Lobster Tales

The Convenient Lies We Choose To Believe

Up until a few decades ago, it was widely accepted that a certain type of mammal was incapable of feeling pain. Their nerve cells were not yet fully developed, people believed, which made it possible to perform operations like open heart surgery without the potential complications of anaesthesia. To suppress the so-called reflex motions these individuals would exhibit–limb thrashing, crying, and the like–medical practitioners would administer strong doses of muscle relaxants to paralyze them. Then, with the patient unable to move but fully conscious, they would begin to operate.

A City’s No Home For a Bear

The Cutest Little Cub We Really Shouldn’t See

Lately, from beneath the perpetually raised hood of my winter parka, my eyes have been drawn to billboards featuring a photo that could tug even the coldest of lips into a smile. It is the image of a snowy-nosed polar bear cub, a little compact of white fur and black eyes and unsteady body hovering over disproportionately large paws. Humphrey, as he has now been named, is the latest addition to the Toronto Zoo, the sole surviving offspring of two captive adults also held there.

Legal Rights for Chimpanzees

The Non-Human Rights Project is Poised To Set a Precedent

A little while ago I posted a blog about the growing movement to establish legal rights for whales, and there I mentioned how the definition of personhood may well change in my lifetime to include other, non-human animals. The implications of such a paradigm shift are pretty exciting. In my blog I wrote about the Helsinki Group and Dr. Lori Marino, who also serves as the Science Director at the US-based Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP). Last week the NhRP stepped into the media spotlight by filing lawsuits on behalf of four captive chimpanzees who, the NhRP argues, should be declared non-human persons in the name of the law.

Requiem for a Chicken

so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens. – William Carlos Williams

They’re not often thought of in the singular, as individuals. There’s the joke about the one that keeps crossing the road, of course, but its ubiquitous presence in corny humour somehow never led us to ponder why a chicken in real life might undertake a similar journey. Perhaps it would be to protect her chicks. With the exception of those who grew up on farms or with backyard chickens, most people do not lend much thought to chicken psychology. The word chicken itself is most commonly used as a non-count noun to indicate a food group, as in, ‘We’re eating chicken tonight because it was on sale.’ But we shouldn’t let language keep these little feathered beings from counting.

Of Persons and Whales

It’s Time To Rethink our Definition of Personhood

It was only recently that I discovered the existence of World Animal Day, an annual commemorative event that takes place today, 4 October. Established in 1931 at an ecologists’ convention in Florence, Italy, World Animal Day was meant to draw attention to the world’s endangered species, its date coinciding with the Feast of St. Francis Assisi, patron saint of animals. To this day many religious leaders mark the event with the ritual blessing of animals, though many secular supporters commemorate the occasion as well. Incidentally, World Animal Day comes just two days after World Day for Farm Animals, which is far more explicit in its pro-animal welfare stance and which marked its (solemn) thirtieth anniversary this year.

I stumbled upon news of World Animal Day in between reading articles about spindle cells and whale empathy,

The Language of Prairie Dogs

Notes from Underground

Their trademark move is ‘the surprised cheerleader,’ known in more scientific terminology as the ‘jump-yip.’ It is a leap that springs from the hind legs and extends to a pair of arms thrown up in the air, while from the throat emerges a high-pitched cry. On more exciting occasions, the entire body may topple over backwards.

On Bears, and Our Encounters with Bears

Why We Should Expect the Unexpected

As summer grows tired and our days opt for earlier bedtimes, a hint of the impending freeze floats through the still-warm air. Although seasonal supplies remain plentiful, we cannot help but feel a sense of necessity as we reach for those fresh baskets of peaches, blueberries, and late summer corn. Any day now they could run out, we know; there is no way of getting around the seasons. We’re a bit like bears in that way, desperate to get our fill of summer produce before supplies run scarce until spring, so it’s of little surprise when we hear of increased bear sightings in the fall. What is more surprising is when human-bear encounters occur in the summer. Such has been the case this year in Canada and the United States, with consequences ranging from upsetting to tragic.

Animals in Literature

Poetry and the Language of Animals

This is a post about literature, and what literature can teach us about other animals. Ironically enough, poems and stories to do with animals are at their best when they leave certain things unsaid. In the past century, literary animal figures have become more prominent in revealing—and at times informing—our understanding of non-human beings. This is in part due to the paradox of our modern relationship with other animals; despite our increased understanding of them in biological terms, our physical proximity to animals has greatly diminished as technology and mass agriculture distance us from the process that renders them objects of consumption.

Five Ways of Looking at a Pigeon

Don’t Shoot the Messenger

They have been regarded as symbols of peace, heroes of war, and carriers of pestilence. Their warble is a throaty coo, their wobble distinct as they jut their heads to propel their bodies forward. As with most birds, pigeons look somewhat awkward on the ground. Distances take forever to cover, and bread crumbs are too irresistible not to be pecked in that rapid, spastic motion. But this is not how they should be judged.

An Elephant Reunion and Other Pachyderm Concerns

Lest We Forget

I’ve got elephants on the mind these days. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like the elephant in the room (or in this case, the cage, the big tent, the destroyed habitat) is finally commanding some of the attention she deserves. As my fellow Torontonians and others well know, there is growing pressure on zoos to discontinue their elephant exhibits. Ordinary citizens, like these residents of Middletown, Connecticut, are beginning to mount organized opposition towards the use of elephants in circuses. Earlier this month U.S. President Obama pledged more federal money to help combat wildlife trafficking in Africa and Asia—an initiative largely aimed at protecting endangered elephant populations—and just yesterday the First Lady of Kenya, Margaret Kenyatta, launched the elephant conservation campaign “Hands Off Our Elephants.”