I think that most all of us are born knowing that animals are sentient beings. Children know that animals have thoughts and feelings. They can see and feel that animals have feelings and intentions. Children are then desensitized in a number of ways. Animals are presented as cute comic figures and pretend is mixed with reality such that “real” and alive animals start to be de-realized. Children are told lies about the source of hot dogs and hamburgers and food in general. The truth of food production is glossed over and lied about. Many of these lies continue into our adulthood, with our pretending about the factory farm life and death of the animals we are

eating. Children are also told that animals don’t have feelings, physical or emotional, and don’t

mind working hard for us, performing in circuses, being left out in the cold, being in cages, and

being crammed together, and generally being used, misused, and abused in a variety of ways.

This never really made sense to me as a child, but it was hard to hold onto my beliefs. As adults,

it takes courage to get back to what many of us knew and sensed as children.​​

 

            Animals are sentient beings. To be sentient is “to be able to perceive or feel things.” That

is to be conscious and aware, to do intentional actions and to have emotions in response to

things. There is a light in the eyes of a living creature. When a sentient being dies, the light goes

out and they aren’t “there” anymore. Meaning they were there before. Beyond that, one can see

feelings expressed in many creatures eyes: fear and terror, curiosity, pleasure, boredom, love, anger, physical pain, and so on. There is a spark in the eyes of sentient living creatures. The first way to be open to sentience in other creatures is to see the spark of what makes them alive. Sometimes it is a sad spark, like in a rescued greyhound or caged wild creature. But the spark is there. The animal is alive, thinking, feeling, and reacting in some sort of way to the world and others. Other animals feel physical pain exactly like humans. To think that they do not is like thinking that another human does not feel the same pain that you might feel. To say a donkey or elephant does not feel tired when working hard is like saying a different kind of human (Caucasian, Asian, African, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, etc...) does not feel tired when working hard. Animals are sensate. Animals are aware. Animals think. Animals are conscious.

 

            Each individual animal, human or otherwise, has its own unique personality. Those of us who have pets know this and if we pay attention, we will find it true for all animals that we get to know. As we grow aware of this it can become painful to our hearts to think of the way we humans treat many animals when using them for profit or treating them as things rather than individual beings. I was recently learning about the rabbit fur industry where hundreds of rabbits are squeezed into cages for their whole lives and then ripped apart for fur (please see PETA for their undercover exposé of tortured rabbits lives and screaming deaths in “fur factories” in China and Russia). Each of these individual rabbits has its own personality and character. In these awful life conditions, death camps really, these rabbits lose their individual precious lives and characters and are treated like objects without any consciousness. They are suffering as any animal, human or otherwise, suffers in such conditions.

 

            There are millions of animals living in similar conditions to these rabbits and suffering in unimaginable ways. They suffer because they are sentient beings. It is simple to know how they suffer. Just imagine how you would feel in a similar situation. That is going to be more a less accurate as to what another animal would feel. Especially our closer relatives (mammals and birds). They are not exactly the same but let’s be clear, if you were a parrot who belongs in a jungle with your large parrot community and with your mate for (a VERY long) life you would be VERY unhappy alone in a cage. It is that simple. Putting ourselves into another animal’s experience is called empathy. It only requires us to put                                                                                                           ourselves in the place of an animal and imagine how we would feel. Do not kid yourself (to do                                                                                             so is called denial and it erodes our ability to live in reality), basically animals feel in any                                                                                                       situation pretty much how we would feel in the same situation. Maybe not with all the                                                                                                         thoughts, but with all the feelings of boredom, loneliness, terror, fear, desperation, and                                                                                                       physical pain and discomfort. The main difference is that animals are not the same species as                                                                                             us so it is easier to pretend that we do not understand their suffering.

 

                                                                                                      I believe that as we appreciate the reality of each animal’s sentience we can become                                                                                                 deeply disturbed by some of the human treatment of other animals. At the same time,                                                                                                         however, the world is filled with much more beauty and each creature we meet is fascinating                                                                                             in its character and behavior. It is interesting to consider what another creature is doing. How is it perceiving the world? What are its concerns and cares? ​

 

            At this point there is finally an enormous amount of research and writings about animals as thinking, feeling, communicative creatures capable of working together and caring for each other. There are oceans of evidence of animals with individual personality, enjoyment of games and play, engaging in complicated thought and many other sentient qualities.

