Reflec2on

Part ONE: Previous Perceptions

Prior to the extensive research that this class has provided me with the opportunity to seek, my perceptions of animals were absent. I hardly gave any thought to the idea that animals were an important part of human life and existence. Their existence, in my mind, was to serve humans in the way the humans deemed fit. This seems wildly untrue now, as research has shown. Animals are capable of a lot of unique things that demonstrate their intelligence, and worthiness of life. In Jeffery Kluger’s Article, Kluger discusses how Kanzi the bonobo is extremely intelligent, as he knows up to “384 of them [words] by formal count, though he probably knows dozens more… like the -ing and -ed endings signifying tense” (6).

Kanzi the Bonobo

This evidence gives me the suspicion that they are more than just automata put on the planet to serve the interest of humankind. They have emotions, feelings, wants, and desires. The science behind these claims, such as the demonstrations of Kanzi, provide compelling evidence that bolsters these assertions.

I have a few animals in my life. I’ve always grown up around dogs in the house. I interacted with them daily; I would take my dogs on walks, feed them, clean up after them, cuddle with them, sleep next to them, and play with them. I never doubted their ability to feel emotion and react to their owners’ emotions. When I looked at my dogs, I understood that they were a living, breathing, thinking animal just as I was. That being said, I do still doubt their capability to think. The many, many messes I had to clean up, their hesitancy to go down stairs, and general (for lack of a better term) stupidity made them endearing, but nowhere near equal to me. My research has made me respect animals more for their inherent intelligence and abilities, but I still feel that they are not equal to humans. Our extremely capable intelligence as a species has put us at the top of the food chain, and I believe that we should own it. That being said, human abilities and animal abilities are in two completely different ballparks. As Kluger quotes Jack Bradbury in his article about animal communication, “‘There certainly are modes of animal communication to which we are completely deaf, [like] the vibratory signals leafhoppers send to each other through a plant stem” (74). The abilities of animals and humans are alike in one way and one way only: they are fascinating and reality-defying. Other than that, animals and humans have no right being compared in that sense.

Archie (left) and Boomer (right) laying on my old bed

Part TWO: Safina First Impressions

Overall, Safina’s writing style most resembles that of Franzen. I found myself wondering if I was reading Safina or Franzen, as they both have that impassioned, journalistic writing style that is characteristic of someone that is truly excited about what they have to write about. His intentions before writing the book are similar to that of TIME, examining “what animals do, and asking why they do it.” (Safina, 5). He quickly abandons that thought, and moves on to Franzen style analysis of how animals are impacted by humans. Safina’s discussion of elephant poaching evokes the ideas covered in TIME about how animals mourn the loss of one of their own with the sentimentality of Franzen. Additionally, his question of who animals are reminds me of the dolphin communication story in TIME and how the researchers studied the dolphins’ unique behaviors and gave them unique names that matched their personalities. After all, whether a dolphin observed by researchers at TIME or a pod of dolphins observed by journalist Safina, their similarities to us cannot be understated.