The Wisdom of Animals

August 30, 2024 by Doctor Vernon Coleman

Below is the Foreword from the book `The Wisdom of Animals’

It's surprisingly difficult to obtain real facts about animals. Much of what we read, and think we know, owes more to imagination than to science. Rumour, gossip and folklore have, over the years, taken the place of solid research. Surprisingly little accurate research has ever been done into the way animals live and behave.

In the case of wild animals this is not, perhaps, too surprising. Studying wild animals properly means following them for years in their natural habitat – a difficult if not impossible task which requires superhuman dedication and would, in the end, probably produce research of questionable value because the very presence of the human observer might well alter the behaviour of the animals. Studying `wild' animals in the entirely unnatural conditions of the laboratory, zoo or safari park is as likely to provide useful information about the way animals behave naturally as studying prisoners would about human behaviour. One thing we do know for certain is that wild animals kept in captivity behave very differently to wild animals living in their natural habitat.

It should, of course, be much easier to observe farm animals. Cows, pigs, sheep and other animals are easy enough to watch. And since the observer need not alter the animals' routine the observations should be of value. But very few proper studies have been carried out on farm animals, and vets and farmers are invariably quite mistaken in their beliefs about animals such as sheep and cows. Instead of watching these animals in their natural surroundings, men and women in white coats cage them, stick electrodes into their heads, sit them in metal boxes for weeks at a time to make them depressed, separate them from their families, sew up their eyes and inject chemicals into their brains while they are awake. The knowledge obtained in such a barbaric way is never of any value but is simply added to our ever-growing library of pointless `discoveries' and `observations'. In a generation or so our descendants will look back at the meat traders, the animal transporters, the hunters and the vivisectors and wonder not just at the sort of people they were, but at the sort of people we were to let them do what they did.

The truth, sadly, is that little or nothing of value has been written or broadcast about pigs, cows, sheep and other farm animals because the meat industry doesn't want us to know that the animals which are reared and killed for us to eat are sensitive, thoughtful and intelligent.

Farmers and butchers have a financial interest in perpetuating and strengthening the myth that animals (particularly farm animals) are stupid. After all, one of the reasons why we don't like to eat horses, dogs or cats is because we recognise that they have intellect and personality. If people knew the truth about the capabilities of pigs, sheep and cows the market for meat would collapse. It is inconvenient to know that sheep are sensitive and intelligent creatures. And so tame academics (a large and malleable group) happily endorse the `farm animals are stupid and so don't matter' myth.

Surprisingly, even many vets are largely ignorant about farm animals. We have, for example, met vets who believed that sheep are colour blind (not true) and that they have only short-term memories of 20 minutes or so (also not true). Most don't realise that sheep hate getting wet. And many mistake their nervousness for stupidity.

Animals possess a wider range of skills than most of us imagine. The one thing humans have that animals don't have is the conceit, the arrogance, to assume we are wiser than all other animals and are, consequently, entitled to do as we will with other members of the animal kingdom.

All animals are special and all are worthy of our awe and respect but, sadly, that respect is the one thing our relationship with animals usually lacks.

Animal abusers will sometimes argue that since human beings can speak foreign languages and do algebraic equations they are inevitably `better' than animals. What nonsense this is. If we follow this argument to its logical conclusion then we must assume that humans who cannot speak foreign languages or do algebraic equations are in some way second-class and are not entitled to be treated with respect.

Who decides which are the skills deserving of respect?

If we decide that the ability to fly, run at 30 mph, see in the dark or swim under water for long distances are skills worthy of respect there won't be many human beings reaching the qualifying standard.

Cats can find their way home – without map or compass – when abandoned hundreds of miles away in strange territory. How many human beings could do the same?

How many humans could spin a web?

Even seemingly simple animals can think.

Turtles have been observed learning a route from one place to another. To begin with they make lots of mistakes, go down cul de sacs and miss short cuts. But after a while they can reduce their journey time dramatically.

Birds, which might normally be alarmed by the slightest noise, learn to ignore the noise of trains and cars when they build their nests near to railway lines or busy roads.

And oysters are capable of learning too. Oysters which live in the deep sea know that they can open and shut their shells at any time without risk. But oysters which live in a tidal area learn to keep their shells closed when the tide is out – so that they don't dry out and die. This might not quite rank alongside writing a classic novel but how many human beings can write classic novels?