 

            Here is a Youtube video of an elk calf playing in a puddle. Here is a link to research with rats and play. It is sad that the researchers don't comment on the obvious emotional nature and sentience of the rats. Here is a video of Prairie Dogs using using language (well documented and researched). This website does not focus on research, though I encourage you to explore it. Here is an article about many different species of animal grieving. This website focuses on how you can personally engage with the natural world and find animal engagement, in some way, all around you. Then the web site suggests how you can help animals who are being hurt and misused by people. We have to help because animals cannot talk people language and organize in people ways. Let us now return to the subject of animal sentience.

 

            There are unlimited examples of animals expressing emotions and intention. There are examples here and I also suggest that you look around and collect your own examples. It is fun and will further open your mind and heart. A first thing you can do to “get” the feeling of animals as sentient is to make a connection with an animal. Start with any animal with whom it is

easy for you to make some eye contact. Feel it making contact back with you. Drop into a

place of openness and curiosity…breath and be open to this creature…Who is it? Watch it

and be curious. Animals are different from us and from each other. The more we know

about a species the more we can guess a little about what is going on with an individual

within it.

 

            There is one thing you can get right away (if you are willing) and that is that the

animal with whom you are engaged in eye contact is aware of you. It is looking back at

you and taking you in. It is conscious. Once you take in this fact, let me assure you that

EVERY animal is the same in its ability to be contact-full, sentient, present with thinking

and feelings…the only difference is whether we can easily make the contact. For us

humans, eye contact is the easiest way to engage and experience sentient connection.​

 

            Our ability to have contact with another animal depends upon our similarity and differences with the species with whom we are trying to connect, and by our ability to remain open to contact. For example, an ant is both very small and several species removed from us humans so very different from us. We cannot use eye contact with an ant and yet it is possible to have some sense that it is aware of us, as we are of it. It is also possible to have a sense of an ant as doing something with purpose and with some feeling, at least of curiosity and fear. An insect is a good example of where it becomes harder for us to be aware of sentience. Yet if we are honest, we can know that they are sentient. For example, we can see and sense that they exhibit curiosity and fear.

 

            Another block to our own openness to sentience might be exemplified by a sheep or cow stockyard. In this example denial makes it hard to keep ourselves open for contact. We may not want to make friends with an individual sheep in that situation, or perhaps any sheep, as it will make it difficult to deny and ignore the mass suffering of sheep in factory “living.” It takes courage, clarity, compassion and humility to break through this sort of denial and accept the completely obvious fact of an individual sheep’s character and availability for many feelings and ideas as well as much capacity to suffer as you or I. ​

 

            I remember as a little girl being reassured by my grandfather that the fish he caught were not feeling pain as they desperately flopped and gasped at our feet. My grandfather was in the same extraordinary denial as most of the world and did not mean to lie, but the reality of the suffering before me still makes my heart contract as I recall the memory. Please go to fishcount.org for more excellent information on the subject of fish as sentient and feeling creatures. One species of fish who is particularly maligned is the shark. A shark is a very sensitive and                                                                                                         curious animal, but one of who, due an abundance of human fear and mythology, we are                                                                                                     afraid. It is difficult, therefore to stay open for contact and really sense a shark’s sentient                                                                                                     presence, wisdom, and feelings. A shark is not who we have stereotyped it to be, any more                                                                                                 than a human being is a stereotype. The picture here is of a speckled trout who was very                                                                                                     curious about me and I think that you can see that in her eyes.

 

                                                                                                         Of course, animals have many ways of communicating and connecting. In fact, their                                                                                                   senses are much more finely tuned than ours. Also, many of them have more senses than                                                                                                   we do; like dolphins, bats, or sharks. However, often the easiest way for us humans to feel                                                                                                   connection initially is with eye contact. So use your eyes and make contact with another                                                                                                       mammal (the most similar to us. We are in the same family). Feel the shared contact. You                                                                                                     are connecting - seeing, feeling, perceiving each other. Our animal cousins have much more access to their senses than we do so they “think” differently than we do. Get curious! Who is that other being that feels, thinks, communicates and relates?​

 

            One more important aspect of sentience is that it means that animals have intentions just as human animals have intentions. Animals do things for a reason. Just like another human, the reason may not make sense to us or we may not agree with it. But reason is there. If your cat is peeing outside its litter box then it is communicating something. It may be physically unwell, not like its box (dirty, too small, etc...), not like your new beau, or many other possibilities. However, the important point is that it has a reason. To blame, hit, or hurt an animal for what it is expressing is as abusive as it is to give that kind of response to a person.

