The Animal Manifesto (5 page)

The only problem, it seems, is that sometimes we are accused of loving our domestic companions too much, such as when people leave tons of money in their will to their dogs. When she died, Leona Helmsley left$12 million in a trust to care for Trouble, her pint-sized Maltese dog, and many people were outraged. Trouble even received death threats. Eventually, as has happened with similar bequests, Ms. Helmsley’s wishes were overturned in February 2009. Would people have been more accepting if Trouble were a racehorse?

Though few people could, or might, leave such a fortune to their companion animal, most pet owners (aka guardians) understand the devotion behind such a gesture. Many people embrace their pets like family, and they spend as freely on the care of their animals as they do on themselves. In the months before my late companion dog Jethro died, I arranged for him to have a massage once a week; I’m sure he loved it and felt loved, and I’m equally sure he would have done the same for me if our situations, and species, were reversed. When domestic animals share our lives, we feel their caring, gratitude, and love for us directly, and it inspires humans to respond in kind. Pet owners across the United States spent$16.1 billion on their dogs’ veterinary bills in 2006, up from the$4.9 billion
spent in 1991, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Cat owners spent$7 billion in 2006, up from the$2 billion spent in 1991. While paying for veterinary care is standard and expected, 27 percent of pet owners buy birthday gifts for their dogs, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. In 2004, U.S. pet owners spent$34.4 billion on their pets, making the pet industry larger than the toy industry (with sales of$20 billion).

Companion animals are also growing ever more popular. In 1988, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, 56 percent of American households had a pet. By 2006, that figure had climbed to 63 percent, which works out to a national pet census of 88 million cats, 75 million dogs, 16 million birds, 14 million horses, 142 million fish, plus assorted small mammals and the occasional leopard or Madagascan hissing cockroach. And these are just the numbers for America. Taken altogether, this represents an enormous number of humans who have intimate, emotional relationships with animals, and who feel duty bound to care for and love them.

The number of stories that could be told to illustrate this is nearly endless. Take horses, for example. While racehorses often suffer abuse, they can also be extremely well cared for. Consider the extended care that the thoroughbred Barbaro received after shattering a leg in the 2006 Preakness Stakes. There’s also the story of Molly, a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005. After weeks on her own, she was finally rescued and taken to a farm holding abandoned animals. While there, she almost died after being attacked by a pit bull terrier. When her injured right front leg became infected, her vet sought help at Louisiana State University, where surgeon

Rustin Moore agreed that, rather than euthanize her, he would fit her with a prosthesis; Moore removed her leg below the knee and fashioned an artificial limb. Today, Molly can walk and run, but she has a new job — she goes to shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, and rehabilitation centers, inspiring people with her perseverance. Wherever Molly goes, she offers hope to people who are struggling.

The question is, if so much human care and feeling can be generated in relation to one horse, why don’t we foster it with all animals?

Today, particularly in wealthy countries, “wilderness” is almost by definition every place that is not civilization. For millennia, humans have domesticated nature to build cities and towns, suburbs and farms, and whatever is wild is meant to remain outside, at the border. However, inevitably and without fail, conflicts arise because wild animals are curious, or hungry, and they don’t necessarily recognize the boundaries we put up; once they enter our domestic arena, wild animals are often considered dangerous “problems” or “pests” for whom the only solution is death. Conflicts also arise whenever humans themselves seek to live in or “manage” wilderness, arranging the furniture in what is, in reality, someone else’s home.

In other words, it’s very easy for humans to love domestic animals, who have learned to live and play by human rules, but it’s much harder to coexist with the majority of animal species who don’t. Those of us who live in wealthy countries make up a small fraction of the world’s population, and we are incredibly fortunate to live with an amazing array of animals and
plants. We should never take this for granted because it may not always be so. In theory, when humans make conservation and environmental decisions regarding nature, most people agree that animals must be factored in; they are part of the equation. Yet when push comes to shove — when profits are compromised or people’s lives are impacted or threatened — the welfare of our fellow animals seems to count for nothing.

