1 Animals as Beings: Our Language of Nature
The word, “Being”, expresses a hierarchy based on consciousness within nature. It is also a designation of class, a word used to establish a species' status as human's see it. The terms of this varying status comprises a thousand corollaries that, all together, help to explain our own species exceedingly complicated relations with animals. Some corollaries define life and death issues. We believe a dolphin is more self-reflective than a chicken. And it's harder to justify killing a dolphin than a chicken.
Are only certain large-brained dolphins and chimps worthy of being called a being? Is a horse a sentient being? How can we know for sure? How does it compare with a cow? Can we ever be sure that cows do not perceive their own existence in sophisticated ways humans and horses can not imagine? Is a cabbage worm a being? A cabbage? The dirt a cabbage grows in? Some animal rights activists insist that sentience — a quality of nonhuman consciousness that human's decide — is a worthless trophy handed out ONLY to those few animal species that utilize brain power in ways most parallel to the brain power of the cognitive scientists who invent the tests. It is a test bereft of peripheral vision, of the same drift as absurd argument offered by NASA when it concludes that life in the Universe can not exist anywhere without water. Who can possibly believe such stuff?
Some argue that if an animal is called a being, it ought also to be called a “he” or a “she”. Others counter that he or she only applies to humans and their pets. Some prefer to disallow pets. Some advocate dogs and cats, but not goldfish or hamsters. Still others assert that certain wild mammals — megafauna like whales, mountain lions, and chimps, but not rodents — ought to be called a he or she. Not worms. And please, no bugs. No hammerhead sharks. Others would grant a shark a he or she status. But only within the narrow context of a discussion about gender or reproductive capability.
All to say that the language we employ to depict animals, explains as much about us as it does about horses, worms, and sharks. It benefits the animals during this historical time of mass extinction, to closely examine the fuzzy words we humans choose to use to perceive them, to study them, to relate to them, and to talk about them. Transforming poor language about nature may prove to be as crucial a catalyst for change as transforming energy policy.
In the words usage to describe consciousness — sentience, self-reflection — "being" warps language and causes our own perceptions towards nature to sound anthropocentric, if not bigoted. For instance, this animal lover is not adverse to calling a worm a being. Yet nothing I have ever read makes me believe that worms are as sentient as I am, as a whale is, as a dog is. Rather, I insist upon employing a wider scope of meaning for “being” than the general public allows. I offer this generosity as a correction against the term's current narrowness of usage. In English, at the start of the 21st century, “being” is an acutely political word. It expresses crucial relationships of responsibility and compassion that no “nonbeing” will ever enjoy, but deserve.
Sharing my encouragement of "worm being" with others, invokes all kinds of responses. Some people grimace with embarrassment. Apparently, I must not be quite the scientist they always thought I ought to be. Others are slightly more tolerant, leveling their gaze in acknowledgment of having learned something essential, not about worms, but about my own curmudgeonly perception of nature. An animal rights activist might give me a fist pump. Right on, buddy. A cognitive scientist would ask: by what criteria do I possibly base such a claim. After all, cognitive scientists have devised ingenious tests to measure the extent of any species’ comprehension of its own existence. If an animal can demonstrate that it can examine its own body in a mirror, it is ever after deemed sentient. Apparently what one individual dolphin can do, ALL dolphins can do. Not a dummy among them. And no other test will show it so clearly. My problem is that I find the experiment to be more ludicrous than the cognitive scientists find me for calling a worm a being.
Few species pass the mirror test. Failure brings with it, of course, a less compassionate definition, of “being” than my own. I prefer a vice-versa strategy which goes something like this: cognitive scientists perceive their own identity in ways that horses can not even begin to imagine? And vice versa.
We humans value self-reflection. Many of us assert that it is what distinguishes us most from the animals. More than tool-making. More than language. Much of our ethics about animals, we base upon this fuzzy, self-congratulating hierarchy. For instance, the killing of whales is regarded as taboo in many places. The taboo is founded on high intelligence — "beingness". Chickens are easier victims. I raise them myself, in fact I plan to slaughter a few later this month, and with a guilt-free conscience. I raise broccoli as well, and fret over their organic purity about the same amount as I fret over the souls of chickens. Perhaps only another homesteader can know what I feel when I conclude that killing a chicken seems about the same to me as picking a broccoli. Most people who cringe at the idea of killing a chicken, eat them all the time. On the other hand, I turn angry whenever I hear a whale killer refer to himself as a harvester of whales, as a prelude to drawing the self-deluding analogy between whale slaughter and the harvest of broccoli and/or chickens. Only an industrial whaler would even attempt to compare gardening to the killing of an endangered sentient being like a whale.