 

            In the worst cases of animal “misbehavior,” the animal has been thoughtlessly mistreated, deliberately abused, or taught to be violent by a human. Some examples are an elephant who finally turns on a circus trainer, or a pit bull biting a child because it has been encouraged to be dangerous by its owner. A wild animal is being itself and the human is the one who is inappropriate (feeding wild animals and then they bite, etc.) or in the wrong place at the wrong time (surprising a bull moose). In a few cases, like humans, the animal may be mentally unwell (a rabid raccoon) or just an ornery cranky creature. The important point here is that animals do things for reasons. Thus, the goal is to figure out what they are communicating, rather than punishing them for for doing so in whatever way they do.

 

            It is actually really fun to try and figure out what animals are communicating both to us and to each other. I watch squirrels in my garden doing all sorts of noise and tail communications and wonder what they are saying. There is

plenty of research nowadays on different species communication, so pick an animal, watch

it and learn what you think its communications are about and then use the web to explore

what other people think is being communicated.

 

            The better educated we are about an animal, the less afraid we are of the animal and

the more likely we are to get to understand it. The less we feel comfortable using the animal

for our own gain or needs the easier it is to stay open to who it is and what it is trying to say.

It is interesting be curious and to get to know animals and accept them as equal to us. Equal

and different. We are all related. All of us animals share the same genes. We are most closely related to other mammals, then to birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and so on. We are all connected, however, and can all connect on some level. It

is easier with some than others, but connection and inter-connection is everywhere. If we

only think of ourselves, humans, as mattering we will destroy all else with our arrogance and greed. I was reading the other day about the rationality for “culling” the elephants in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Apparently there are too many elephants for the area. Really, I thought, there are too many humans for the area. Not just in South Africa, of course, but all over the world. There is no real stop to our continued population growth. This means that we will increasingly use up the resources of other animals’ habitats and “use” up the animals themselves.​

 

            Humans now have more power as a group than any other animal. We now have the power to destroy all other creatures and ourselves. If we do not take responsibility for all our care, right now, we are in trouble. First, and in fact already, other creatures will become extinct (that means GONE FOREVER), and then we will use up our planet and disappear as well. We are all in this together; therefore this web-site is focussed on helping all life on earth. The better we treat our fellow creatures the better we treat ourselves. This is true from a physical health perspective (both personal and global) and from a spiritual and psychological perspective. I believe that people who think of themselves as spiritual and/or as animal lovers have a particular responsibility to take steps to care and protect other sentient beings who cannot protect themselves against all the power humans have and which animals do not. We have a moral obligation once we are conscious: an obligation not to ignore suffering and to consider all our actions and the impact upon other beings. To not do so will lead to attempts to be unconscious and impede our psychological                                                                                               and spiritual health. Please see our suggestions on our Take Action page to see steps you                                                                                                     can take. ​

 

                                                                                                          For now, however, let us go back to our fellow creatures and consider more about                                                                                                     sentience. Mammals show our whole range of emotions. Here is a gently curious giraffe and                                                                                               another clearly curious African Water Buffalo. How can you tell that these animals are                                                                                                           curious? You are picking up several cues such as their expressions, the look in their eyes,                                                                                                     and body language. You also can imagine the context to these pictures. If a stranger had                                                                                                     pulled up to you and started taking pictures, but otherwise did not appear threatening, you                                                                                                 might be curious, too! ​

 

                                                                                                        This exemplifies the same way we pick up such information from other humans, especially if we do not speak their language. We take in a whole bunch of nonverbal cues and put ourselves in the context within which the other human is engaged. Putting ourselves in the other’s shoes (a human expression of something called projection or empathy) is part of the way we guess about what another person is feeling. This is includes reading expressions and body language.

 

            One of the ways we have denied animal sentience is that we have called this sort of deduction anthropomorphizing: ascribing human attributes or characteristics to things not human, e.g. an animal. This is ridiculous! We use the same deductive reasoning to help guess what an animal is feeling and doing as we might with a human. Because we are different species we may make more mistakes. But often we can make as good a guess using similar reasoning as with guessing about human feelings and intentions. I think that you will find sensing what animals feel is surprisingly easy. This is because animals are sentient! So it is not like trying to imagine (anthropomorphizing) what a rock, a chair, a computer, or an ipod is feeling. Animals are living/thinking/feeling....like us!

 

            This baby rhinoceros is looking slightly nervous and alert...perhaps not sure what I am doing, or even

what/who I am. What do you think that it is feeling?

