Vonnies Health Spot

TRANS-SPECIES PSYCHOLOGY BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS FOR UNDERSTANDING THOSE WITH WHOM WE SHARE THIS PLANET

On March 26, 2008, I began writing on a topic that, while near and dear to my heart, has been hard for me to write about. (See Can Human Evolution Be Measured by How We Treat Animals?) The way some humans have historically treated animals is beyond the pale. For those of us who view animals as extensions of ourselves, the pain elicited when we read or hear about horrible crimes perpetrated against our animal kin is almost more than we can bear. I’m usually drained by the time I finish my research because the stories I read are so heartrending. But the bottom line, once I plow through the bad stuff? There is hope shining on the horizon.

TRANS-SPECIES PSYCHOLOGY
This new hope lies in trans-species psychology, which is a part of a new area of science committed to the idea that animals have minds of their own just like we do. It marks a formal turning point in what we know and, even more significantly, what we do. This new discipline erases the conceptual walls that have held humans apart from other species. Our differences are more like those we might see between human cultures. How each culture eats, lives, mourns, celebrates and works may be somewhat different, but at the end of the day we all have the same feelings inside: joy, sadness, grief, pride, love.

Author Gary Kowalski writes in The Souls of Animals: “Animals are not our property or chattel, therefore, but our peers and fellow travelers. Like us, they have their own likes and dislikes, fears and fixations. They have plans and purposes as important to them as our plans are to us. Animals not only have biologies; they also have biographies. We can appreciate the lives of animals, but not appropriate them, for they have their own lives to lead.”

In Best Friends magazine, November/December 2007 issue, authors Gay Bradshaw and Lori Marino go on to say, “Equality in mind and heart means equality in how we live. If we are serious about our kinship with other beings, we must adopt nothing less than the Golden Rule in our dealings with them. This sounds simple but it has profound implications for everyday life. For instance, current laws affecting humans and animals reveal a wealth of inconsistencies. Kidnapping a baby elephant, beating her as part of circus training and making her live a lifetime alone in chains is routine and legal.

“Killing an animal is not only permissible but also part of everyday culture. Deer, elk, bear, cougars, ducks, turkeys and other wildlife are routinely killed, as are countless cows, pigs, chickens and fish. And with few exceptions, killing a dog or cat does not count as a serious crime. In all these cases, were the victim human, it would be called murder. Acknowledging that animals have minds and feelings like us compels a radical change in laws to make what we know about other animals consistent with how we treat other animals.

“Trans-species psychology also affects how research and education are conducted. Middle and high schools regularly us frogs and cats in biology classes. For centuries, animals have been used as research tools because they resemble humans so closely. Yet, to perform such experiments on humans is considered unethical and is not allowed.

“Trans-species psychology rejects this double standard. It calls for a science that serves humans and other animals alike without make one suffer at the hands of the other.

“A new science also raises new questions. For example, much research is devoted to investigating how and why so many species — whales, birds, fish — are going extinct, and how to conserve them. But little attention is given to the most obvious problem; human behavior. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich has been making this point for years. Finding solutions to human overpopulation and consumerism are politically uncomfortable subjects. As a result, conservation hasn’t stopped the landslide of extinctions.

“Now that we know animals have the same attributes that have permitted people to dominate other species, a new egalitarian, trans-species ethic is emerging. Instead of demanding that animals continue to change their lives to suit people, humans are asked to take responsibility for changing how they live, and science is charged with helping people to do this.”

A case that occurred recently in Ventura, California, comes to mind. Bob, a 40-pound African spurred tortoise, was kidnapped from the back yard of the home he shared with the Sullivans and their young autistic son. Bob was later found near death with his legs and necked slashed and a hole in his shell. He was rushed to a hospital and after a long, arduous recovery, eventually returned home. The perpetrator of this crime, an 18-year-old named Jose Antonio Mosqueda was apprehended and after a long trial ultimately received five years’ probation.

