DO ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS II

IF YOU ARE A NEW READER , PLEASE READ PART ONE  FIRST!

PART II

     DO ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS ?    

"The most remarkable aspect of this capability in animals to feel love, anger, distress, sadness, loneliness, joy or grief is that it usually is more honest and straight forward than in humans." - Martha Collignon, Guadalajara, México,

First part of this article , I am sure would have kindled your heart through beautiful pics though sad...

Nature always teaches love and harmony ... I would like to share with you some more from the book - THE EMOTIONAL LIVES OF ANIMALS.

ANGER :

Animals become angry in the same way humans do. We share common Neuro-chemicals, such as serotonin and testosterone, and brain structures, such as the hypothalamus that are important in the expression and feeling of anger, aggression and revenge.Scientists have found that biochemical changes occur in the blood and brain of animals experiencing such emotional distress.

It's easy to identify anger and aggression, too. Even octopuses get angry. Their pearly white skin turns red when they are agitated. Birds can display tremendous anger.

Researcher Irene Pepperberg studied Alex, a clever Grey parrot, for decades, and noted that when something happened that Alex didn't like, he got very angry.

If he was fed a pellet of bird food rather than a cashew, which he preferred, he would narrow his eyes and puff up his feathers indicating his displeasure.

GRIEF:

Gorillas have been known to hold wakes for dead friends, something that some zoos have formalized in a ceremony when one of their gorillas passes away.

Donna Fernandes, director of the Buffalo Zoo, in New York, tells the story of being at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo during the wake for a female gorilla, Babs, who had died of cancer.

She describes seeing the gorilla's long-time mate saying goodbye: "He was howling and banging his chest.

"He picked up a piece of her favorite food, celery, and put it in her hand and tried to get her to wake up. I was weeping, it was so emotional."

HAPPINESS:

Dolphins chuckle when they are happy. When wolves reunite, they run toward one another whining and smiling, their tails wagging. Upon meeting, they lick one another?s muzzles, roll over and flail their legs.

When elephants reunite, there is a raucous celebration - they flap their ears, spin about and emit a "greeting rumble". If this behavior does not signal unashamed jubilation then what is it - just exercising?

One researcher tells of watching a female chimpanzee give birth, after which the new mother's closest chimp friend screamed and embraced two other chimps. The friend tended the mother and her offspring for several weeks.

KINDNESS:

It was noticed while watching elephants in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, that one walked very slowly. Elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton told the author that the elephant, BabyL, had been crippled for years, but the other members of the herd never left her behind. They would walk a while, then stop to see where she was.

The elephants had nothing to gain by helping her as she could do little for them. The only conclusion was that their kindness and care was unconditional.

No matter what we call it, researchers agree that animals and humans share many traits, including emotions. Thus, we’re not inserting something human into animals, but we’re identifying commonalities and then using human language to communicate what we observe.

Scientific research in evolutionary biology, cognitive ethology and social neuroscience support the view that numerous and diverse animals have rich and deep emotional lives. Emotions have evolved as adaptations in numerous species and they serve as a social glue to bond animals with one another.

CHARLES DARWIN’S well-accepted ideas about evolutionary continuity, that differences among species are differences in degree rather than kind, argue strongly for the presence of animal emotions, empathy, and even moral behavior.

Emotions, empathy, and knowing right from wrong are keys to survival, without which animals—both human and nonhuman—would perish.

Humans have enormous power to affect the world any way we choose. However, we also know that we’re not the only sentient creatures with feelings, and with the knowledge that what hurts us hurts them comes the enormous responsibility and obligation to treat other beings with respect, appreciation, and compassion.

Emotions are the gifts of our ancestors. We have them, and so do other animals.We must never forget this.

" Information like this has often been dismissed as Anthropomorphism - the mistaken attribution of human characteristics to animals. Such Anthropomorphism does exist (it made a fortune for Disney). However, when it comes to basic emotions, the argument should run the other way. Humans have retained emotions that existed in our animal ancestors. Denial of this amounts to a kind of creationism which attributes to humans a special status that completely separates them from other animals"
- Dr. Glenn King, Monmouth University, West Long Branch NJ USA.