Inner Landscapes: The Emotional Voice of Animals by Brenda Shoss To subscribe to Kinship Circle Letters for Animals, email: subscribe@kinshipcircle.org 9/11/01: At 8:45 a.m. American Airlines Flight 11 smashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Fifteen minutes later United Airlines Flight 175 shatters the south tower and irrevocably seizes a nation's invulnerability. Amid a frantic tangle of survivors and rescuers, Salty leads Omar Rivera from the 7lst floor to safety. On the 78th floor, Roselle steers Michael Hingson toward an emergency exit. Another dog shepherds his blind guardian down 70 flights of stairs, as glass fragments rain from the crash site above them. If Roselle, Salty and roughly 300 other courageous canines at Ground Zero could speak, they might have explained: "It's our basic nature. Bravery? I don't know...How about a treat?" Anyone who has witnessed an animal's selfless valor knows firsthand that nonhuman beings exhibit an elaborate range of psychological, perceptual, behavioral, personal and communal initiative. "It is clear that animals form lasting friendships, are frightened of being hunted, have a horror of dismemberment, wish they were back in the safety of their den, despair for their mates, look out for and protect their children whom they love," writes Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson in When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals. "They feel throughout their lives, just as we do." And sometimes they organize. Consider, for example, the 30 monkeys that raided a police station in India to emancipate an orphaned relative. The baby, found clinging to a female langur shot with an airgun, continued to suckle his dead mother in captivity. Meanwhile monkeys atop the station's roof dispatched several liberators to claim the orphan. "It was as if the monkeys had made up their minds to take charge," Inspector Prabir Dutta said. "The monkeys impressed us with their show of solidarity. Human beings have a lot to learn from them." Scientists and philosophers have long debated the issue of consciousness in animals. Descartes viewed them as automated entities limited to involuntary instinct. Voltaire argued that animals share our emotional fabric and experience fear, pleasure, rage, grief, anticipation, hope, and love. In 1872 Charles Darwin refuted the 19th-century code of human superiority over animals in his groundbreaking work, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin found that the ability to vocalize is merely one form of communication. Some animals purposefully inflate hair, feathers, and other appendages when afraid or angry. To intimidate intruders, an apprehensive hen ruffles her feathers and reptiles puff their bodies into jumbo proportions. A dog's assorted ear angles articulate curiosity, surprise, or concentration. Does body-talk prove that animals speak and feel through myriad channels? Darwin searched for confirmation that animals weep, but found inconclusive evidence that elephants cry under great duress. Still, Masson contends, "tears aren't grief; they're only symbols of grief. We have to look at animal expressions of feeling on their own terms." Grief and an awareness of loss are regarded as human trademarks. Yet when a mother witnessed the brutal drowning of her three-week-old calf on the banks of the Elk River in Missouri last summer, she frantically guarded her dying child until authorities removed her. The traumatized cow grew paranoid around humans. "We may have to put her down if things don't change," her caretaker reported. A mother's love crosses the species barrier. Darwin recorded the unceasing calls of parents insearch of lost or abducted young ones. "When a flock of sheep is scattered, the ewes bleat incessantly for their lambs, and their mutual pleasure at coming together is manifest." Kinship brings comfort and joy. When ties are severed, humans encounter sadness and a sense of their own mortality. So do chimps and elephants. In the PBS Nature series, Inside the Animal Mind: Animal Consciousness, both animals display grief when relatives die: "Elephants even linger over the bones of long-dead relatives, seeming to ponder the past and their own future." If animals value interconnected lives, how do we reconcile their systematic isolation and "murder" inside the slaughterhouse, fur farm or research laboratory? This is an odd conundrum that contemporary scholars seem more inclined to embrace than biologists. Plainly, the pig who confronts his killer is terrified. He trembles beneath the crushing blast of an imprecise stun gun and screams with human likeness when the knife enters his flesh. The pig's squeal of anguish differs from the grunt of pleasure after a good meal or roll in the mud. He wants to live; "the only difference is that [animals] cannot say so in words," Masson asserts. In August, 2000 a six-month-old calf escaped from a Queens, New York slaughterhouse. After hundreds of pleas to save the bewildered runaway, "Queenie" arrived safely at Farm Sanctuary, a non-profit shelter in Upstate New York. Enterprising and decisive--what some might call a "tough broad"--Queenie had made an independent decision to flee a bleak situation. The emotional voice of animals is astonishingly vast, an inner landscape shaped with perception and inclination. "The warmth of their families makes me feel warm," writes scientist Douglas Chadwick in reference to his time among elephants. "Their capacity for delight gives me joy. If a person can't see these qualities, it can only be because he or she doesn't want to." Animal Anthology: Astounding Stories IN THE WORDS OF KOKO When Koko's cherished companion Michael succumbed to cardiovascular disease last year, the grieving 230 lb great ape clung to her dead friend's blanket and signed: "sorry, cry." Michael and Koko shared a unique bond. Their use of words to impart wit, empathy, ingenuity, and a vast range of human emotions has been the theme of Dr. Penny Patterson's Project Koko since 1972. Dr. Patterson teaches lowland gorillas American Sign Language. Koko uses over 1000 words. As a 3-year-old, she eagerly signed "you, me, cookie" or "hurry, drink." By age 6, she challenged authority with child-like gusto, referring to others as "you nut." At 10, she vocalized basic sentences with an Auditory Language keyboard connected to a voice synthesizer. Along with the rest of country, Koko watched TV footage of last year's terrorist strike and detected apprehension among her humans. Every time she heard a siren or low-flying