During the trial, the Sullivans received phone threats against their own lives and those of their pets, telling them to “drop all charges or their little brown dog would be next,” and then their miniature dachshund, Flapps was murdered. If Bob and Flapps had been humans, the case would have been considered much more serious and the criminals would have been hunted down and would have received lengthy sentences. As it was, nobody was caught for the murder of Flapps and Mosqueda gets off with a fine, a 270-day sentence commuted by time served awaiting trial and only five years probation for torture and attempted murder! The Sullivan family will never be the same. The Sullivans live in an embattled atmosphere, bringing Bob and the other pets inside each night. Their son William, a 7-year-old autistic who prefers to speak only to the animals, has been severely traumatized.

In another instance, I have trouble reconciling the dichotomy of the heritage of the minister of a church I know who has studied theology and languages and will soon be receiving his doctorate, but who comes from a family that still enjoys hunting and who is teaching his 10-year-old son to hunt. This man is obviously a humanitarian, highly educated and feels a mission to  improve the world he inhabits, yet he sees nothing wrong in sending his young son out into the forest with a rifle!

Killing animals is murder, pure and simple.

For more information check out the following sites: www.animalliberationfront.com

www.bestfriends.org

www.kerulos.org

www.theoceanproject.org/actfordolphins

www.kittenrescue.org

www.aspca.org

www.ispca.org 

CAN HUMAN EVOLUTION BE MEASURED BY HOW WE TREAT ANIMALS?

Love all living creatures.

If it could ever be said that I have a motto, that would be it. And I often find it easier to love the beings we call animals than I do those of my own species. To answer the question that the title of this post asks: In my opinion, there is but one, very simple answer … YES!

Over the ages, homo sapiens, the most predatory creatures on earth, have slaughtered other animals for their meat, hide, feathers, bones, tusks and even precious gems in the form of pearls. (In order to stay on track with this article, I won’t even touch on the tortures and murders we perpetrate on our own species.) When our species finally stood upright and began to develop a larger brain, the power of speech and tool-making concepts, we left other species behind as far as intellect is concerned. Yet there is a profound, more visceral understanding that runs deeper than the higher brain, the brain responsible for building the pyramids, designing early ships that sailed the ocean, or engineering wood and vine bridges spanning great chasms.

This intuitive reverence for life brought home to us more obviously in some cultures than in others … witness the Tao or the Native American belief systems or Wicca, just to mention a few … is now being brought into the realm of science through a discipline called trans-species psychology, which is gaining momentum as I write this.

In Best Friends magazine. November/December 2007, an article titled “Minds of Their Own” written by Gay Bradshaw and Lori Marino tells this story: “Seemingly out of the blue, three teenagers went on a killing spree, in a community that never seen that kind of violence. But only a few years earlier, the young killers had witnessed the massacre of their families.

“In another case, a psychologist is asked to visit a 31-year-old female in a halfway house who has had a nervous breakdown. Before coming to live there, she was held prisoner, isolated and subjected to experiments by her captors for nearly a decade. Her symptoms classically fit the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“At another facility, a social worker visits an infant who cries inconsolably for his absent mother. The distressed infant is a victim of genocide, one of the few survivors of a mass killing that occurred only a few days before, in which his mother and most other family members were brutally slaughtered.”

These are not isolated incidents. These stories are common to animal-care workers throughout the world. The teenage killers were young bull elephants, the entity suffering the breakdown was a chimpanzee, and the crying infant was a dolphin. Bradshaw and Marino ask, “Are these descriptions anthropomorphic exaggerations, dramatizing animal lives with the language of human experience?"

They answer their own question, "Only a few years back, the answer might have been yes. But today, a bounty of scientific discoveries has erased many (some argue all) of the differences that have seemed to separate humans from everyone else. Whales have culture, apes have a sense of art and aesthetics, elephants mourn their departed loved ones, snakes play, and the list goes on.”

“Trans-species psychology is part of a new area of science committed to the idea that animals have minds of their own just like we do. It marks a formal turning point in what we know and, even more significantly, what we do,” say the authors.

As I write this post, my heart aches and my eyes fill with tears of shame and sorrow. It is one of the most difficult posts I have ever written. I’m thrilled that the new discipline is emerging … and not a moment too soon, I might add. I do what I can to aid the little creatures who have come into my care. And I donate a dollar here and a dollar there to various animal rights organizations. But I’m only one person. I hope that those of you who read this will join with me in this very important quest. I believe our own survival as a species is tied in with how we treat other species. ... So far our track record has been very poor.

I will be writing more on this subject in my next post, slated for March 28, 2008.