Feelings of Animals?

[chronictoker]

How advanced do you think animals' emotional intelligence is? When u go to the Zoo do you ever feel bad for them? I do. I don't really think it's right to keep animals in captivity, and yet dogs and stuff have been domesticated and shit so like can they even live in the wild can they...idk I just I feel really connected to most animals especially like my dog. I feel like we understand each other really well sometimes. it's weird. But then like some living things like bugs/fish don't seem to have much if any intelligence other than animal instinct. What do you guys think?

[AndyPL]

Funnily enough, a lot of animal psychologists believe that animals are very content to be in zoos. Even in the wild, animals carve territories out for themselves, they don't go exploring new areas just for the fun of it. Animals who escape from zoos often return voluntarily to their pens.

We often associate the wilderness with freedom, but wild animals often get killed by predators or starve to death. Living in the safety of a zoo and being fed every day is a pretty sweet if you think about it.

[chronictoker]

Originally Posted by AndyPL

Funnily enough, a lot of animal psychologists believe that animals are very content to be in zoos. Even in the wild, animals carve territories out for themselves, they don't go exploring new areas just for the fun of it. Animals who escape from zoos often return voluntarily to their pens.

We often associate the wilderness with freedom, but wild animals often get killed by predators or starve to death. Living in the safety of a zoo and being fed every day is a pretty sweet if you think about it.

Good point. But I don't think that necessarily means that they are happier in captivity, they might be I'm not real sure. When in captivity they get psychologically conditioned to being there so it's kind of hard to tell. It just seems to me that animals were meant to roam free. I guess, you probably are right though. Animals like the easy life just like us. Why live in a shitty studio apartment when you could live in the penthouse.

[JohnnyPot]

I don't know the range of animal emotions, but I don't think it's on par with humans by a long shot, at least for animals lower than chimps and dolphins.

For example, clearly animals can feel anger and fear. These are basic, almost instinctual emotions.

Can an animal feel jealousy? Perhaps, on a primitive level at least. If one animal has a piece of food, the other animal might want it. But is this jealousy, or just a competitive drive, fueled by hunger?

Can an animal feel complex emotions, like regret or sympathy? Some intelligent animals have been shown to (Monkeys, for example). But can your cat feel sympathy? Probably not.

So I guess it really depends on the animal. I think many of the primates can feel much of what we can. Your more basic animals, like cats, dogs, cows, etc probably feel a more limited range of emotions. Animals at the bottom, like mice, reptiles, fish and so forth probably feel very few, if any emotions, beyond "Fear", simply because fear is the only emotion they need for survival.

But that's just off the top of my head, and only my view. Don't take it as science.

[Maryjoowanna]

Originally Posted by AndyPL

Funnily enough, a lot of animal psychologists believe that animals are very content to be in zoos. Even in the wild, animals carve territories out for themselves, they don't go exploring new areas just for the fun of it. Animals who escape from zoos often return voluntarily to their pens.

We often associate the wilderness with freedom, but wild animals often get killed by predators or starve to death. Living in the safety of a zoo and being fed every day is a pretty sweet if you think about it.

Never thought of it that way. thanks for saying that. haha.

[Jonsi]

Here's an article I read on Yahoo yesterday. So I thought this was weird that you posted this, hah

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060808...s_060808162259

LONDON (AFP) - Elephants pay their respects to lost loved ones and venerated leaders in a way that suggests a human-like capacity for compassion, scientists have said.

In a paper to appear in a scientific journal this month, researchers said Tuesday they came to this conclusion after watching how elephants on a Kenyan game reserve behaved towards a matriarch who fell ill and died.

The dying elephant -- named Eleanor by the researchers from Britain and the United States -- was first assisted by an unrelated matriarch from another family.

At one point the helper, called Grace, was observed lifting the collapsed animal to her feet using her tusks. When Eleanor fell again, Grace tried again to lift her up -- this time without success.

Eleanor died where she fell, and was subsequently visited by elephants not only from her own family, but from four other families as well.

All the animals showed a distinct interest in the body, the scientists discovered, sniffing it with their trunks, hovering a foot over it, or nudging it with their tusks.

"It leads to the conclusion that elephants have a generalised response to suffering and death... and that this is not restricted to kin," they wrote in a paper for the August issue of Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

The research was led by Iain Douglas-Hamilton, from the zoology department at Oxford University, who founded the charity Save the Elephants.

With colleagues from the University of California, his team monitored 50 animals on the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya, tracking them with GPS collars and taking automatically dated and timed photos.

Most animals, apart from humans, seem to show little interest in the dead bodies of their own species -- but chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants are all known to show concern for the sick and dead, the scientists said.

"This behaviour in an animal species can be compared to human behaviour, and indicates that such feelings as compassion may not be restricted to our species alone," Douglas-Hamilton said.

[AK Infinity]

Originally Posted by chronictoker

How advanced do you think animals' emotional intelligence is? When u go to the Zoo do you ever feel bad for them? I do. I don't really think it's right to keep animals in captivity, and yet dogs and stuff have been domesticated and shit so like can they even live in the wild can they...idk I just I feel really connected to most animals especially like my dog. I feel like we understand each other really well sometimes. it's weird. But then like some living things like bugs/fish don't seem to have much if any intelligence other than animal instinct. What do you guys think?

What does this say about us?

Try to find the hope in their eyes.

I think that whether or not a living creature has "intelligence" is really the wrong place to begin when it comes to mutual respect. Maybe we should begin by thinking that all life is precious and has an equal place in this world outside of the narrow definitions of men. We’re a part of this planet, a species among many, let’s start fucking acting like it. A zoo is nothing more than human ego dressed up to look like a habitat.

When I used to go to the zoo I felt more sympathy for the idiot humans that put the wildlife in cages than the animals themselves. Humans haven't figure out that everything's connected, and the disrespect we show towards the natural world is the same disrespect we show towards each other. Putting other humans behind bars hasn’t solved crime has it? How in the world could we think it’s going to preserve the integrity and spirit of any other living thing? The animals in zoos are caught in man’s “illusion” of control and what it has created is a pale shadow of what they once were. A homogenized domesticated dependant brainwashed discolored version of what's possible, just like us.

The earth is out of balance because man is out of balance. What we understand about ourselves is commensurate with what we create, and just look at what we’ve created.

One way or another, the thoughtless disrespect we’re showing toward other living creatures is going to end but let’s hope it’s with realization and not extinction.

“Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.”

~Evan Esar~

Stay green.