Opinions

Fishes Have Feelings Too

First Published: May 15th, 2016 – The New York Times

In March, two marine biologists published a study of giant manta rays responding to their reflections in a large mirror installed in their aquarium in the Bahamas. The two captive rays circled in front of the mirror, blew bubbles and performed unusual body movements as if checking their reflection. They made no obvious attempt to interact socially with their reflections, suggesting that they did not mistake what they saw as other rays.

The scientists concluded that the mantas seemed to be recognizing their reflections as themselves.

Mirror self-recognition is a big deal. It indicates self-awareness, a mental attribute previously known only among creatures of noted intelligence like great apes, dolphins, elephants and magpies. We don’t usually think of fishes as smart, let alone self-aware.

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Essays & Articles

Nature’s Glass Is Half Full – Not Half Empty

A recent article by British scientist and author Matt Ridley denies rats the capacity for empathy primarily on the flimsy basis that studies on ants show them helping a distressed fellow ant. As it seems “absurd” to attribute empathic suffering to a social insect, we should not stoop to crediting such feelings to rats either, according to Ridley, and the authors of a recent paper in Biology Letters.

For the record, I have great respect for ants, and I won’t jump to conclusions about their capacities. But why on earth would we use ants as a yardstick for the emotional capacities of rats—a species with a demonstrated capacity for laughter, pessimism, emotional fever, and metacognition (awareness of one’s own knowledge)?

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Essays & Articles

Backyard Nature

It’s a Sunday morning and I’m sitting on my deck in the outer suburbs of Washington, D.C., which abuts a magnificent woodland plot.

In the winter one can just see through the naked trees to a field 500 feet beyond. But in summer this space is transformed into a lush green world. Regardless of the season it throngs with life, but it seems that summer days are the busiest. I have the added good fortune of having neighbors who ply the wildlife with a smorgasbord of bird and mammal feeders, so it sometimes looks like rush-hour at Grand Central Station.

This morning I’ve been out here for an hour and as usual there are plenty of little stories unraveling.

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Essays & Articles

A Dog’s Will

This morning as I went to fetch the paper from the front porch of my town-home in suburban Maryland, a neighbor took her dog across the parking area to a central green-space for a morning bathroom break.

I’ve seen this mid-sized, thickly furred canine on her morning ablutions before.

Usually it’s the man of the house who is on the other end of the retractable leash, but in either case, there’s a sense of rush-hour haste to the operation. These folks clearly have jobs to get to and the AM dog shift is all business—I only hope the evening walk is less perfunctory.

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Essays & Articles

Fur

This morning I went grocery shopping at my local Whole Foods market. Whole Foods is the largest natural foods supermarket chain in the world. I consider people who shop here to be relatively enlightened.

I saw at least six people wearing coats with real fur trim collars.

Fur Fact: the fur industry has staged something of a come-back since it reached its low point in the mid-nineties.

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Essays & Articles

A Sparrow’s Life

Yesterday as I stepped from the train on my way to a Bach concert, I noticed a house sparrow lying prostrate on the platform next to a rain shelter.

No doubt she had flown into the shelter’s window. Hoping she was just stunned, I picked her up. Alas, she was quite dead.

I stroked the soft feathers on her neck and head, noted the robustness of her pink beak, and admired the perfect symmetry of her tail feathers before depositing her beneath some ground ivy, where ants, flies and other members of nature’s recycling crew might perform their services undisturbed.

House sparrows are commonplace in the United States, and Washington, D.C. is no exception. They lurk in my neighborhood, chirping from eaves, taking shelter beneath cars, and holding noisy palavers inside cedar trees.

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Essays & Articles

Rarities

The rarity was a fox sparrow, by no means an endangered species, but one of those birds that most people who share its geographic range will go through life with no clue to its existence.

As a bird watcher for over 30 years, I had encountered fox sparrows on just four prior occasions. Through the naked eye, a fox sparrow wouldn’t merit a second glance. A small brown bird flitting furtively in the brush, they are what some might dismiss colloquially as an LBJ.

Through binoculars, “little brown job” resolves into a strikingly handsome creature: eyes ringed with white, arrow-head spots corn-rowed down a snow-white breast and converging into a central spot, and a robust, bi-colored beak. For me, a fox sparrow sighting instantly transforms even the most ordinary nature foray into a memorable event.

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Essays & Articles

The Animal Power Of Video

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a thousand pictures. One of the rewards of being a passionate animal observer in this day and age is the proliferation of video clips that circulate on YouTube and Facebook. These authentic segments of animal lives provide precious glimpses of their emotions, and they often belie common prejudices about animals and nature.

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Books

Book: The Exultant Ark

About The Book:

The Exultant Ark Book Cover - SmallNature documentaries often depict animal life as a grim struggle for survival, but this visually stunning book opens our eyes to a different, more scientifically up-to-date way of looking at the animal kingdom.

In more than one hundred thirty striking images, The Exultant Ark celebrates the full range of animal experience with dramatic portraits of animal pleasure ranging from the charismatic and familiar to the obscure and bizarre.

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Podcasts

Science Weekly Interview #1

[audio mp3="https://www.jonathanbalcombe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Jonathan-Interview-The-Guardian-Science-Weekly.mp3"][/audio]
John Facebook Image

What Are Animals Thinking?

Interview Date: Monday 5th April 2010

Interviewer: Nell Boase

Jonathan Balcombe discusses animal emotions and whether non-humans can be virtuous.

His new book Second Nature – The Inner Lives Of Animals is out now.


 

Books

Book: Second Nature

The Inner Lives of Animals

Second Nature Book CoverAbout The Book:

For centuries we believed that humans were the only ones that mattered. The idea that animals had feelings was either dismissed or considered heresy. Today, that’s all changing.

New scientific studies of animal behavior reveal perceptions, intelligences, awareness and social skills that would have been deemed fantasy a generation ago. The implications make our troubled relationship to animals one of the most pressing moral issues of our time.

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Books

Book: Pleasurable Kingdom

Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good

Pleasurable Kingdom Book Cover

About The Book:

The recognition of animal pain and stress, once controversial, is now acknowledged by legislation in many countries, but there is no formal recognition of animals’ ability to feel pleasure.

Pleasurable Kingdom is the first book for lay-readers to present new evidence that animals – like humans – enjoy themselves.

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Books

Book: The Use Of Animals In Higher Education

About This Book:

The Use Of Animals In Higher Education Book Cover

This book presents a comprehensive examination from an ethical and humane perspective of the use of animals in education.

The book covers animal use in all levels of education from middle school to advanced veterinary and medical training; however,emphasis is on those grades in which animal use is greatest in the secondary and undergraduate levels.

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Letters

Are We Really Nicer Than Vampire Bats?

The Opinion Pages – New York Times:

Published: May 19 2011

To the Editor:

David Brooks draws an unfair line between humans and other animals.

Virtue is widespread in nature. Studies have found that chimpanzees show spontaneous helping behavior toward humans and fellow chimps. They also console victims of violence and show gratitude for favors. Chickens, prairie dogs, songbirds and others sound the alarm at an approaching predator, heightening personal risk by drawing attention to themselves.

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