 

            This Mother elephant is feeling a bit surprised and threatened. She does not want the noisy jeep so near her

daughter. You can tell she feels a little threatened, that is to say scared and therefore a little angry, because she has

her ears flapped open, something elephants do when they show their power. Sometimes we need to know                                                                                                                          something about the animal species to know what certain gestures mean. This, again, is the same as needing to                                                           know about human culture to understand what people are generally communicating non-verbally. For example, it                                                         is common for people in Japan to bow, and that gesture has meaning that would not be understood by a person                                                           from France unless they knew something about people in Japan. ​​

 

                                                                  Here is another curious creature. A warthog! She may be wondering about me!

                                                      And this baby warthog, too!

 

            Here are some curious, and slightly aggressive hippos. Can you see how I make that guess as to their

feelings....and do you see the link between what an animal may be feeling as connected to what they may be

thinking? That an animal feels a reaction, to some extent, as a result of what it thinks. This, again, is just like people. If we think that we maybe in                                                         danger we may feel scared and possibly then feel angry...or we may just stay scared. If we are relaxed and not                                                               threatened we may show curiosity and sometimes friendliness to a visitor.​

​

                                                                  Here are two random examples of human/other animal relationships to further your thinking of sentience.                                                         The first example is of a lion and two men who raised it. After a year the men had to give the lion to a reserve in                                                           Africa. When they went back to visit the lion two years later, they were told that it would not recognize them. Click on this to see what happened. Another great example of a sentient praying mantis and her friend are at this link. Elephants, as a species, provide numerous and obvious examples of sentience. The females often stay together in complicated family communities for their entire lives (lives longer than ours, were it not for modern medicine). They remember and care for each other in ways that can only be described as loving and generous. Males go off by themselves for much of their adult lives, greeting old female friends and relatives with enormous affection when they meet. In the last ten years of an old bull’s life, he may be seen traveling with a couple of younger males. At this point his sight and smell may be poor and the younger males provide support to him. Elephants grieve their dead and suffer post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms from watching human violence and murder of their family and friends. Here is a story from the Elephant Sanctuary about an elephant’s friendship with a dog. Please use the web to learn more about these highly evolved animals. An excellent and heartbreaking novel about elephants is called The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy.

 

            Dolphins and whales are two more extremely obviously sentient species. Use the web to learn more about the sentience of these mammals. Dolphins play a lot (actual games, like toss the seaweed) and have sex for fun and contact. Many animals play together. Whales are wise and complicated, and engage in lots of communication that even we can grasp is occurring. It appears that elephants, great apes, whales, and dolphins may have the same social neurons in their brains as we do! Only relatively more than we do! If you would like to read a stunning article on a human experience of movingly sentient contact between some particular whales and the author, read Charles Siebert's article in The New York Times Magazine.

 

            Another set of sea animals, though not mammals, who are very related and emotional in a manner that we humans can clearly understand, are the octopus and cuttlefish. Both of these creatures change color at times

because of what they are feeling. An octopus is very relational, makes friends with its human

care-givers, and each exhibit a very different personality. They were one of the first animals

whose behavior persuaded researchers to start believing in and researching animal

personality (Finally! Jeez!). ​ In a great book, Animal Wise, by Virginia Morell, there is a

compilation of research on animal personality and the fact that they feel emotions, including

pain and suffering. This Washington Post article is specifically on fish feeling pain.

 

            If you are interested in the current research and understandings about animal

personality and other aspects of animal sentience, please search the web for articles which

are numerous. There are also many books with information about animal sentience. For

example, The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights by Newkirk, The Emotional Lives of Animals by Bekoff, Wild Justice, The Moral Lives of Animals by Bekoff and Pierce, Pleasurable Kingdom by Balcombe, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon by Masson and Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles, to name a few.

 

            It is very clear to all of us who know animals that each animal of each species has its own individual personality. This is not news to anyone with pets, or who has spent time on a real farm, or out in the wild observing wildlife. Each animal has its own character, just like us. And just like us, that means that they think, feel, and behave somewhat differently. They are sentient! Having spent much time observing animals, I can see that even the fish, frogs, and snails I have known exhibit quite different behaviors and choices. Get to know some different animals of the same species, keep your mind open, be curious and see what you sense!

