Animals' rich lives

Back in the day, the 17th century to be precise, a fellow named Rene Descartes believed animals had no mental life, no emotions, that they were little different from rocks. He said that when animals cry out in pain, it's like the way a piece of metal might "scream" when a blacksmith is shaping it. Believe it or not, some people today still believe this. Even worse, some people DON'T believe it but they ignore the suffering of animals because it benefits them personally. So they rationalize this disconnect by saying "They're JUST animals." Of course, anyone who understands evolution knows that the emotions, thoughts, suffering, feelings, despair, joy, boredom, anger and, yes, love didn't suddenly appear in humans out of nowhere; they evolved over millions of years and are, necessarily, shared with other animals, to lesser or greater degrees. In this section, we'll be compiling examples of how animals can, do and should lead rich lives -- implying that hurting and killing them for our benefit cannot be justified if one hopes to remain consistent with valuing compassion and respect toward thinking, feeling beings.


P.S. Some people say it's anthropomorphic to ascribe emotions to animals. Really, such people are rationalizing to keep themselves from coming to the conclusion they must if animals feel emotions: Go vegan. 


P.P.S. Lots more content to come. Hopefully soon.

Homosexual animals

The stories below discuss homosexuality in animals. For those who think homosexuality is a choice, these stories show a depth to animal thinking that should be yet more evidence that it is a moral wrong to exploit them. For those who advocate for gay rights and protections, these stories should help one see that nonhuman animals should be included in our circle of compassion and that they should not be enslaved and exploited. (More stories to come.)

Whale thanks her human rescuers

A humpback whale freed by divers from a tangle of crab trap lines near the Farallon Islands nudged its rescuers and flapped around in what marine experts said was a rare and remarkable encounter.


“It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it,” James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, said Tuesday. “It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun.”

Sunday’s daring rescue was the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback, said Shelbi Stoudt, stranding manager for the Marine Mammal Center in Marin County.

The 45- to 50-foot female humpback, estimated to weigh 50 tons, was on the humpbacks’ usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California when it became entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots. ...

Mick Menigoz of Novato, who organizes whale watching and shark diving expeditions on his boat the New Superfish, got a call for help Sunday morning, alerted the Marine Mammal Center and gathered a team of divers. By 2:30 p.m., the rescuers had reached the whale and evaluated the situation. Team members realized the only way to save the endangered leviathan was to dive into the water and cut the ropes.

It was a very risky maneuver, Stoudt said, because the mere flip of a humpback’s massive tail can kill a man.

“I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it,” said Moskito, a 40-year-old Pleasanton resident who works with “Great White Adventures,” a cage-diving outfit that contracts with Menigoz. “I really didn’t think we were going to be able to save it.”

Moskito said about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, were wrapped around the animal. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale’s mouth.

The crab pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal’s blubber and leaving visible cuts.

At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow-hole out of the water.
Moskito and three other divers spent about an hour cutting the ropes with a special curved knife. The whale floated passively in the water the whole time, he said, giving off a strange kind of vibration.

“When I was cutting the line going through the mouth, its eye was there winking at me, watching me,” Moskito said. “It was an epic moment of my life.”

When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles, according to the rescuers. Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one.

“It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you,’’ Moskito said. “I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience.”

— San Francisco Chronicle, December 14, 2005 (Click here for the original story.)

What is this lion feeling?

Click here to watch a video of a lion reunited with people he's missed. (If that link doesn't work, click here.)


To learn more about Christian the lion, click here.