On Animals vs. Humans
Having been intrigued by this...
Great Animal Story...
Tue Nov 23, 8:23 AM ET
Oddly Enough - Reuters
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) - A pod of dolphins circled protectively round a group of New Zealand swimmers to fend off an attack by a great white shark, media reported on Tuesday.
Lifesavers Rob Howes, his 15-year-old daughter Niccy, Karina Cooper and Helen Slade were swimming 300 feet off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on New Zealand's North Island when the dolphins herded them -- apparently to protect them from a shark.
"They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howes told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).
Howes tried to drift away from the group, but two of the bigger dolphins herded him back just as he spotted a nine-foot great white shark swimming toward the group.
"I just recoiled. It was only about 2 meters away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face," Howes said, referring to a distance of six feet.
"They had corralled us up to protect us," he said.
The lifesavers spent the next 40 minutes surrounded by the dolphins before they could safely swim back to shore. The incident happened on October 30, but the lifesavers kept the story to themselves until now.
Environment group Orca Research said dolphins attacked sharks to protect themselves and their young, so their actions in protecting the lifesavers was understandable.
"They could have sensed the danger to the swimmers and taken action to protect them," Orca's Ingrid Visser told NZPA.
...I write today about animals.
I love animals (warm-blooded ones pretty much exclusively). I am fascinated by them. There are certainly bad things about them -- like they don't understand that dirt is... dirty. But if you can force or train them to hold themselves to more civilized/human standards of cleanliness and personal hygiene, I think they are very fun.
I love to read news articles about all the discoveries in animal behavior. I find it especially cool when one by one, traditional views about animals are proven to be false.
Falsehood #1:People have souls/spirits; animals do not.
I do not quite understand whence this concept first came. The Roman (a.k.a. Latin) name for the soul was anima. Naturally, an animal was anything with an anima. The Greeks used a word for "breath" for the concept of soul, indicating that whatever breathed clearly had a breath/soul. (I also am fairly certain that in Old or Middle English, the word "soul" was a word for "breath".) The ancient Hebrews considered all animals to have souls. The writer of the book we call Ecclesiasties in the Old Testament takes it for granted that animals have souls/spirits. Why then this modern day shift -- especially among church folk -- of claiming that humans are special for having souls? Having a soul originally seemed to just mean that you had life, nothing complicated. (Yes, I harp on this all the time, I know....)
Falsehood #2:People use tools; animals don't.
Unfortunately, no one seemed to know about otters and certain apes back then. Otters use rocks as hammers to smash open various shell fish. Some apes use sticks as probes to ant hills for food. Those are just two examples. There are many more.
Falsehood #3:People communicate; animals don't.
Interestingly enough, it has been proven that dolphins have names for themselves. They do not call each others names as we do, they self-proclaim there names. If my name were really Lhynard, this would be like me going around all the time saying, "Lhynard, Lhynard," so that everyone in my lab would know by my voice where I am at that moment. These are called signature whistles.
Elephants use very low tones to communicate. They apparently have been shown to communicate well enough that they have used teamwork to outwit their zoo keepers in zoos such that one of them might escape.
Orang atangs have been taught their own symbolic language. They understand it to the point that they are able to make up their own new words with it. (The language itself is pretty cool linguistically.)
Dogs have been taught to understand new words by elimination. If you tell the dog to go get a certain item in a room, and he has never learned the word you tell him but sees a bunch of other items for which he does know words, he will assume that the remaining item is called the new word and will increase his vocabulary that way.
Falsehood #4:People have feelings; animals don't.
Returning to elephants, it has been shown that they actually mourn their dead.
Falsehood #5:People have self-awareness; animals don't.
It has been proven that chimps and dolphins and certain exotic birds have self awareness by understanding that what they see in the mirror is really them and not some other animal.
Having said all this, let me point out that I am not a vegetarian or an animal rights supporter. I think that humans have value beyond that of animals. I just don't understand why people feel the need to convince themselves of this value by believing in falsehoods.