In an ideal world, calling an animal a “being”, should offer it protection as a possessor of consciousness and self reflection. To do so would mean that own own species has developed a worthy method to provide a measure of amnesty against killing species so designated. The case of whales makes it clear that other considerations — economics, tradition, property, sustenance, even a personality trait like arrogance and a psychological condition like manic depression — still trumps sentience. Sentience occasionally comes to the aid of wolves and elephants trying to survive in this human-overpopulated world of ours. Being smart and large does increase the volume of the protest against any species’ imminent demise. Cute, like a panda, works better still.
Giving a name to an individual animal adds another shade of meaning to "being". To name an animal is to designate it as family and community. It can transform a worm, whale, dog, chicken, even a broccoli into a person, with rights, quicker and more permanently than any sentience test. Witness George Bush and his turkey-naming (and thus turkey saving) ceremony each Thanksgiving. As every farmer knows, it is bad juju to give a name to an animal eventually to be slaughtered for food.
—Jim Nollman (from a work in progress: Being: Compassion for the Wild in a Time of Mass Extinction.)
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Barred Owl in the tree next to my house
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After eating my chicken
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| We love our local barred owl, even though he/she loves our chickens. We wonder if his call is the origination of the myth of the banshee. Just seeing him there every so often feels like a visitation by a mysterious presence. |
2 International Whaling Commission 60th Meeting
By Captain Paul Watson
It has been a very strange week at the Sheraton Hotel in Santiago where 72 of the 81 nation members of the International Whaling Commission have been meeting essentially not to resolve anything at all. The amount of carbon expended on airfares alone without any results to show for it is a crime in itself.
Japan has had the IWC in a stranglehold for two decades as this whaling nation continues to violate IWC regulations, continues to bribe nations to support their positions and continues to pontificate on their campaign to slaughter the world’s whales in complete disregard for the concerns of the civilized world.
Outside my hotel young Chileans demonstrate, lock themselves to the hotel door and are routinely arrested while most of the delegates are completely oblivious to their actions. The IWC delegates exist in a fantasy world, bending over backwards to be polite to each other as Japan manipulates the agenda so that nothing can be done at all to end their high seas spree against the Cetacean Nations. They use the maximum number of words to essentially say nothing at all.
Japan reasons that if there are no votes taken, than they won’t have to return to Japan having lost any of the resolutions. So the delegates decided to an informal agreement not to vote on any controversial issues to avoid confrontation. It’s a strange way to resolve conflicts and an even stranger way to enforce the regulations of the IWC. The annual verbal slug fest became a love fest with everyone pretending to respect each other’s position. As Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently said to Japan’s Prime Minister Fukuda, “we have agreed to disagree.”
Denmark however decided to force a vote on their proposal to slaughter more endangered Humpbacks in Greenland in addition to the whales they already kill, despite the European Community’s adamant (and except for Denmark,) unanimous decision to stand strong for the whales. Denmark’s proposal was quickly shot down with evidence that their so-called indigenous slaughter of whales is in fact a commercial operation. The Danes with less political savvy than the Japanese were defeated 36 to 29 although the USA voted for the deaths of the Humpbacks, probably in deference to the desires of the Makah tribe of Washington State to resume the murder of US whales.
The only real voice for the whales comes, as usual, from individuals and small organizations. Skye Bortoli with Teens Against Whaling, although only 15 years old has had security agents stalking her every move. Hannah a professional mermaid baffled the security when she attended a media conference wearing her tail. They detailed extra men to surround the swimming pool to ensure she did not get close enough to dive in. Apparently the image of a mermaid protesting the killing of whales from the middle of the pool had spooked the Japanese. It was probably best for Hannah, she may have been harpooned.
At high noon on the last day of the conference, four Chilean protestors jumped out of a cab and stormed the door of the hotel bringing their very vocal protests directly to the lobby of the Sheraton for the first time. The Chilean police quickly removed them and hauled them off in handcuffs. What a difference it would make if even a small fraction of the passion that we see on the outside of the hotel could be brought inside the doors to challenge the Japanese on the floor.
The Chileans have displayed a strong show of support for the whales ranging from in the street protests to the declaration by President Michelle Bachelet of the establishment of the Chilean Whale Sanctuary to protect all whales in the Chilean Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ). The Chilean surfing community has been very high profile in their support for the whales.
