Carl Safina begins and ends his fascinating book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel with this claim:
“….all life is one.”
Safina does not dwell on these statements. He lays them out there as if referring to
some ineffable truth; one that can only be comprehended by first shedding any
illusions we have of human uniqueness in order to be able to recognize the
wondrous variation in intelligent life on earth. Before proceeding with Safina’s narrative, a
slight diversion is appropriate to pick up a comment by Stephen J. Gould on our
knowledge of evolutionary history.
Evidence of multi-celled structures does not appear until
about 600 million years ago. Then
suddenly(?) about 500 million years ago the earth experienced what is referred
to as “The Cambrian Explosion,”
a brief period (in terms of millions of years) at the beginning of the Cambrian
era when many forms of life developed, most of which died out. This period of experimentation with
multi-cellular life forms ended with the survival of a few anatomical forms
that would form the basis for further evolution. Development of new species from these
fundamental forms would characterize further evolution rather than the
development of new anatomies. The fossil
records contained in the Burgess Shale provide some understanding of what took
place during this period. From The Evolution of Life on Earth Gould
provides this observation.
“Humans arose, rather, as a
fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of
which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative
pathway that would not have led to consciousness...only one member of our
chordate phylum, the genus Pikaia, has been found among these earliest
fossils. This small and simple swimming
creature , showing its allegiance to us by possessing a notochord, or dorsal
stiffening rod, is among the rarest fossils of the Burgess Shale, our best
preserved Cambrian fauna....Moreover, we do not know why most of the early
experiments died, while a few survived to become our modern phyla....no
recognized traits unite the victors and the radical alternative must be
entertained that each early experiment received little more than the equivalent
of a ticket in the largest lottery ever played out on our planet—and that each
surviving lineage, including our own phylum of vertebrates, inhabits the earth
today more by the luck of the draw than by any predictable struggle for
existence.”
What Gould is suggesting is that a single animal was the
ancestor of all the vertebrates that were to follow. Humans, as one of those vertebrates, share
the same molecular machines, the same cell structures, and the same
biochemistry as our vertebrate relatives.
Safina elaborates on that thought.
“If you imagine the very slow
changes over millions of years that turned some mammals into apes and others
into whales, we seem to have grown very distant indeed, almost estranged. But is that really a long time, or a big
difference? Take the skin off, and the
muscles are much the same, the skeletal construction nearly identical. The brain cells, under a microscope, are
impossible to distinguish. If you
imagine the process very much sped up, you see something real: dolphins and
humans, both having already shared a long history as animals, vertebrates, and
mammals—same bones and organs doing the same job, same placenta and that same
warm milk—are basically the same, in merely shape-shifted proportions. It’s a little like one person outfitted for
hiking and another for scuba diving.”
“Whales are nearly identical to
us in every way except their outer contours.
Even their hand bones are identical to ours, just shaped a little
differently and hidden in mittens. And
dolphins still use those hidden hands for handlike gestures of touch and
calming reassurance. (In any group of
spinner dolphins, at any given time one-third are usually caressing with
flippers or making bodily contact, a bit like primates grooming.)”
Even our human brains, of which we are so proud, are
quite similar in structure and function to that of other animals.
“If you look at side-by-side
drawings of human, elephant, and dolphin brains, the similarities overwhelm the
differences. We are essentially the
same, merely molded by long experience into different outer shapes for coping
with different outer surroundings, and wired inside for special talents and
abilities. But beneath the skin, kin.”
There was a time in history when humans were just one
more animal trying to survive and thrive in a dangerous environment. Once, humans had a greater appreciation for
the capabilities of other animals and found it useful to come to an
“understanding” with them. Here are a
few of the anecdotes Safina provides to make his point.
“In the unciphered span of time
that the San people (formerly called ‘Bushmen’) lived as hunters somewhere in
the coordinates of the vast space and deep antiquity of the Kalahari Desert,
they did not hunt lions. Their courtesy
was repaid. Lions and the San had
somehow forged a solid truce….No one had ever heard of a lion killing a human. Leopards, yes, sometimes at night. But lions, never.”
“The San never hunted lions, and
lions never hunted the San. Perhaps each
side knew that the other was potentially dangerous….They chose not to tamper
with one another, lived well without doing so, and passed the custom to their
children.”
And then there were the Siberian tigers.
“Modernity’s self imposed exile
from the world seems to have degraded an older human ability to recognize the
minds in other animals. Yet it can seem
that other animals recognize human minds.
In The Tiger, John Vaillant
describes how Amur (Siberian) tigers had a kind of ancient understanding with
local peoples. People long accustomed to
living with Amur tigers, such as Udeghe and Nanai hunters, knew enough to stay
out of a tiger’s way, but also left a cut of their hunted meat. It was ebb and flow; human hunters sometimes
scavenged from tiger kills. The balance
of powers and considerations in the deep northern taiga forests yielded a kind
of mutual courtesy, an understanding of mutual nonviolence.”
This understanding would be damaged when Russian
colonists arrived in the 1600s and began breaking the rules.
