the secret Life of some creatures

[zak]

in the cartoon TV series "shaun the sheep" (available in youtube), the sheeps behave as sheeps eating grass as soon as the owner looking at them, but once the owner return to his home they begin to show more inteligence; the dog reading relativity theory for dummies and a sheep repairing a transistor radio while looking at the catalogue.
this is a cartoon demo but in reality i saw once an old dog walking on the side of the street then he encoutered a broken tree branch , instead of jumping over it he catch it with his teeth and set it aside then continue walking. this behaviour can't be if the dog with another dogs. i waited two days to throw a fish for him, but i saw him twice from afar.
a second instance i saw a dog want to go from a lower ground to cross the street, he moves a little every 30 seconds trying to recognize the satus of the street, certainly he feels the death hidden in the street, and when he reach very slowly the street pavement he raised the degree of attention and stand in a very bizzare way and when there is no cars on both sides he jump quicky accross the road. again he will not show this behaviour if he with other dogs. when he with other dogs he is a dog and when he is alone he is "dog X the philosopher".
another story, i saw a donkey walking and clicking his teeth in a strange way , something like this animated gif

http://www.gifs-paradise.com/animated_gifs/teeth/animated-gifs-teeth-017.gifabout 100 meters away there is another donkey. sure a female, so i guess he is saying "comooooon donkia i want to eat youuuuuu".

in a documentary video there is a circle of elephants around another small elephant who died recently, one of the elephants touches the baby gently and then they departed away. this is a kind of a funeral ceremony.
i read in an old magazine that a russian scientist was inspecting insects in a jungle when he saw a circle of ants around another ant, when he checks by a magnifying glass he saw a tiny thorn in the body of the ant and the other ants are trying to remove this thorn , so this is a kind of a surgery.
this is why i don't like calling those creatures "animals" because the word animal have a negative side effect in our brain.
the other creatures have its own intelligence not neccessary if they agree that 3+2=5, the donkey may say why not let it as it is 3+2=3+2, who know what is the truth.

[danbaron]

To me, the species, Homo Sapiens, is, as a group, ethically, emotionally, and morally primitive - underdeveloped, not far from Neanderthals.

Humans keep some species of "animals" as pets, and treat them as family members. Other species from the same class (mammal), they treat as objects, livestock without feelings to be raised in concentration camps for slaughter, and then to eat - or as helpless prey, to kill for sadistic pleasure. (Notice how the types of animals that humans choose to raise to eat, are almost always herbivores, the gentlest of all.)

In my opinion, anyone who can reason, and who intentionally kills anything with a brain, even an ant, is a sadist.

Additionally, those who are the worst offenders, would be the ones who screamed the loudest in outrage and self-pity, if a higher species came to this planet, and treated them exactly as they treat other species whom they have power over.

Unfortunately, many people derive pleasure from causing misery and death for others - then they feel important, powerful, masters of the universe. (However, viewed from outside, others can see that theirs is a pretend world, a fantasy.) As long as there are no negative consequences for such behavior, they are happy and self-satisfied as can be - and for them, that is all that matters. (Little kids feel similarly, almost absolutely narcissistic, omnipotent. Apparently, some don't advance beyond that stage.)

I think that in the future, we (as a group) will be viewed as moral slugs.

Lizard walking on "my" wall
If I chose it you may fall
What right have I to cease your crawl?
My self-given right, that is all..

[zak]

every year the japanese fishermen commit a massacre against the dolphines, thousands of dolphins killed in a very cruel way, look at the documentary movie the cove in youtube, a trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo
also in koria they eat the dogs meat.
another crime is to strip the fins of the sharks while they alive then throw them alive in the sea. i saw many videos in youtube about this. and the shark may stay still alive in the deep sea and can't move saveral days before eaten alive by smaller fishes piece by piece, just imagine that. why the fins, they say it is good for a tasty soup.
i hope dan you will not sleep a bad sleep after those horrible stories.

[danbaron]

Think about the most defective humans. For those who enjoy torturing and killing others, the only way to discourage them would be to somehow implement a system in which they simultaneously experienced what they were inflicting. I bet in that case, they would instantaneously become much less enthusiastic in their endeavors.

Only "little" "men" enjoy hurting the helpless, correct?

"Me hungry. Me eat now. Me like hurt little things. Me like kill. Me feel good. Me big. Me strong. Me happy. Now me tired. Me sleep." :shock29:

[kryton9]

I heard these 2 stories on Coast to Coast A.M. the other night.

First a sad one:

The show's guest has a ranch and always had an interest in Horses, especially race horses as he trained them. Each year they would also buy baby cows, I am not sure if there was anything wrong with them, I sort of missed a few seconds at that point of the story.

Anyways they would fatten them up and send them to the slaughterhouse in a year or so.

Well one year they got their baby cows, but the manager for the cows was away and so the owner (the guest speaker on the show) took care of them. He knew better but he bonded with this little black and white cow. He even gave it a name and this cow would follow him around like a loyal pet.

When the time came for slaughter, the little black and white cow would not go into the truck, so the manager called the owner and the owner sadly got the cow to go onto the truck.

At the slaughter house, the black and white cow was crying out so loud, just like he did when he got in trouble and wanted the owner to come save him. The owner said the cow had this look in his eyes right before they killed him, " What did I do wrong?".

Now the second story:
A friend of his lost her pet and was very sad. So she went to a person who can talk with dead animals for comfort. The person gave normal type of readings, the pet is fine, misses the owner and stuff that made her feel good. But the grieving pet owner then asked the mystic to tell her something that she would know it was her pet and not just generic feel good things.

The mystic after a few seconds of communication with the dead pet came back and said. "Remember when I was just a little animal you would knit on your rocking chair and you had with you a Stuffed Bear doll. I used to be so jealous of that stuffed bear that it was close to you and I wasn't that one day when you weren't looking I took that stuffed bear out into the yard and buried by the rose bush that you didn't care for.
Sure enough the lady went home and dug up by that rose bush and found her old stuffed bear doll.

So there is a lot we don't understand. The more you look into the strange things that go on, I think the universe is so elaborate that we will never fully understand it.

[danbaron]

I heard both stories a couple of nights ago. I liked the second one. Before the guy finished the first one, that was enough for me, and off the radio went.

(I admit it, I'm very emotional about that kind of story.)

(I think people like to believe (to comfort themselves by repeating again and again) that the "animals" they kill can't think, don't have feelings, don't feel pain, are like organic robots, etc. I don't know any of the science associated with the subject, but, from my personal experience, I think that line of reasoning is self-serving bullcrap. For instance, my observation is that if you try to harm even an insect, it will frantically attempt to escape. Why does it do that? There is only one reason I can think of, --> fear. I think insects experience fear. I think fear is the first emotion to emerge in lifeforms. And, it doesn't require Einstein to figure that out.)

[kryton9]

You can see that it has been bothering him ever since. He mentioned how hard it was for him to retell the story. At least he noticed it and now is really studying and writing about interesting research in behavior.