Language

Even though some cling to the idea that language is unique to humans, there has been a lot of proof over the years that it is not--a wide range of animals, from gorillas to bees, have been proven to have language.

Most studies focus on primates, because their methods of expression tend to be very human-like. That makes the study involving prairie dogs all the more remarkable, because the researchers not only were able to recognize the presence of language, but also decipher it, and show that prairie dog language involves nouns and adjectives and the ability to coin new, meaningful words.

I refer you to this page: Prairie Dog Language? because it not only describes the study and includes links with more detail, but it also deals with many of the objections and false explanations people raise to try to cling to the idea that language is unique to humans.

As always, I hope to receive your comments on this subject or any of the issues raised on that web page.

Inter-Species Friendships

In a comment to yesterday's post, we are introduced to the story of a strong bond of friendship between an elephant and a dog. Now this next may seem a strange statement for me to make, but I think it's safe to say that no one would raise an objection to the friendship these two animals enjoy.

But there is a vocal group of people who vehemently object to inter-species friendships when they involve humans and non-humans. They want to use our legal system to erect a wall that will prevent all contact between humans and all other forms of life.

This is incredible to me because it violates the basic nature of life--which is inclusive, not exclusive, and the basic nature of our spirits (no matter what species they may be in) which is to love. The web of life includes all creatures, and the more connections we experience, the closer we get to our true natures.

Don't we already have enough walls around ourselves, trying to shut out reality?

I return again to the statement that what we do not understand, we destroy. Separation is the enemy of understanding. The more contact we have, the more alive we all are, and will be.

I do think most people get this idea. http://www.interspeciesfriends.com/

Love, Care, Thoughtfulness, Altruism...

This story has made the rounds, but it's worth repeating...

Cashew, a yellow Labrador Retriever, gradually went blind and deaf. As it became more difficult for Cashew to get around, Libby, an orange tabby cat, started to help Cashew more and more. Libby would lead Cashew to the food dish, guide the dog around obstacles and tag along on walks to keep her friend safe. The two would sleep together and Libby would watch over Cashew.

How many tests of intelligence and self-awareness has Libby cleared with her behavior? Altruism is obvious, often claimed to be a higher human-only trait. Not to belittle wonderful Libby's help for her friend, but there are many other similar stories out there that people need to pay attention to.

You can read more about Libby and Cashew at the ASPCA blog and at a newspaper site, The Daily Item.

SETI

I was thinking some not-very-kind thoughts about SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, as I approached today's blog post. I mean, imagine looking in vain for other humans on an unknown, unreachable planet when we are surrounded by other societies right here on Earth.

So, I went to the SETI web site to see if my perception was correct. Imagine my surprise when I found that they had a very recent podcast titled "You Animal", that was described with a blurb that said, "Maybe Dr. Doolittle was on to something; animals are smarter than we think."

So I listened. I learned that we are indeed still battling the assumption that all non-human animals are dull-witted creatures and only humans have the ability to think. I learned that scientists still try to explain animals' behavior with the concept of instinct, that they want to explain away such events as whales and dolphins rescuing people as mere instinctive behavior, that they believe that creatures (non-human, of course) can be "pre-programmed" to face all of life's challenges.

The African gray parrot, Alex, described in the March 2008 issue of National Geographic Magazine, made spontaneous, intelligent, and relevant comments on what was going on around him, and yet the scientists are very reluctant to talk about intelligence and not willing to admit self-awareness in the bird.

It was interesting that the National Geographic writer said that her experience with the bird made her think about how little space we allow for other species on our planet and that it would be ethically correct to find ways to share the planet with them--and then the scientist in the conversation totally rejected the idea of such ethics.

I found the whole show very condescending and very mired in the "ladder" model of evolution. I buried my face in my hands in embarrassed despair a couple of times during the show.

And I'm still left wondering what would happen if just a fraction of the time and money that is poured into SETI -- the search for other-worldly humans who just happened to create earthly-human-recognizable signals in the same technology currently used by humans on this planet -- would be put into Tiger Touch, where they claim to not only have discovered other intelligent life, but the means for two-way communications with it.

Tiger Touch

I love the people at Tiger Touch. Their basic driving idea is that if the animals of the world are going to survive, people have to learn to live with them, not separate from them. This is a beautiful way of restating what I said a few days ago, because it implies an action plan. Click on the Tiger Touch link above for their statement of principles, and here are a few extra words from John Williamson of Tiger Touch:

I believe that the cultural move toward the awareness required for validating life's inter-dependence can be hastened and supported by the charismatic animals who, given the chance, can show us the way through their choice to bond with people. What we are all fighting for is the abandonment of the artificial schism which now separates "man" from "animal." And I could go on and on in this vein.

I'll also contend that inter-species communication is the key to understanding inter-species bonding. Our Directors and consultants have researched along these lines, approaching the issues with their science and their hearts. Much has been contributed by our own cats, wild wolves, bear, and, not surprisingly, children.

Enough has been accomplished to demonstrate true, effective cross-species communication and that has been mind blowing in itself. The goal now is to take the universal inter-species language which is emerging and reduce it to a set of teachable protocols.