Japan once again called for the condemnation of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for our interventions against their illegal whaling operations. Brazil, the USA, the Netherlands, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia responded with statements that did not say much at all except that they were opposed to “violence and unlawful acts” at sea.
This annual whaling commission charade has been going on for 60 years and has become a regular vacation opportunity for many of the delegates, especially the nations that have sold their vote to Japan. They get to travel to a different location each year, stay at five star hotels, eat expensive meals and all they have to do is to pretend they are making a difference. Japan pays all the expenses – it’s a great gig if you’re a politician from some third world nation.
The only serious suggestion to emerge from this year’s meeting came from former Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell who said that it is ridiculous for the “Japanese to be calling for the “normalization” of what has become a very abnormal organization. All we need to do is to drop the “ing” from the International Whal(ing) Commission and convert it into what it should naturally evolve to be – a whale conservation organization.” Ian Campbell who previously came to the IWC meeting to represent Australia had been the most passionate and out-spoken defender of whales and is the reason today that Australia holds the leading position of whale defending nation. “I was once an activist Environmental Minister,” said the Honourable Mr. Campbell. “Now I am just an activist.”
So with nothing much worthwhile accomplished the delegates are already thinking of the sunny beaches and excellent wine of the Portuguese island of Madeira where the 61st meeting of the IWC is scheduled for 2009. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society intends to return to the IWC again with even more victories at sea and lives saved from the ruthless killers of the most gentle, intelligent and socially complex sentient beings in the sea. Between now and then we intend to rock the boat and battle it out like samurai in the most remote and harsh waters on the planet with an international crew of volunteers ready and willing to risk their lives in Operation Musashi to defend endangered whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. We intend to stop them!
Paul Watson is the founder of Sea Shepherd Society.
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| A song about Puget Sound, produced with sounds from Puget Sound Waves, as well as the animals who reside here. by Jim Nollman |
3 Links for August and September
- VIDEOS: Don't miss this footage of a moose mama bringing her babies to experience a lawn sprinkler. Suddenly, we're also seeing lots mnore footage of beaked whales turn up on Youtube. Cherck out this attempt to resuscitate a stranded beaked whale. And this beaked whale species, with tusks. Then check out the well known story of a bottlenose dolphin saving two whales from stranding in new Zealand.
- TECHNOLOGY: A NASA airplane, originally built for high altitude spying, is now being refitted by the European Union to detect whales in the Mediterranean. The objective is ending ship strikes of cetaceans by sending the whales coordinates directly to navigators in the same area. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the bumpy barnacles on a humpback whale's fins actually help it turn better in the water. Now these bumps are being integrasted into a new design for windmills, with the efficent result that it takes less wind to turn them.
- STORIES: My favorite story of animal behavior — actually compassion — is told by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, writing about the geese on the farm of his childhood. He calls them "the most admirable creatures I’ve ever met." They mate for life and adhere to family values that would shame most of those who dine on them. While the female sits on her eggs, her gander forages for food. If he found a delicacy, he would rush back to give it to his mate. Kristoff describes offering males a dish of corn to fatten them up; but it was impossible, for they would take it to their true loves. The most powerful expression of this bond occurs during slaughter. As Kristoff writes, "Very often, one goose would bravely step away from the panicked flock and walk tremulously toward me. It would be the mate of the one I had caught, male or female, and it would step right up to me, protesting pitifully. It would be frightened out of its wits, but still determined to stand with and comfort its lover." Acts like these prompted the family to give up raisaing geese for slaughter.
- ART NETWORKING: Interspecies is currently advising the French-based Whale Whisperers Organization. The objective of this association is to encourage the creation of artistic works and the organization of sound and image productions relating to the undersea world and more particularly to cetaceans.
- BIOLOGY: Rotifers are microscopic animals living in the ocean. One species, the bdelloids, are asexual, and are now causing quite a stir among reproductive biologists because they have been asexual for hundreds of millions of years. Until their discovery, this was generally agreed to be impossible.
- BIOLOGY: Paul Watson's reportage, above, describes poor Third World nations, many in the Caribbean, that are bribed by the Japanese Whaling Association to join the IWC and then vote preceisely as the Japanese tell them to do. One island government, Dominica, has recently decided to stop the practice. The reason: they make even more money from whalewatching, and are now losing business as tourists travel elsewhere in protest to the bribery.
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Blue whales superimposed with graph of blue whale calls
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The Interspecies newsletter is edited monthly by Jim Nollman and published by Interspecies.com. Most links are sent to us by subscribers. Please keep them coming. if you'd like to contribute with writing or images, email: Interspecies@rockisland.com.
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