 

            There are endless examples of animals as sentient beings. As many examples as there are creatures. Let me give you a few more to go learn about, and then please share about your own examples. Remember the main point is that animals are sentient and deserve our respect and care. Respect both individually and as in a right to share the planet. And care in that they suffer and like with fellow humans we have an obligation to reduce their suffering. The important question is how are you going to do your part towards their protection, welfare, and respect? If nothing else, PLEASE GO TO OUR POLITICAL ACTION LINKS and go to the sites and sign up to get action alerts sent to you. And then take the actions. They are simple, take little time, and make a big difference. Please also go to our “Things you can do” page for many, many suggestions for daily living in ways that help animals.​

 

            I was recently watching David Attenborough’s “Life of Birds” and saw there a wonderful species of bird called the Bower bird from Australia. At the time of the year that female Bower birds are choosing a mate, the male Bower birds design beautiful artistic bowers to impress                                                                                                     the females with their artistic taste. These bowers vary with the species of Bower bird, with                                                                                                  some the size of a small ground hut (for a human) which this small bird has woven.                                                                                                                Whatever the bower, or “maypole” the bird has created, inside he has arranged different                                                                                                      collections of lovely things. The piles of things vary tremendously with each bird’s                                                                                                                  individual taste. You see one bird carefully arranging a pile of luminescent beetle wings to                                                                                                    best display in the sun, while another bird has gathered arrangements of nuts and colorful                                                                                                  flowers. Each bower has a number of collections of precious things by which to attract the                                                                                                  discerning mate. The bowers have no more purpose than to gain attention for their special                                                                                                  beauty, and perhaps for the pleasure of the creation. If this does not display sentience,                                                                                                        then what does? It is art!

 

                                                                                                            Other birds, as well as mammals (especially water ones), engage in extraordinary dances together. This occurs during courtship, and then on through often a lifetime of relationship.​

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            Use Google and Youtube to watch the flamingoes, Japanese cranes, swans, and many more. There are so many intimate and bewitchingly lovely forms of love, fun, and communication. The same sort of rituals can be seen with boobies, albatross, and crows.​ A completely different animal is also very sentient in her care for her young. A crocodile. Explore what is known about mother crocodiles and their ongoing commitment and tender care for their young. Crocodiles, by the way, have at least twenty-two unique known sounds by which they communicate and each mean something different! In fact, many reptiles and amphibians are affectionate with each other. Watch David Attenborough’s “Life in Cold Blood” and see these cold-blooded creatures be tender, playful and communicative with mates and/or offspring. They conduct gentle and sometimes beautiful courtship rituals and are often excellent mothers and/or fathers. Watch the frogs, for example, communicate with each other and care for their young all over the world and in amazing circumstances. Another smart animal I saw recently was a type of crow who has adapted to city life in Japan. It takes a kind of hard nut, for which it has a fondness, and drops them on the busy city roads for the cars to run over and crack. It has learned to do this right over pedestrian crossing lights. This way the crow has thirty seconds to eat its nut before the cars start rushing by again. Now that is smart!

 

            Clearly there are endless examples of animal affection, intelligence, personality, love, and communication. There are many ways to learn more for yourself. Start by being more open to an animal you know and you will have personal examples. Go out in nature or simply pay attention to animals in the city. Sparrows, pigeons, and other city creatures are all interesting to get to know. The main point is that animals are sentient and we need to help them be treated with care. Please start now to do your part.

Think about other creatures and how to respect and care for them. Animals are sentient

and capable of loving and joyful emotions and they are also capable of fear, terror,

boredom, and pain, as much as we are! This means that the lives of animals in factory

farms, or young animals taken from their mothers and horribly trained in circuses and

animal acts, and the many, many other ways we hurt animals are all very wrong. We are

inflicting physical and psychological pain on other creatures that suffer as we would in the

same situations. Please take any and all actions that you can to help make animal suffering

witnessed and their welfare considered. ​

 

            You can donate to this website, you can buy pictures, and you can buy merchandise.

We then take your donations and donate them to organizations committed to helping

animals. You can read about animals and think and expand your thinking and talk to other people about what you are learning. Change happens by people talking/writing/blogging/sharing with each other and then taking actions. You can read about action steps you can take in your own lives on another page of this site. You can write in with your own ideas. Very importantly, you can use our clearinghouse of links to animal welfare organizations and TAKE SOCIAL and POLITICAL ACTION using the links to websites that are organizing such action. You can donate time and money directly to these organizations. Please use this website to expand your love for the creatures around you and then take other steps. This is a crucial time for the planet. We need to act. No matter how small the action may be, it is an action towards saving another creature and thus ultimately ourselves. John Muir said “When we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else.”