Great Animal Story...
Tue Nov 23, 8:23 AM ET
Oddly Enough - Reuters
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) - A pod of dolphins circled protectively round a group of New Zealand swimmers to fend off an attack by a great white shark, media reported on Tuesday.
Lifesavers Rob Howes, his 15-year-old daughter Niccy, Karina Cooper and Helen Slade were swimming 300 feet off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on New Zealand's North Island when the dolphins herded them -- apparently to protect them from a shark.
"They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howes told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).
Howes tried to drift away from the group, but two of the bigger dolphins herded him back just as he spotted a nine-foot great white shark swimming toward the group.
"I just recoiled. It was only about 2 meters away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face," Howes said, referring to a distance of six feet.
"They had corralled us up to protect us," he said.
The lifesavers spent the next 40 minutes surrounded by the dolphins before they could safely swim back to shore. The incident happened on October 30, but the lifesavers kept the story to themselves until now.
Environment group Orca Research said dolphins attacked sharks to protect themselves and their young, so their actions in protecting the lifesavers was understandable.
"They could have sensed the danger to the swimmers and taken action to protect them," Orca's Ingrid Visser told NZPA.
...I write today about animals.
I love animals (warm-blooded ones pretty much exclusively). I am fascinated by them. There are certainly bad things about them -- like they don't understand that dirt is... dirty. But if you can force or train them to hold themselves to more civilized/human standards of cleanliness and personal hygiene, I think they are very fun.
I love to read news articles about all the discoveries in animal behavior. I find it especially cool when one by one, traditional views about animals are proven to be false.
Falsehood #1:People have souls/spirits; animals do not.
I do not quite understand whence this concept first came. The Roman (a.k.a. Latin) name for the soul was anima. Naturally, an animal was anything with an anima. The Greeks used a word for "breath" for the concept of soul, indicating that whatever breathed clearly had a breath/soul. (I also am fairly certain that in Old or Middle English, the word "soul" was a word for "breath".) The ancient Hebrews considered all animals to have souls. The writer of the book we call Ecclesiasties in the Old Testament takes it for granted that animals have souls/spirits. Why then this modern day shift -- especially among church folk -- of claiming that humans are special for having souls? Having a soul originally seemed to just mean that you had life, nothing complicated. (Yes, I harp on this all the time, I know....)
Falsehood #2:People use tools; animals don't.
Unfortunately, no one seemed to know about otters and certain apes back then. Otters use rocks as hammers to smash open various shell fish. Some apes use sticks as probes to ant hills for food. Those are just two examples. There are many more.
Falsehood #3:People communicate; animals don't.
Interestingly enough, it has been proven that dolphins have names for themselves. They do not call each others names as we do, they self-proclaim there names. If my name were really Lhynard, this would be like me going around all the time saying, "Lhynard, Lhynard," so that everyone in my lab would know by my voice where I am at that moment. These are called signature whistles.
Elephants use very low tones to communicate. They apparently have been shown to communicate well enough that they have used teamwork to outwit their zoo keepers in zoos such that one of them might escape.
Orang atangs have been taught their own symbolic language. They understand it to the point that they are able to make up their own new words with it. (The language itself is pretty cool linguistically.)
Dogs have been taught to understand new words by elimination. If you tell the dog to go get a certain item in a room, and he has never learned the word you tell him but sees a bunch of other items for which he does know words, he will assume that the remaining item is called the new word and will increase his vocabulary that way.
Falsehood #4:People have feelings; animals don't.
Returning to elephants, it has been shown that they actually mourn their dead.
Falsehood #5:People have self-awareness; animals don't.
It has been proven that chimps and dolphins and certain exotic birds have self awareness by understanding that what they see in the mirror is really them and not some other animal.
Having said all this, let me point out that I am not a vegetarian or an animal rights supporter. I think that humans have value beyond that of animals. I just don't understand why people feel the need to convince themselves of this value by believing in falsehoods.