plane, she grew anxious and signed "trouble"...Koko and her new friend Ndume will soon occupy a more native environment in west Maui, Hawaii, where construction is underway for a gorilla preserve. A CRANE'S COMPASSION Sometimes a crane's mouth is bigger than his eyes. This particular crane, as described in Tony Crisp's "Animals are amazing, and these true stories prove they are not so dumb as some people make out," had plucked an oversize fish from a Florida lake and ferried the catch ashore for a private lunch. Cranes are among the birds that swallow food whole--an impossible task for this crane in possession of an enormous fish. Frustrated and hungry, the crane forfeited his meal and wandered away. Then the bird stopped, seemingly to reflect, before he returned to the dying fish. The crane pecked the fish to assess the situation. When the fish flopped in response, the crane swept his former lunch up in his bill and shuttled the fish back to the lake. The crane "dropped [the fish] into the shallows," Crisp writes, "and then pushed [the fish] out into the deeper water--to safety." UNLIKELY IN LOVE Perhaps unaware that felines generally ambush mice, seven-year-old female cat Auan lovingly licked the face of Jeena, a three-old male mouse. The unusual couple, who reside at a farmer's house in a province near Bangkok, became media sweethearts after their guardian released photos of The Kiss. Auan became Jeena's ally and angel after finding him three years ago--even shielding mouse from dog on a few occasions. Meanwhile, in Fonfria de Alba, Spain a disheartened mama dog adopted four piglets to offset the loss of a litter that died shortly after birth. "Linda" enthusiastically nursed the tiny piglets as if they were her own children. HAMSTER HITS THE ROAD In London, British detectives recently tackled the case of the mysterious hamster found driving a toy car along a promenade at a northern seaside resort. Dubbed "Speedy," the hamster was spotted as he coasted through Cleveleys in the tiny, treadmill-powered car. Constable Quentin Allen told the Daily Express: "It is a model hotrod racing car with large wheels at the back and small ones at the front. In the center is a typical hamster wheel you can buy at any pet shop... As the hamster went round and round it powered the car along at high speed." After several efforts to drive off the officers' front desk, Speedy was removed from his vehicle and delivered to a sanctuary. Detectives have asked Speedy's guardians to step forward. RATS TO THE RESCUE? Rats have a bad rap. Notorious for inhabiting sewers, cellars and trash cans, these vagabonds of the animal kingdom are seldom acknowledged for their loyalty and courage. Then there is Gerd, the companion rat of Birgit Steich's son in Stuttgart, Germany. When armed burglars invaded the Steich's home, the wee warrior waged a sneak attack from his bookcase stronghold, sinking all four feet and teeth into the face of one crook. Gerd then darted up the pant leg of the second man to land upon a tender portion of the thief's anatomy. "The would-be burglars turned out to be suspects in a series of robberies and murders, but thanks to Gerd the hero rat, the Steich family were not among their victims," Dorothy Hoffman writes inHeroic Rats. Fido, the Gumbley's 8-month-old companion rat, saved his family from fire inside their Devon, England home. At 2 a.m., the odor of smoke from an electric heater roused the sleeping rat. Fido fled his unlocked cage, but rather than scamper to safety the righteous rodent climbed a steep stairway to scratch out an sos to his sleeping family. Fido's urgent scratching awoke Megan, age 9, who alerted her family to the blazing carpet and furniture below. Thanks to Fido, everyone evacuated safely. THE BRAVERY OF WOLVES Author Tony Crisp retells a tale about Lyman Jackes and a ranger on tour inside a large U.S. national park. The men, who encountered many frightened deer, soon discovered the source of the panic: Eleven wolves carefully navigated the treacherous landing of a nearby swamp. Assigned to "manage" the wolf population with his rifle, the ranger fired his last five bullets into the pack. Five bodies slumped to the earth. The remaining wolves swiftly dispersed. Armed with wooden clubs, the men descended the hill to inspect their kill. A female wolf, intuitively sensing an absence of ammunition, intercepted the men with exposed fangs. She halted twenty feet from them, but continued to guard the swamp with her intimidating growls. The standoff persisted for half an hour before the wolf abruptly dashed across the floating islands of the swamp. After the wolf's intentional diversion, the men found no trace of the other wolves. Essentially, this fearless wolf provided her wounded peers with a window of opportunity to retreat. Or, perhaps she gave them the chance to die with dignity rather than beneath the clubs of the approaching men. "If [the wolf] had been a human," Crisp writes, "it would have been called 'quick thinking,' and an 'act of bravery and intelligence.'" WISE DEER A no-kill policy prevails within the bounds of Algonquin Park, a large animal reserve in Ontario, Canada. Every November, at the onset of deer hunting season, local deer migrate in significant numbers to the more secure confines of Algonquin Park. Wise deer. Dumb hunters. IF ANIMALS COULD TALK From When Elephants Weep: The Emotional lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy: Our glorious uniqueness, many philosophers have claimed, lies in our ability to speak to one another. It thus came as a shock to learn that a simple African grey parrot not only "parroted" human speech, but spoke, communicated--the words used meant something. When animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg turned to leave her parrot, Alex, in a veterinarian's office for lung surgery, Alex called out, "Come here. I love you. I'm sorry. I want to go back." He thought he had done something bad and was being abandoned as punishment. Imagine what would happen if an animal addressed us on its imminent murder. If, in a slaughterhouse, a pig cried out: "Please don't kill me." If as a hunter looked into the eyes of a deer, it suddenly broke into speech: "I want to live, please don't shoot, my children need me." Would the hunter pull the trigger? Or if a cat in a laboratory were to cry out: "Please, no more torture," would the scientist be able to continue? Such speech did not stop concentration camp inmates from being murdered during the Holocaust; there, humans, it was said, were lice and rats.   END