Western Morning News (Saturday)
Time we gave animals the respect they deserve
“THE greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” said Mahatma Gandhi.
Well, I reckon we’ve all got a long way to go. Recently Environment Secretary George Eustice introduced a new animal welfare plan, to be monitored by vets.
The plan includes a variety of stipulations. Banning the exportation of live animals for slaughter, the keeping of primates as pets and importing hunting trophies. No brainers such as “possibly changes to the ways that animals can be confined or caged” are up for consideration.
I’m bemused at the arrogance of this plan. There’s nothing requiring imports to meet the same welfare standards as in the UK. The government says it’s looking at banning the sale of foie gras. Looking at it? The production of foie gras pate is despicably cruel. Geese or ducks are held down with a funnel in their beaks and are force fed to make their livers enlarge. Looking at it? Really? I suggest Mr Eustice and his chums visit a foie gras factory and have a good long think.
An aspect of the scheme that made me widen my eyes is the law which recognises that “animals have the capacity to feel hunger and pain and are aware of what is happening to them”. Well Hello? How shameful that in this day and age it’s necessary to set something so blindingly obvious down as a “law”.
The scheme doesn’t take into consideration hunting, fishing, or anything that might disturb habitats. That will take another few centuries. Meanwhile, there’s an expert animal sentience committee which will advise on policy. The law applies to vertebrates, but not to creatures such as octopus and squid.
When I lived in Greece years ago, I watched the fishermen land their catch. Writhing octopus were lifted at great height and whipped on the harbour wall to tenderise them. At dinner, glass of ouzo in hand, I’d enjoy eating the tentacles.
Had I watched The Octopus in my House (BBC I player) or My Octopus Teacher my dinner choice would have been different. The films are remarkably, humbling, almost life changing. Clearly Mr Eustice’s team haven’t seen them, because if they had they’d realise that they’re ignoring one of the cleverest, and most sentient creatures on the planet. Octopuses have been around for 296 million years. According to scientists, no other creature on the planet has evolved like them. Tests prove that they’re as smart, even smarter than your average dog. In captivity they’ve been observed opening screw top jars, solving puzzles, learning how to play – an activity depicting sophisticated intelligence. They make eye contact. In Germany, an octopus figured out how to turn the lights out by squirting at them, shorting out the system time and again. In the BBC programme the octopus recognised his keeper and was able to plan strategic connections between past, current actions and future events. Octopus are known to remember people they don’t like and soak them. In the Brighton Aquarium an octopus became known for leaving its tank at night and sliding into the tank next door to eat the lumpfish before slithering back with a “lumpfish wouldn’t melt in my mouth” look before it was caught.
Hardly surprising, because octopus, I learned, have nine brains – in addition to the central brain, each of its eight arms has a mini-brain that allows it to act independently. It’s also got three hearts. To watch these creatures learn tricks, play and hunt cleverly is humbling and I’m devastated that the latest report sees fit to consider that the creatures aren’t “sentient”. How wrong they are.
I think we badly misjudge the animal kingdom. American writer Henry Beston said “We patronise the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”
The levels of animal and insect intelligence has yet to be fully understood and accepted. Farming friends tell me their sheep recognise faces. Cows are clever and possess emotional intelligence. Crows can count. Dolphins and whales are capable of many things too, including being able to describe a fish it can hear to another dolphin by sending an image, so converting sound to a type of sonar hologram.
Pigs have been shown to master computer games using joy sticks and revealing cognitive skills not seen before in swine. Bees are very bright. Parrots are often able to count, identify colours and scores of items and are reckoned to have the intelligence of five-year-old children.
Dogs have excellent facial recognition skills and some, collies in particular, have been found to know the names of over a thousand objects.
Maybe the Environment agency’s team ought to consider author A.A.Milne. “Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem”. Until we learn to listen, and respect every creature with an open mind, our moral progress is going to be in the dark ages for decades to come.
Until we learn to respect every creature, our moral progress is going to be in the dark ages for decades to come