Frans de Waal Embraces Animal Emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Frans de Waal Embraces Animal Emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/books/review/frans-de-waal-mamas-last-hug.html
5 comments
> managed strikingly complex communication with creatures as small as a sparrow
You got me curious - care to share more about it?
You got me curious - care to share more about it?
Background: We had rescued a baby sparrow with an injured leg. There was no way to return it to its nest (it was at the nestling stage), and we'd already seen dozens die and not a single one get rescued by the parents after falling throughout the years (zerg rush of very big ants; cats; other insects) so we made the call to try and rehabilitate this one (there were no wildlife rehabilitators where we lived at the time).
She thrived and reached a point where she could be released, which we tried to do. She took it as us teaching her how to fly, and kept circling back and then looking at us like "hey guys, what do we do next?" After a bit of flying lessons she'd go back into her cage and sit in the back corner, away from the door, and after a while we'd have to bring the cage back into the house. After trying this a few times over a few weeks it became clear she had no intention of leaving, and she was starting to show social behavior towards us. She loved our routine. I would sit close to her cage whenever we ate, and she'd come up and eat at the same time. If we were late, she'd perch on the food thing and try and make eye contact with us (not eating until we did).
One time she produced a sort of "emergency" chirp. I had never heard it before yet it worked and made me realize she was calling for help. I went over to check on her, and she was sitting in the back corner of her cage, looking concerned. The large cage door had been stuck in the open position back when one of us was changing her food. I closed it and she was relieved.
One day I sat in a different place from usual and she was unhappy about it. She kept trying to get as high up in her cage as possible in order to get a look at me and make eye contact. She didn't eat very much and was looking a bit concerned. She was relieved again when I got up and talked to her. Later on we made sure not to change the seating arrangements.
Her ability to interact with us was on the same level as one of the more intelligent dog breeds. She would sometimes play games with us. Sparrows can be cheeky. Her bed time was a sort of game. We'd say the magic words and she'd understand, so she'd go into a corner of her cage and when we'd cover it with a piece of cloth, that'd be the darkest part. The bottom of her cage was transparent so she'd look at us through the plastic and swipe at it with her beak, like the normal beak-cleaning routine birds did. But she'd do it repeatedly (10+ times) whenever she was happy, and she loved when we got close to the cage and made eye contact through the plastic as she snuggled for bed.
Another time she made a unique kind of sound, designed to attract our attention. I went to see what that was about, and she made eye contact with me. She picked up a small piece of hardened bread (we fed her bread and it would get hard after a while) and dunked it in the water, and gobbled it down while looking at me. She was proud of her discovery that you could make hard bread edible again, and wanted to show it off.
She lived with us for about 20 years and sadly died of old age in August of 2016.
She thrived and reached a point where she could be released, which we tried to do. She took it as us teaching her how to fly, and kept circling back and then looking at us like "hey guys, what do we do next?" After a bit of flying lessons she'd go back into her cage and sit in the back corner, away from the door, and after a while we'd have to bring the cage back into the house. After trying this a few times over a few weeks it became clear she had no intention of leaving, and she was starting to show social behavior towards us. She loved our routine. I would sit close to her cage whenever we ate, and she'd come up and eat at the same time. If we were late, she'd perch on the food thing and try and make eye contact with us (not eating until we did).
One time she produced a sort of "emergency" chirp. I had never heard it before yet it worked and made me realize she was calling for help. I went over to check on her, and she was sitting in the back corner of her cage, looking concerned. The large cage door had been stuck in the open position back when one of us was changing her food. I closed it and she was relieved.
One day I sat in a different place from usual and she was unhappy about it. She kept trying to get as high up in her cage as possible in order to get a look at me and make eye contact. She didn't eat very much and was looking a bit concerned. She was relieved again when I got up and talked to her. Later on we made sure not to change the seating arrangements.
Her ability to interact with us was on the same level as one of the more intelligent dog breeds. She would sometimes play games with us. Sparrows can be cheeky. Her bed time was a sort of game. We'd say the magic words and she'd understand, so she'd go into a corner of her cage and when we'd cover it with a piece of cloth, that'd be the darkest part. The bottom of her cage was transparent so she'd look at us through the plastic and swipe at it with her beak, like the normal beak-cleaning routine birds did. But she'd do it repeatedly (10+ times) whenever she was happy, and she loved when we got close to the cage and made eye contact through the plastic as she snuggled for bed.
Another time she made a unique kind of sound, designed to attract our attention. I went to see what that was about, and she made eye contact with me. She picked up a small piece of hardened bread (we fed her bread and it would get hard after a while) and dunked it in the water, and gobbled it down while looking at me. She was proud of her discovery that you could make hard bread edible again, and wanted to show it off.
She lived with us for about 20 years and sadly died of old age in August of 2016.
Emotions are physical. They register in the pits of our stomachs, in our hair that stands on end, in our racing hearts, in sudden flushes of heat. Most animals, and certainly most mammals, have nervous systems very similar to ours, up to and including the mid-brain structures where emotions "report" to our cognitive structures, which are the only part of us that's really different from all those others. We can articulate our feelings and make more intricate plans to change or prolong them. But there's no reason to think our racing hearts FEEL any different from theirs.
I've read several of his books. My favorite is Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are. Very much worth your time.
From my experience, I am certain that animals' feelings are intuitively compatible with those of humans, and concur with the suggestion that "anthropodenial" is more of a fallacy than anthropomorphism is typically thought to be.
I've raised many creatures and interacted with them throughout their lives, as have many people. I am confident most people who have experienced this would agree that interspecies communication can happen intuitively (I didn't receive any particular training yet managed strikingly complex communication with creatures as small as a sparrow). I wonder if this is an instinct, and whether it corresponds to some evolutionary advantage that would kick in after basic needs (read: self-defense, hunting) are met.