Virginia Morell - Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures

Praise for ANIMAL WISE

Animal Wise is a thought-provoking and highly engaging set of essays that captures the changing views of scientists toward the minds and emotional lives of animals. It is sure to have broad impact on attitudes toward other species and our treatment of them. Thank you, Virginia Morell, for adding legitimacy to what we have so painstakingly observed.

Joyce Poole, PhD, codirector of ElephantVoices, member of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, and author of Coming of Age with Elephants

In sprightly and clear prose Virginia Morell enters the world of animals with respect and insight and with the compelling argument that our lives differ only in degree. The recognition that we are bound in mind to many other creatures, all of them dependent on us for survival, will, I hope, arouse our compassion and assure them a future. This is a fascinating, timely, and important book.

George B. Schaller, Panthera and the Wildlife Conservation Society

From ants to apes, Animal Wise covers wide-ranging scientific research on the cognitive and emotional capacities of many different nonhuman animals. Noted author Virginia Morell writes clearly and concisely, and this easy read will surely be good for animals because we must use what we know about them to make their lives better in an increasingly human dominated world.

Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals and The Animal Manifesto and editor of Ignoring Nature No More

It is nice to see a science writer of Virginia Morells distinction take on this increasingly important topic, and it is good to have her calm and careful voice added to the conversation. She has a great deal to teach us about the latest research on the frontiers of this fascinating new world. Animal Wise is a fine book.

Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep

ALSO BY VIRGINIA MORELL

Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankinds Beginnings

Blue Nile: Ethiopias River of Magic and Mystery

Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africas Natural Treasures (with Richard Leakey)

Copyright 2013 by Virginia Morell

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Some of the material in this work was adapted from the following: Minds of Their Own in National Geographic (March 2008); Going to the Dogs in Science (August 2009); Watching as Ants Go Marchingand DecidingOne by One; Profile of Nigel Franks in Science (March 2009); Why Do Parrots Talk? Venezuelan Site Offers Clues in Science (July 2011); and Inside the Minds of Cats and Dogs in National Geographic Special Edition: Cats and Dogs (Spring 2012).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morell, Virginia.

Animal wise : the thoughts and emotions of our fellow creatures /

Virginia Morell.First edition.

pages; cm

1. Cognition in animals. 2. Human-animal communication. I. Title.

QL.785.M655 2013

591.513dc23

2012031503

eISBN: 978-0-307-46146-9

Illustrations on by Maria Elias

Jacket design by Christopher Brand

Jacket photography: John Lund

v3.1

For my Mother, and for Michael,
who loves dogs, cats,
and all the wild creatures.
And for our pets,
Buck and Nini,
who stayed close while I wrote.

Surely, the most important part of an animal is its anima,

its vital spirit, on which is based its character and all

the peculiarities by which it most concerns us. Yet most

scientific books which treat of animals leave this out

altogether, and what they describe are as it were

phenomena of dead matter.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Our organ of thought may be superior, and we may play it
better, but it is surely vain to believe that other possessors of
similar instruments leave them quite untouched.

STEPHEN WALKER

Animals have minds. They have brains, and use them, as we do: for experiencing the world, for thinking and feeling, and for solving the problems of life every creature faces. Like us, they have personalities, moods, and emotions; they laugh and they play. Some show grief and empathy and are self-aware and very likely conscious of their actions and intents.

Not so long ago, I would have hedged these statements, because the prevailing notion held that animals are more like zombies or robotic machines, capable of responding with only simple, reflexive behaviors. And indeed there are still researchers who insist that animals are moving through life like the half dead, but theyre so 1950s. Theyve been left behind as a flood of new research from biologists, animal behaviorists, evolutionary and ecological biologists, comparative psychologists, cognitive ethologists, and neuroscientists sweeps away old ideas that block the exploration of animal minds. The question now is not Do animals think? Its How and what do they think?

Hardly a week goes by that doesnt see a study announcing a new discovery about animal minds: Whales Have Accents and Regional Dialects, Fish Use Tools, Squirrels Adopt Orphans, Honeybees Make Plans, Sheep Dont Forget a Face, Rats Feel Each Others Pain, Elephants See Themselves in Mirrors, Crows Able to Invent Tools, and (for me, as a dog lover, a favorite) Dog Has Vocabulary of 1,022 Words.

How do scientists know that a dog has such an impressive vocabulary, that moths remember they were once caterpillars, that blue jays regard other jays as thieves, or that not only whales but cows, too, have regional accents? How can we prove that animals think? Once we have done so, what does that tell us about our relationships with them, and what does it tell us about ourselves?

Many of us have had some experienceplaying with a pet or watching wildlifethat made us think an animal was planning something, or feeling joyful or sad. My husband and I are sure that our dog smiles, especially when hes playing with us, or when we give him a promised bone, or when we all are reunited after one of our business trips. We laugh with delight to see his joy and say things like Look at how happy Buck is. Hes really excited about getting his treat. But is he? Without language, is there any way to rule out what else he might be thinking about? Maybe he just caught a whiff of a squirrels scent, or some of our old socks, or maybe hes not smiling at all but simply doing his best to imitate an expression he often sees on our faces and perhaps associates with bones or walks but doesnt fathom in the slightest.