Animals use reason and experience to help them survive and they exhibit all of the skills which the animal abusers like to think of as being exclusively human. For example, animals accumulate information which helps them to survive and live more comfortably. Moreover, they do it just as man does – by discriminating between useful and useless information and by memorising information which is of value. A puppy who has been burnt on a hot stove will keep away from it just as surely as will a child who has suffered a similarly unpleasant experience. Older fish learn to be wary of lures - and become far more difficult to catch than young ones. Rats learn how to avoid traps, and birds learn where telephone wires are strung so that they don't fly into them. Arctic seals used to live on inner ice floes to avoid the polar bears but after man arrived, and proved to be a worse enemy, they started living on the outer ice floes. Many animals know that they can be followed by their scent and act accordingly. A hunted deer or hare will run round in circles, double back on its own tracks, go through water and leap into the air in order to lose its pursuers. Flocks of parrots will send an advance scouting party ahead to check out that all is well.

We owe it to animals to treat them with respect and, at the very least, to leave them alone to live their lives on this earth free from our harm.

Charles Darwin, the author of On The Origin of Species, wrote that: ‘there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties'. He also argued that: `the senses and intuition, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or sometimes even well-developed condition in the `lower' animals.'

The miracles are unending. The honeycomb and the bird's nest are wonders of architecture. Even the seemingly lowly ant has a complex and sophisticated lifestyle. Ants can communicate with one another and recognise their friends. They clean one another, they play, they bury their dead, they store grain, they even clear land, manure it, sow grain and harvest the crop which they have grown. They even build roads and tunnels.

We may not like it but many non-human species have a much greater influence on their environment than we have. There are still tribes of men who live almost naked in very crude huts and whose social structures are relatively primitive when compared to, say, the beavers who cut down trees, transport them long distances, dam rivers, construct substantial homes and dig artificial waterways. Birds build astonishingly beautiful nests from the simplest of materials.

Animals are often curious, determined and hardworking; loving, loyal and faithful. They have many skills we cannot emulate. The eagle and the vulture have eyes as powerful as a telescope. Many animals, birds and insects can predict the coming of storms far more effectively than our allegedly scientific weather forecasters. Weight for weight, the tomtit has more brain capacity than a human being.

Animal behaviour which seems impressive is often dismissed as nothing more than instinctive. But that is patronising and nonsensical. There is now ample evidence available to show animals can invent and adapt tools according to circumstances. That can hardly be called `instinctive' behaviour.

It is truly absurd that when people behave badly they are described as behaving `like animals'. This is a calumny. Animals would never do the terrible things that people do. Animals kill to eat. But they don't kill for vengeance or for pride. They don't kill out of jealousy or spite. They kill for survival and they kill to defend their families. But they don't dress up and go hunting for fun. And they don't start wars. Compared to many human beings animals are civilised, humane, generous and kindly. There is no little irony in the fact that the worst behaving animals are domestic dogs and guard dogs which are trained to attack humans for no reason other than to please their owners.

We have created a hell on this earth for other creatures. Our abuse of animals is the final savagery; the final outrage of mankind in a long history of savagery and outrage. Instead of learning from other animals, instead of attempting to communicate with them, we abuse, torture and kill them. We diminish ourselves in a hundred different ways through our cruelty and our ignorance and our thoughtlessness. `Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn and his inhumanity to not-men makes the planet a ball of pain and terror,' wrote J. Howard Moore.

If man were truly the master of the universe he would use his wisdom and his power to increase the comfort and happiness of all other creatures. But, tragically, man has used his wisdom and his power to increase their misery. Animal abusers imprison millions of animals in cruel and heartbreaking conditions and ignore their cries of pain and distress on the grounds that animals are not `sentient creatures'. What self-delusional nonsense this is. Sheep and cattle are left out in huge fields in cold, wet weather. They shiver and search in vain for shelter because all the trees and hedgerows have been removed to make the farm more efficient. The animal abusing farmer cares not one jot for animals: he cares only for his profits.

`Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,' wrote Albert Schweizer, `man will not himself find peace.'

The merciful man is kind to all creatures.

In the pages which follow we have summarised the wisdom of the animals. But be warned: this book may change your life. We believe our book offers clear evidence that animals frequently display the sort of wisdom (and the types of emotion) which many tend wrongly to regard as uniquely human.

The above is taken from the book Wisdom of Animals by Donna Antoinette Coleman and Vernon Coleman. The book is available from the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com To purchase a copy please `click here’

Copyright Vernon Coleman and Donna Antoinette Coleman, 2012 and 2024