My elders have always told me that I loved animals from the time I first laid eyes on a dog. They say, and I find this hard to believe, that I was even captivated by grandma’s cat… the one who’d later try to scratch my eyes out. Growing up I read every book I could about animals, never missed an episode of Wild Kingdom on TV and would rather see real animals in a zoo than I would animatronic animals at Disneyland.
Animal behavior has always been my favorite field of study and I must say that most of what I learned was, pardon my language, hog slop. For instance, I was taught that humans are the only ones who killed their own kind. Evidently the experts never had an ant farm as a child like I did. If they had they’d have known that ants go to war against other ants at the slightest provocation. Dare I say that ants are more murderous than Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Kahn, Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy? (Did you also know that ants always fall on their right side when intoxicated?) I know from experience that rabbits sometimes kill their own babies and hogs have not only killed their piglets but eaten them too! Some insects kill others of the same species as part of their mating ritual.
We’ve turned wild murderous animals into plush toys and Disney movies but in the wild animals are not quite that nice. Have the experts not seen two mountain goats go head to head to see who got the goat. The female goat, that is. Even if they didn’t kill each other I bet they both had a headache that made them wonder if a roll in the hay was worth it. I own a bronze called “To Sire The Herd” which basically shows two wild stallions attempting to kill each other.
Roosters kill each other in cockfights and some raptors regularly eat the eggs of other birds. If that isn’t murder in the first degree it’s at least manslaughter. And did you know that all those spotted owls we had to shut down the forestry industry in the great northwest to save, well, researchers now say those spotted owls are being killed off by their own kind. Barred owls are not only stealing their nests, researchers have witnessed them murder their cousins in cold blood.
There are countless other myths that have been debunked since I went to school. For one, we were taught that humans are the only species that uses tools. Which makes one wonder, was one of the qualifications that they wore a tool belt and bought tools off the Snap-On truck? Researchers have since discovered that chimps, elephants, dolphins, sea otters, gorillas and crocodiles are just a few of the animals that are better with tools than your average recent college graduate.
Another little snippet I remember reading was that humans are the only ones who are empathetic and generous. Now we know that capuchin monkeys like to both give and receive and that elephants show their empathy by mourning their dead for longer periods than most heirs to great fortunes do.
We were also taught that humans are the only ones who can love and hate the same person but cattle can do that. We know they hate cowboys at branding time but don’t you know they love those very same cowboys during a three day North Dakota blizzard when the cowboys haul hay to them?
One factoid I’m suspicious of is that humans are the only ones who can experience joy and a knowledge of the future. Have the scientists never seen the look on the face of a bull after he’s bred a cow? You can’t tell me that’s not joy. As for them having no knowledge of the future, why do you think rogue open cows go to such lengths to avoid being caught and sent to town?
After a lifetime of doing my own research I’ve come to the conclusion that I agree more with Maxine of Hallmark® card fame more than I do the experts. Maxine says, “Sometimes I think the only thing that separates us from animals is the fact that animals don’t have near the selection when it comes to hair products as we do.”