“Violations of that pact carried
consequences, suggesting that it had been a true two-way understanding. Commenting on what he calls ‘the Amur tiger’s
capacity for sustained vengeance,’ Valliant relates a story told by a modern
hunter about what happened after they scared a tiger off its kill and took some
of the meat. ‘The tiger destroyed our
traps, and he scared off the animals that came to our bait. If any animal got close, he would roar and
everyone would run away. We learned the
hard way. That tiger wouldn’t let us
hunt for an entire year….Very smart and very vengeful.’ It’s as if the tiger was not just a hunter
but the manager of its hunting territory.”
Let someone try to explain how that tiger was acting out
of “instinct” rather than making intelligent and emotional decisions.
Of course the accommodation between humans and wolves has
been the most significant for our civilization.
Some might think that dogs arose when humans raised captured wolf pups
and bred them for the desired characteristics.
However, those who have actually tried to domesticate a wolf pup are
dubious. Most believe that it is a case
of wolves deciding that humans provided an easy source of food and humans
deciding having wolves around was useful as a security perimeter. Only after that mutual conclusion was reached
could domestication of both species occur.
Perhaps the most astonishing example of humans forming a
collaboration with another species involves the killer whales of Eden, Australia. Some species of killer whale target mammals
as their food source. A pod may not be
able to subdue a mature whale but it often will attack young whales. At some point, the killer whales noticed the
humans harpooning and subduing the adult whales and concluded that they would
profit from collaborating with them. Wikipedia provides a description of what
ensued.
“The killer whales of Eden,
Australia were a group of killer whales (Orcinus orca) known for their
co-operation with human hunters of cetacean species. They were seen near the
port of Eden in southeastern Australia between 1840 and 1930. A pod of killer
whales, which included amongst its members a distinctive male called Old Tom,
would assist whalers in hunting baleen whales.
The killer whales would find target whales, shepherd them into Twofold
Bay, and then alert the whalers to their presence and often help to kill the
whales.”
“Old Tom's role was commonly to
alert the human whalers to the presence of a baleen whale in the bay by
breaching or tailslapping at the mouth of the Kiah River….This role endeared
him to the whalers and led to the idea that he was ‘leader of the pack,’
although such a role was more likely taken by a female (as is typical among
killer whales), probably the whale known as Stranger. After the harpooning,
some of the killer whales would even grab the ropes in their teeth and aid the
whalers in hauling. The skeleton of Old Tom is on display at the Eden Killer
Whale Museum, and significant wear marks still exist on his teeth from
repeatedly grabbing fast-moving ropes. In
return for their help, the whalers allowed the killer whales to eat the tongue
and lips of the whale before hauling it ashore, providing a rare example of mutualism
between humans and killer whales.”
As humans became
more powerful and more plentiful they lost contact with their animal relatives—and
lost their respect for them. We became
so proud of our cleverness that we began to assume that we were not like those
other animals. We are humans and we
think; they are merely animals so they can’t think. Safina rises up periodically throughout his
narrative to smite the pompous ones who harbor such thoughts.
“Once I was watching elephants
with another scientist in another African reserve. Several adult elephants were resting with
their young in the shade of a palm, fanning their ears in the heat. The scientist opined that the elephants we
were watching ‘might simply be moving to and away from heat gradients, without
experiencing anything at all.’ He
declared, ‘I have no way of knowing whether that elephant is any more conscious
than this bush’.”
“No way of knowing? For starters, a bush behaves quite
differently from an elephant. The bush
shows no sign of having a mental experience, of showing emotions, of making
decisions, of protecting its offspring.
On the other hand, humans and elephants have nearly identical nervous
and hormonal systems, senses, milk for our babies; we both show fear and
aggression appropriate to the moment.
Insisting that an elephant might be no more conscious than a bush isn’t
a better explanation for the elephant’s behavior than concluding that an
elephant is aware of what’s going on around it.
My colleague thought he was being an objective scientist. Quite the opposite; he was forcing himself to
ignore the evidence. That’s not
scientific—at all.”
Similarly, scientists have constructed methods by which they
can conclude that humans are supreme when it comes to intelligence.
“Because we’re human, we tend to
study non-humans’ human-like intelligence.
Are they intelligent like we are? No, and therefore—we win! Are we intelligent like they are? We don’t
care. We insist that they play our game;
we won’t play theirs.”
“What other animals must learn,
the problems they must solve, and how they must solve them differs
greatly. A human must make a spear; an
albatross must travel four thousand miles from her nest to find a meal and then
return across open ocean to an island half a mile wide and pick out her own
chick from among thousands. A dolphin or
sperm whale or bat might pity us for staring dumbly into the night while their
brains virtually ‘image’ a high definition sonic world at great speed, allowing
them to hunt, identify others, and catch fast moving food in darkness. We might seem to them as utterly bereft of
crucial abilities as they seem to us disabled by lack of language—although
actually they are extremely enabled, in some ways we cannot match.”
The study of animals in their natural environment is not
an old field. Research requires time and
patience. Much of what Safina presents
is provided by researchers who have spent decades studying animals as they
progressed through life: birth, infancy, adolescence, reproduction, family
life, social life, dealing with conflicts, dealing with natural disasters,
dealing with humans, and dealing with death.
