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Follow on Google News | New discoveries in animal intelligence are revealed in Jonathan Balcombe's science-based study ofIn his newly-released book, Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals (Palgrave Macmillan), Balcombe makes the case that animals have a much greater capacity for thinking and feeling than we have long
By: Robert Grillo In his newly-released book, Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals (Palgrave Macmillan), Balcombe makes the case that animals have a much greater capacity for thinking and feeling than we have long thought possible. As an animal behaviorist and scientist, he has written many scientific papers and lay-articles on animal behavior, humane education, and animal research. In the documentary film, Fowl Play, Balcombe discusses the social intelligence of chickens. Most striking is the interplay between a male rooster and a female hen in which the rooster crows to alert the female of a grasshopper he found. He gives her first dibs to claim it and we see her scurry over to take him up on the offer! Balcombe’s study of animals and the conclusions he draws about their elevated social, emotional, and intellectual capacities compels us to re-examine the way we interact with them. This calls into question the widespread exploitation of animals for factory- And within the animal kingdom there is a great contradiction between how we treat certain animals as companions and others as food, even though animals raised for consumption are of equal or greater intelligence than dogs. Studies have shown pigs to have the greatest intelligence of all farm animals and greater in many cases than dogs. Yet even within the same species, irrational discrimination is the status quo. Take birds for example. Our admiration for birds is evident in the numerous bird food varieties marketed to us in stores. There are special blends to attract cardinals, finches, songbirds, etc. Yet when it comes to chickens and turkeys, we subject billions of them a year to a brief, unnatural and miserable life, raising them in dark warehouses and in cages so small they can’t move their whole lives, injecting them with antibiotics and growth hormones and feeding them genetically- Balcombe brings these paradoxes in our relationship with animals to light with both scientific and anecdotal clarity. In Balcombe’s world, ALL animals are worthy of our admiration, respect, love, and most of all protection. Learn more about him at http://www.jonathanbalcombe.com/ Bookmark and Share # # # Free from Harm's mission is to provide news, educational and advocacy resources to help our readers become more engaged in the issues surrounding food, agriculture, animals and the environment. End
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