Thus, any manifesto on behalf of animals would demand that animals be granted their own homes and allowed their own ways of life. Animals deserve land free from human interference and intrusion. Coexistence means not only that animals must accommodate human society, which they already do (sometimes to the point of extinction), but that humans must accommodate, and make room for, animal societies. Ironically, often the very characteristics of animals that draw us to them, or to the land where they live, become the source of conflicts and the reasons we decide we don’t like them anymore. Often people like to brag that they live in the woods among wild animals, but they’re only happy as long as the animals behave as humans want them to, not as the beings they are. We misunderstand wild animals, or provoke them unwittingly, then blame and punish them for our own mistakes.

This is seen most dramatically, and usually tragically, whenever wild animals enter our towns. In January 2009 a coyote in a town near Boulder supposedly attacked a woman who had been playing Frisbee with her dog. The question is, did the coyote aggressively “attack” the woman or was the animal just trying to join the game? When I played fetch with my late companion dog Jethro, the local red foxes would on occasion try to play with us; whenever this happened, I stopped the game, because I don’t want foxes to feel
that
comfortable
around us. Wild animals can be unpredictable; we don’t speak their language or understand all their signals. As an expert in animal behavior, I know an animal’s motivation isn’t always obvious or self-evident. People often label an animal as “aggressive” when in fact he or she is merely curious. Nonetheless, the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) immediately went out to kill the coyotes who had been “harassing” the woman. A group of us protested this because, first, they couldn’t identify exactly who the coyotes were, and second, it was far from clear that they had been aggressive. As it turned out, CDOW killed a coyote who
didn’t
nip the woman! Then, a few weeks later, CDOW killed five more coyotes in what they called a precautionary measure. Wildlife officials had no idea if any of the coyotes were involved in the incident, but afterward, simply being a coyote apparently warranted a death sentence.

In July 2008 the lives and unnecessary deaths of two black bears entered into the hearts of people around the world. In my hometown of Boulder, Colorado, representatives of the Colorado Division of Wildlife killed a mother bear when she supposedly posed a danger to humans in the neighborhood. But did she? It was discovered this female was simply looking for her child, who’d been electrocuted after she touched an electrical wire. It was possible but unknown whether the mother was the same bear who’d been in the neighborhood before because people living there had fed her. So, even at worst, the bear was guilty of looking for her child and accepting an invitation to a meal. What a double-cross. She was killed because Colorado has a “two strikes and you’re dead” policy for wild
animals who venture into human environs, but in this case, it was an inhumane “no strike and you’re dead” policy.

Human safety surely is important, but so too is human responsibility. Why aren’t there consequences for the people who invite bears by feeding them? Why couldn’t the bear have been moved to a remote area where she could live out her life away from humans? A representative from the Colorado Division of Wildlife told me, “I absolutely agree that it’s not the bear’s fault.” Nonetheless the bear had to be “tranquilized and put down,” which is simply a euphemism for ruthlessly killing. One of the inmates in the Roots & Shoots course that I teach at the Boulder County Jail wrote, “The mother searching for her dead cub was destroyed for doing the most natural thing in the world.” Others agreed that killing innocent wildlife sets a terrible example for children and others who must learn to coexist with our wild neighbors.

Soon after the Boulder incident, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) killed a male bear who had gotten his entire head stuck in a plastic jar. The poor animal couldn’t eat or drink and had become emaciated and dehydrated. To quote Rob Naplin, a local wildlife supervisor, “When it got into town, our main concern was public safety.” Again, a bear was killed ostensibly to protect humans. People were outraged and wrote to the DNR in Minnesota. Why didn’t they tranquilize the bear, remove the jar, treat him, and relocate him, rather than kill him? What’s especially disturbing was that people were able to get close enough to take pictures of this bear with his head stuck in the jar and that there was time enough to choose how to handle the situation. After I inquired as to why the bear had to be killed, a representative from the Minnesota Division of Natural Resources wrote to me:

“Euthanizing the animal was not the DNR’s first choice. It became the only choice when the bear’s physical condition deteriorated and its presence in Frazee posed a public safety risk.” They also said that a suitable veterinarian couldn’t be found, one who had experience tranquilizing a large mammal. In other words, human trash threatened the bear’s life, and it was too inconvenient for us to do anything other than finish the job. How hard did the DNR consider tranquilizing the animal? After the bear was killed I received an email from a local veterinarian who could have done it.