He has focused mostly on elephants, wolves, chimpanzees, dolphins, whales,
and killer whales. Given what has been
learned of these creatures, he insists that these animals no longer merit being
referred to as “its.” We should think of
them as distinct individuals with distinct personalities and distinct
lives. They are not “its,” they are “whos.”
“’Who’ animals know who
they are; they know who their family and friends are. They make strategic alliances and cope with
chronic rivalries. They aspire to higher
rank and wait for their chance to challenge the existing order. Their status affects their offspring’s
prospects. Their life follows the arc of
a career. Personal relationships define
them. Sound familiar? Of course.
‘They’ includes us. But a vivid,
familiar life is not the domain of humans alone.”
Safina continually questions the tolerance these animals
show for humans. If we show too little respect for them, perhaps
they show too much respect for
us. One thing we animals all have in
common is a brain that is capable of more than just doing whatever is necessary
to survive. We have brains that create leisure
time and the need to do something interesting in those periods. Socializing is important. Physical contact among animals is
desirable. Think of the handshaking and
hugging that takes place when adult humans congregate. A desire to play, even for adults, seems
common. One could argue that these other
animals see humans as animals interesting to hang around with.
Dolphins and killer whales seem to tolerate captivity
surprisingly well—at least for a while.
Perhaps their new environment and activities provide them some stimulation,
if not entertainment. Safina tells the
story of some entrepreneurial dolphins.
There was a dolphin named Kelly at the Institute for Marine
Mammal Studies in Mississippi who noted that dolphins were rewarded with a fish
whenever they brought a piece of trash to the staff that had floated into their
pool. Kelly also noted that a small
piece of paper received the same reward as a large piece of paper.
“So under a weight at the bottom
of the pool she hid any paper that blew in.
When a trainer passed, she tore of a piece of paper to trade for a
fish. Then she tore off another piece,
got another fish. Into the economy of
litter, she’d rigged a kind of trash inflation rate that kept the food coming.”
“One day a gull flew into Kelly’s
pool, and she grabbed it and waited for the trainers. The humans seemed to really like birds; they
traded her several fish for it. This
gave Kelly a new insight and a plan.
During her next meal she took the last fish and hid it. When the humans left, she brought the fish up
and baited more gulls to get even more fish.
After all, why wait to scrounge an occasional piece of accidental paper
when you could become a wealthy commercial bird-fishing dolphin? She taught this to her youngster, who taught
other youngsters, and so the dolphins there became professional gull baiters.”
And then there is the playful whale calf and the tolerant
mother.
“Photographer Bryant Austin had
been photographing humpback whale mothers and babies for several weeks when a
five-week-old infant left his mother and swam up to him. Austin wrote, ‘The newborn maneuvered his
five-foot-wide fluke precisely by my mask less than a foot away.’ While transfixed, Austin suddenly felt a firm
tap on his shoulder. ‘As I turned to
look, I was suddenly eye to eye with the calf’s mother. She had extended the tip of her two-ton,
fifteen-foot-long pectoral fin and positioned it in such a way as to gently
touch my shoulder.’ Realizing that he
was now between the mother and her baby, he was frightened by the thought that
she could easily break his back.
Instead, Austin described her actions as ‘delicate restraint.’ Meanwhile the baby swam over to biologist
Libby Eyre. ‘Time slowed down as I observed
the calf roll underneath Libby and then gently lift her out of the water on his
belly. She was on her hands and knees
looking down at his throat.’ As Bryant’s
mind scrambled through a list of things that could go wrong, ‘the young whale
placed his pectoral fin on her back, then gently rolled her back in the water’.”
And finally, there are the fun-loving killer whales.
“Argentina is one of those
places where killer whales sometimes burst through the surf to drag sea lions
right off the beaches. You see a video
of this and you think it would be insanity to stroll near the shoreline. Yet when park ranger Roberto Bubas stepped
into the water and played his harmonica, the same individual killer whales would
form a ring around him like puppies.
They’d rally playfully around his kayak and come as, by names he gave
them, he called to them.”
One day Ken was watching several
killer whales who were focused on getting some salmon. All except J6, a teenage male. ‘He went from
boat to boat and burst his head out right alongside and just looked at everyone
just—showing off.’ When [killer] whales
pass certain land points where people line up, clapping and shouting, Ken
claims, ‘the whales get much more excited and acrobatic and really put on a
show.’ People will be running along the
shoreline and the whales will flap their tails and slap their fins and jump. Same if they are near whale-watching boats
with people cheering.’ Why? ‘Because,’ he says, ‘I think we’re as
entertaining to them as they are to us’.”
Elizabeth Kolbert reviewed Safina’s book and produced a
comment that captures the sentiments of this reader. It appeared on the book cover.
“Carl Safina shows there is
indeed intelligent life in the universe, and it’s all around us. At once moving and surprising, Beyond Words asks us to reexamine our
relationship to other species—and to ourselves.”
The interested reader might appreciate these additional
articles based on Safina’s book:
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