(yes, you read that right) trees experience on their own and for others, and sometimes even for others of a different plant species (something we call altruism). Trees take care of other trees that are weak or sick, they cry out when they are thirsty, and they possess other astonishing, long-overlooked abilities. The Hidden Life of Trees was an update to the vastly popular but scientifically dubious book by the American World War II spy Peter Tompkins, published in 1973: The Secret Life of Plants. With Wohlleben, we were on the right track.
And now comes the same treatment given to the inner life of animals. The only difference is that this subject has, especially in the last ten years or so, taken off as a field of serious research and popular books, especially by Jonathan Balcombe, the oceanologist Carl Safina and many others. The trend was started, I believe, way back in 1982 by the great Harvard biologist Donald Griffin, who wrote the book The Question of Animal Awareness. These books have proved immensely popular precisely because the general population knows that what is being described is true from their own experiences. Who, living with a dog, or cat, or parrot, could ever doubt that these animals feel as much as we do? Or even more than we do, I would now venture after reading what Wohlleben has to say.
I believe, too, that this movement has led to a transformation in the dietary practices of many millions of people around the world. If we can safely eat alternative food, why cause unnecessary suffering, is the thinking, a sentiment with which I happen to agree completely. I am not entirely certain where Wohlleben comes out in this increasingly urgent debate, but he makes absolutely no secret of his profound loathing of sport hunting by providing a sense of what the animals actually feel. His writing is a tour de force.
Wohlleben’s love of animals is apparent on every page of this absorbing book, and he has a special gift for allowing the rest of us to feel his enthusiasm and share in his knowledge and personal observations in a very simple way, all the while giving us good ammunition to demonstrate to skeptics how obvious his thesis is, when you stop and think about it. How far does he take it? Well, considering this is the man who has convinced the world that trees love their saplings, one has to be prepared for pushing the boundaries. Wohlleben does not disappoint. Ticks? You want to deny them any feelings? Well, then, be prepared for a counterargument from our author. I won’t give it away, but everything he writes makes sense. That is one of his great strengths and what made his first book so adored: he says something completely out of left field, and within a few paragraphs he convinces you he is right and traditional science has been wrong for years.
Wohlleben convinced me over and over. Want to know the difference between the way hedgehogs and squirrels dream? Wohlleben will tell you. You will learn a lot about bees, because the author keeps them and he insists that “they plan for the future, reflect on things they have not yet seen, and are aware of their bodies in relation to these things” and so “they are self-aware.” By the way, did you know that bees must visit 125,000 flowers to get enough nectar to produce a single ounce of honey? Gems like this are scattered throughout the book. Butterflies, too, come in for some interesting observations. (One of the great strengths of the book is how widely the author casts his net. Tardigrades, also known as water bears, anyone?) It is hard to say what animal he is most fond of, but I was particularly impressed with his many accounts of pigs and their sensitive nature. And, of course, their intelligence. When a law protected them from hunting in the canton of Geneva but not in neighboring France, as soon as the first shots of the season were fired, the wild boar swam across the Rhône to the safety of Switzerland. (I can’t help wondering what kind of world we would live in if we never hunted.) Even when the territory is familiar, it is good to be reminded, for instance, that ravens and wolves form what appear to be friendships.
Now I know that a number of scientists will be up in arms about the way Wohlleben “proves” a thesis. Take this as an example: “A particularly moving example that animals, too, are capable of empathy across species lines comes from the Budapest Zoo. Aleksander Medveš was visiting the zoo and filming the brown bear in its enclosure when suddenly, a crow fell into the moat. The bird began to weaken as it thrashed about and was in danger of drowning, when the bear intervened. It carefully took one of the bird’s feathers in its mouth and pulled the bird back to land. The bird lay there as though petrified, before it pulled itself together. The bear took no more notice of this fresh morsel of meat, which was definitely a potential prey item. Instead, it turned its attention once more to its meal of vegetables.” I find this believable and I would love to have seen it, so I am grateful Wohlleben has made that possible. But I do see that a scientist will scream “anecdotal evidence.” Wohlleben obviously doesn’t care. Should we? Upon reflection, I think not. He is writing not as a scientist but as an observant animal lover who has put a great deal of thought into this charming, accessible book with its generous embrace of topics on which he sheds both light and warmth. Reading the book is pure delight.
JEFFREY MOUSSAIEFF MASSON
INTRODUCTION
ROOSTERS THAT DECEIVE their hens? Mother deer that grieve? Horses that feel shame? Up until just a few years ago, such ideas would have sounded absurd, mere wishful thinking on the part of animal lovers who wanted to feel closer to their charges. I’ve been around animals all my life and I was one of those dreamers. Whether it was the chick in my parents’ garden that picked me out as its mom, the goat at our forest lodge that brightened our days with her contented bleating, or the animals I met on my daily rounds of the woodland I manage, I often wondered what was going on inside their heads. Is it really true, as scientists have long maintained, that people are the only animals capable of enjoying a full range of emotions? Has creation really engineered a unique biological path for us? Are we the only ones guaranteed a life of self-awareness and satisfaction?
If that were the case, this book would be over right now. If human beings were the result of some special biological design, we wouldn’t be able to compare ourselves to other animals. It would make no sense to talk about empathy with them, because we would not be able to even begin to imagine how they felt. Luckily, Nature opted for the economy plan. Evolution “only” modifies and builds on whatever is already available, much like a computer system. And so, just as code from earlier operating systems is integrated into the latest Windows, the genetic programming of our ancient ancestors still works in us—and in all the other species whose family trees branched off from our lineage in the past few million years. And so, as I see it, there is only one kind of grief, pain, or love. It might sound presumptuous to say that a pig feels things just as we do, but there is a vanishingly small chance that an injury hurts a pig less than it hurts us. “Aha,” the scientists might interject at this point, “but we have no proof.” That’s true, but there never will be any proof. I can’t even prove that you feel the same way as I do. No one can look inside another person and prove that, say, a prick of a pin triggers the same sensation in each one of the seven billion people on this planet. But we are able to express our feelings in words, and this ability to share increases the probability that people operate on roughly the same level when it comes to feelings.
So when our dog Maxi polished off a bowl of dumplings in the kitchen and then looked up at us with an innocent expression on her face, she was not behaving like a biological eating machine; she was behaving like the shrewd and endearing little rascal she was. The more often and the more closely I paid attention, the more I noticed our pets and their wild woodland relatives displaying what are supposed to be exclusively human emotions. And I am not alone in this. More and more researchers are realizing that humans and many animals share things in common. True love among ravens? No question. Squirrels who know the names of their close relatives? That’s been documented for a long time. Wherever you look, animals are out there, loving each other, feeling each other’s pain, and enjoying each other’s company.
Currently, there’s a great deal of scientific research on the inner lives of animals, although it’s usually so narrowly focused and written in such dry, academic language that it hardly makes for gripping reading and, more importantly, rarely leads to a better understanding of the subject. And that is