Of course, wild animals sometimes become truly aggressive and pose mortal danger to humans. In extremely rare cases, killing the animal might be necessary, and if so, it must be done humanely. Yet the default reaction, as these incidents make clear, is that wild animals are always dangerous and the only or preferred option is killing them. This is lazy thinking. Further, humans almost never acknowledge or accept their responsibility for creating these situations, and they sugarcoat their actions in high-sounding language. For instance, euthanasia literally means a “good death” or painless mercy killing. But in these incidents, neither bear had to be killed; mercy required just the opposite. Simply put, the bears were killed because it was the easy thing to do; guns were handy, tranquilizers were not. There was no evidence the bears posed a danger; this was just assumed. What a regrettable model for coexistence.

The stories of these unfortunate bears raise numerous issues about the ways in which humans
choose
to interact with other animals: What are our responsibilities? What value do we place on life? Who do we think animals are? Whose land is it? To what degree should we amend our lives, or change our habits, to make room for other species? Is it okay to trump
their interests in living a good life with our interests in living a good life? I say “choose” because we do indeed make choices about how we treat our fellow animals, and we are responsible for the decisions we make.

“Wild” is itself a loaded term, implying out of control. Yet, animal species are only “wild” in relation to humans. It would be more accurate to say certain species are beyond human control; they have norms of behavior that have nothing to do with us. As close as we might feel to them, as much as we might be able to communicate with and understand them, many species will never be able to be integrated into human society the way domesticated cats, dogs, chickens, and pigs are. A very good example of how difficult our relationships with animals can be centers on the keeping of exotic animals as our household companions or pets. In February 2009 a chimpanzee named Travis, who had lived in a human home for years, attacked and maimed a close friend of his female human companion. As a result, Travis’s longtime friend had to stab him to stop the attack, and ultimately a policeman killed Travis.

Numerous people were saddened by this tragedy and outraged that Travis had been kept as if he were a dog or a cat. This terrible situation could easily have been avoided if Travis had been living at a sanctuary, rather than in a private home being treated as if he were a human. Travis had been allowed to drink wine and brush his teeth with his human companion. Needless to say, chimpanzees don’t typically drink wine or brush their teeth with a Water Pik. In an Associated Press story, Travis was called a “domesticated chimpanzee,” which
is a complete misrepresentation of who he was. Domestication is an evolutionary process that results in animals such as our companion dogs and cats undergoing substantial behavioral, anatomical, physiological, and genetic changes. Travis was an imperfectly
socialized
chimpanzee — an exotic pet —who usually got along with humans, but he was not a domesticated being. He still had his wild genes, just as do wolves, tigers, and bears — all species that sometimes live with humans in situations that can lead to tragedies whenever humans forget these remain wild animals.

Many people were surprised by what seemed to be an unprovoked attack. But to say there was no known provocation for the attack is to ignore the basic fact that Travis was still genetically a wild chimpanzee. Wild animals do not belong in human homes, since what may provoke an attack can be almost impossible for humans to predict — yet if we could ask another chimpanzee, he or she would no doubt tell us easily why Travis did what he did. Just consider the other attacks by famous animals on their longtime handlers, who otherwise knew their companions well. Wild animals should be allowed to live at sanctuaries that are dedicated to respecting their lives while minimizing human contact. I hope that this tragic situation serves to stimulate people to send the wild friends who share their homes to places that are safe for all. In response, an editorial in the local Connecticut paper
The Advocate
called for a ban on the keeping of wild animals as pets. Then, on February 24, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives moved to ban the transport of monkeys and apes across state lines for the purpose of selling them as pets.