reporter for the German newspaper Die Welt interviewed scientists and asked whether the dolphin might not simply be deranged. Perhaps, the reporter asked, the solitary animal hangs out with people only because he’s shunned by others of his kind?6
Apart from the fact that people often form friendships with animals for similar reasons—for example, because they are lonely after the loss of a partner—I would like to investigate the question further with land-based animals closer to home. And that’s not easy, because a common characteristic of wild animals is that they are exactly that—wild—and therefore they normally never seek contact with people. Moreover, people have hunted them for tens of thousands of years, so they have evolved to be wary of people; those that don’t escape in time are in danger of losing their lives. And that is still the case for many animals, as you can see just by running your eye down the list of animals it’s still legal to hunt. Whether they are large game such as deer or wild boar, or smaller four-footed targets such as foxes or hares, or even birds, from raptors to geese and ducks or snipe, every year thousands upon thousands meet their end in a hail of bullets. Thus, a certain mistrust of anything on two legs is completely understandable. And that is why we are so moved when such a creature overcomes its natural wariness and seeks contact with us.
What might motivate a wild animal to do that? Let’s dismiss attracting them with food, because then we don’t know whether it’s just a case of hunger overriding fear. There is another driving force, however—one that is important for people as well—and that is curiosity. My wife, Miriam, and I had the good fortune to encounter at least one curious species: reindeer in Lapland. Okay. The reindeer are not completely wild, because the indigenous people, the Sami, own the animals and herd them with helicopters and all-terrain vehicles when they want to sort them for butchering or branding. Despite this, the reindeer have retained their wild character and are usually very wary around people.
Miriam and I were tent camping in the mountains in Sarek National Park, and because I am an early riser by nature, I was the first to creep out of my sleeping bag in the morning. I had been gazing for a while at the breathtaking sight of Nature untouched by human hands when I suddenly became aware of movement close by. A reindeer! Just the one? No, there were more coming down the slope, and I woke Miriam so she could watch the animals, as well. As we ate breakfast, more and more reindeer gathered round, until we were surrounded by the whole herd—about three hundred animals. The reindeer spent all day around our tent, and one young calf even dared to get within a few yards so it could lie down by the tent for a midday nap. We felt we were in paradise.
When a small group of hikers walked by, we realized how wary of people these animals really were. As soon as the hikers appeared, the herd retreated, only to return a while later to the area around our tent. It was clear that some of them were very interested in us. Eyes wide open and nostrils flared, they tried to figure us out. For us, it was the most amazing experience of the whole trip. We have no idea why the reindeer were so trusting around us. Perhaps our body language is calmer than usual for humans because of our daily interactions with animals, and that made us seem less threatening.
Anyone can have similar interactions in places where animals are not hunted. In national parks in Africa, for instance, or on the Galapagos Islands, or out on the tundra in the far north—places where species have not yet had bad experiences with people—animals allow visitors to get very close to them. And every once in a while, there are some individuals who are curious enough to want to check out the unusual guests wandering about in their territory. These are the encounters that make people particularly happy, because both parties come to them completely voluntarily.
It is difficult to prove that an animal truly loves a person of its own free will. Even my little chick, Robin Hood, had no real choice but to develop feelings for me. How about looking at it the other way around? Every owner of a pet, be it a cat or a dog or some other animal, knows that people are capable of loving animals. But what about the quality of this love? Some might argue that people simply project their emotions onto animals and see them reflected back. Their pets are substitutes for children they wish they’d had, partners they’ve lost, or friends who keep their distance. The subject is a minefield that I would just as soon avoid; however, as we’re talking about animal emotions, we should ask how our sentimental attachments affect our four-legged friends.
First off, they literally deform animals. In most places in the world, it’s been a long time since cats and dogs were bred to be highly skilled helpers in hunting hares, deer, or mice. Instead, we’ve been breeding them to satisfy, in both character and appearance, our desire to have something to cuddle and hug. The French bulldog is a good example. I used to think they were ugly, and that their squashed, wrinkled snouts put them at a disadvantage, because their snub noses interfere with their breathing so much that they snore. But then I got to know Crusty, a blue-gray male that we looked after every once in a while. Crusty won me over right away, and from that moment on, I no longer cared how he had been bred—he was just so adorable. Whereas other dogs have had enough after five minutes of being stroked, Crusty enjoyed this treatment for hours. If you stopped, he would nudge your hand beseechingly and look at you with his big puppy-dog eyes. His favorite activity was snoring contentedly while sleeping on his owner’s stomach.
Can breeding like that be a bad thing for the dog? There’s no question that French bulldogs have been bred to be lap dogs—living cuddly toys, so to speak. I don’t want to judge the legitimacy of this. The more important question I’d like to ask is what is this like for the dog? If a heightened need to be stroked has been bred into it, and if its appearance causes everyone (and I mean everyone!) to want to satisfy this need immediately, does the dog have a problem? It obviously feels just fine, and both it and the people it meets get what they wish for. It’s just that what led to this need to be stroked—genetic manipulation through selective breeding—has a tiny trace of the unnatural about it. This is very different from cases where owners ignore their animals’ needs, whether natural or caused by breeding, and when self-interested love blinds them so much that they end up treating their pets like people dressed in dog costumes. In such cases, overfeeding, insufficient exercise, and lack of exposure to the delights of the outdoors (such as walks in the snow) lead to severe health problems that torture the pampered animals to death.
4
ANYBODY HOME?
BEFORE WE DELVE deeper into the emotional and inner life of animals, we should ask once again whether the idea is just too far-fetched. After all, we need to have certain brain structures in order to process the emotions we experience, at least according to current thinking in science. The answer is pretty clear: in people, it is the limbic system that allows us to experience the full range of joy, grief, fear, or desire and, together with other areas of the brain, it facilitates the appropriate physical reactions.7 These brain structures are very old in evolutionary terms and so we share them with many mammals. Goats, dogs, horses, cows, pigs—the list goes on and on. According to recent research, not only mammals but also birds and even fish, which biologists rank far lower on the evolutionary scale, belong on this list.
In the case of aquatic animals, it was pain research that led to the topic of emotions. The starting point was fishing and whether fish can feel the injuries caused by hooks. What might appear self-evident to you was thought to be unlikely for a long time. When you see photographs of fishing trawlers pulling aboard nets filled with living, slowly suffocating ocean inhabitants, when you see a trout thrashing around at the end of an angler’s bent rod, you have to ask yourself how society tolerates such behavior in light of today’s discussions about animal welfare. It’s probably not a case of intentional ill will, but rather acceptance of the mostly unproven assumption that fish are witless creatures that swim around in rivers and oceans not feeling anything at all.
Victoria Braithwaite, a professor at Penn State who earned her doctorate from the University of Oxford, discovered something quite different. Years ago, she identified more than twenty pain receptors
