biosystems. Strive for a benign presence in nature (Thomas Berry).

Become stewards [vs. domination and relentless consumption]. Instead of superior/higher being, use capabilities to conserve Earth. At the time of his writing, nearly half of our splendid planet has been transformed so that there are “dead zones,” areas where there is little or no oxygen in coastal waters. So many animals harmed and killed by humans.

The planet’s fate depends on the choices each of us make, and “whether enough of use will choose to make the heartfelt commitment to making this a better world, a more compassionate word in which love is plentiful and shared, before it is too late.”

[Granny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has its pluses and minuses, if I could have given it a 3.5 stars, that would have been my choice.

On the one hand is a very interesting exploration of the differing points of view in the scientific world concerning the issue of animal cognition. Specifically - do animals think and feel? And; if they do, how should we create experiments which prove that this is so?

So much of the 'evidence' is ancecdotal, which is to say the stories of someone who says a particular animal did something which 'proved' to that individual that animal do think. But anecdotal evidence has not traditionally been a respected source for proof of anything in the scientific world. What scientists look for is evidence which is recorded from the observations of accredited scientists, and these observations can be seen again and again under the same conditions (that is to say, the observations are 'repeatable').

But the author posits some questions such as, what if animals in a lab tend to react differently than animals in the wild because their natural environment is removed from their senses? One example of this would be the experiments which were intended to prove that animals are self-aware, by placing a sticky paper dot on their forehead, with a mirror nearby. If the animal notices the dot, and touches their own forehead, then this would - presumably - prove that the animal has an awareness of itself as an individual, i.e. it is self aware.

But is this a valid test for an animal whose primary sense is not vision, but it's sense of smell? Or touch? Are we testing from a bias toward human; or even primate, bias?

What if a given animal reacts differently from their peers; as we humans do from day to day and even moment to moment, and this individual reaction would thereby impact the testing sample? Or what if different individual animals react differently from one day to the next, depending on their 'mood' or other factors not known to us. How does this skew the potential results of an experiment?

These are all fascinating and thought-provoking questions. But in the forward, the author says, "It is a book for scientists and nonscientists alike." I didn't find this quiet true. I am a well educated and well read person, but I found myself reaching for the dictionary and writing notes in order to decipher sentences such as this:

[Referring to the scientist Jacques Loeb] "Although he believed that consciousness was an emergent property of higher organisms, he argued that all animal behavior could be explained nonteleologically in terms of tropisms." (Page 51 of the paperback edition). Even though the essays are relatively short, I found myself having to set the book aside frequently, and rereading sections, just to be sure that I was comprehending fully what I was reading.

In short, the concepts are stimulating, but this is far from a quick read. If my interest - as a lay person - in animal cognition was not so strong, I probably wouldn't have finished this book.