End of Week 2 Blog

From the reading in weeks 1-2 it has changed my perspective in particular the ethics of animals and seeing them more as individuals and not just as a pet. For context I have two pet hamsters at home, named Jolene and Hannah. I would play with them and notice that these two would be very particular about who they would let hold or play with them. Usually, it's only my mom, my girlfriend, or me; whenever any of my friends tried to hold them or would be in the same room they would get very aggressive and territorial. I’m realizing that even though hamsters are solitary creatures, “the need for close contact can be powerful” (47-48). They admire the space that they have alone, but also gain that sense of comfort as King says, which defies the rules of the animal kingdom. Another issue that I have gained a new perspective on is the importance of animal ethics. From doing research on Twitter, I saw a quote saying, “people are less likely to care about small animals” and before doing research in this class, I wouldn’t agree with this statement because I have hamsters. However, now, I can see how us humans show little care for small animals. For example, when I was looking at Mark Moffets research on ants, he pointed out how complex yet conjoined their colonies are. The system he describes is similar to our organ system, “Its body spreads over space in pieces that give it a multitude of eyes and brains with which to glean nutrients, energy, and information” (31). This makes me wonder if people really care when they destroy the role of this system anytime they step on and kill an ant. I would think not, because most of the time people are not even conscious even to know that they had just stepped on an ant. This brings me to how my perspective has in fact changed. I previously would not think about other animals' emotions. But now, knowing that some animals can consciously feel pain and or hurt as described by Singer then those animals have no defensible claim to be killed or eaten.

Safina’s prologue is about the notion that all life is connected. The author gives an example about how dolphins swim alongside their babies and mothers. This communal behavior shows the close - social relationship that this particular species has. The biologist Randell Wells, similarly observed bottlenose dolphins and noticed this pattern and deduced that, “Dolphin moms will form circles around their young to protect them from predators” (44). More generally, the prologue sets to provide context to the questions that the author is pondering. These questions include; “What do animals do and why they do it” (2) based on the travels and observations over his life.