Germane to our research is a study by Steven Reiss, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Ohio State University. He spent five years developing and testing a new theory of human motivation. The result of his research is published in the book "Who Am I? The 16 Basic Desires That Motivate Our Action and Define Our Personalities". Reiss has found that 16 basic desires guide nearly all meaningful behavior. The desires are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical exercise, and tranquility. This study illuminates much of what Tiger Touch has concluded from our own research with respect to the cats.

Humans and animals motivated by the same desires. And this is supported by scholarly scientific research. Why isn't Tiger Touch better known?

Chipping away

It's time to talk about one of the ideas behind this blog. The title of the blog, Intelligent Life Is All Around Us, is a line from a song by Peter Gabriel, "Animal Nation". It's such a great distillation of what I'm trying to say for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it's exactly what I hope people everywhere will realize. The creatures that are ignored and abused are just as intelligent, emotional, and alive as we are.

Second, it chips away at a barrier of loneliness that humans have placed around themselves. They ask, are humans on earth alone in the universe? They look in vain to other planets to find some sort of connection to a larger view of life. That connection is right here, all around us, but our society trains us to ignore it, to actively discount it, to think only in terms of uniquely human forms of expression.

It takes a bit of openness, it takes true observation, it takes a sudden realization that expressions of the same emotions can take different forms, to break down the barrier and begin to realize that humans are not alone.

It takes someone famous to distill the idea and set it to music so that it may spread and gradually introduce some light into our society's blindness. That it was included on the soundtrack of a movie aimed at kids gives me a lot of hope.

Thank you, Peter Gabriel.

Affection Based

There's a book that came out a few years ago, called "Zamba: The True Story of the Greatest Lion That Ever Lived". Initially I was disappointed in the book because the book isn't all about Zamba the lion himself. But then I realized that for a number of reasons, this is an important book. I especially wish people who think that "wild" animals are purely instinct-driven and cannot be socialized would read the true stories presented in the book.

Ralph Helfer revolutionized the training of animals a half a century ago. His "affection-based training" has become the norm (in spite of what certain money-hungry political action groups would have us believe). Having spent time with both lions and tigers, I can say with complete confidence that what Helfer says in this book is correct: of course animals respond well to affection. I proved this myself with the wonderful experience of becoming good friends with a tiger that had been very afraid of people.

Zamba is another in a long line of animals that have become famous enough to help prove that there is no such thing as an inherently "wild" species of animal. How an animal behaves toward people depends largely on how well that individual animal has been raised and how well it knows people. This has been shown over and over: see also such books as "A Lion Called Christian" and "Little Tyke".

Just as early childhood development is so very important for people, the socialization of animals depends on the way the animal was raised. If they don't know people and don't know what to expect from people, then they are dangerous. Of course, uneducated people are dangerous to the animals as well. For example, no one should be allowed to approach a tiger without being taught how to say "hello" in tiger-ese. (It's really not that hard, and really very effective.) The artificial categorization of animals into "wild" and "domesticated" has to do with the level of ignorance or familiarity people have with the animals.

In our times, when people are more isolated from the rest of the animal kingdom than ever, and laws are constantly being passed that put more and more barriers between people and animals, our whole society needs the kind of education that Mr. Helfer is offering in this book. Just look at that cover picture. Really look at it, and think about the far-reaching significance of it.

Things We Can't Hear

How long have humans and elephants shared the same geographical spaces? But it wasn't until 1984 that someone finally noticed that there were strange vibrations coming from the elephant cage at a zoo. As it turns out, elephants use infrasonic sounds (sounds lower than the deepest bass note we can hear) to communicate. Researchers have since identified around 300 distinct infrasonic calls that elephants make to each other. Their massive bodies provide the resonance to generate such low frequencies, and these sounds can travel many miles through the earth. Elephants can detect these sounds through the sensitive pads on their feet.

It's also known that another set of massive animals, whales, also use infrasounds to communicate. Their deep sounds, inaudible to us, can travel across an entire ocean in an hour. Not only do they use their ability to hear at these low-frequencies to communicate, but to locate food. Then along comes the US Navy with sonar that uses the same type of sounds. But the Navy sonar emits sounds at 235 decibels--equivalent to the noise from a space shuttle launch! Sounds this loud are not merely noise pollution for the whales, they are unbearable and can even be deadly. Ever wonder why you hear reports of whales beaching themselves? Omitted from the reports is the fact that they are often bleeding from their ears and eyes. They beach themselves to get out of the water that is carrying sounds that torture them, sometimes literally to death.

...and there was no difference.

In the very earliest time,
When people and animals lived together on earth,
A person could become an animal if he wanted to
And an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people,
And sometimes animals,
And there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.

--Netsilik Eskimo Song

We are not much different in fact to many other forms of animal life;
and it is because of subtle human conditioning
-- not the actual facts --
that we are raised to believe there is a wide gap between
what is human and what is animal.

--Gareth Patterson, the "Lion Man" of Africa

Right Town, Wrong Hospital

This story at the BBC web site is not recent, but the poignancy of it has made it stay fresh in my mind:

An otter escorted its injured mate to a hospital on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. But in spite of the bloody footprints it was leaving, the hospital workers only locked the doors until the otters left (this last point, omitted in the BBC report linked above, was reported by other sources at the time).

Personally, I can't believe the callousness of locking the doors and hoping the otters went away.

What makes the story even more poignant is that the same town on the Isle of Skye is home to the International Otter Survival Fund, which has a hospital for injured otters.

I have not found any report that says these otters made it to there.