Animals in Translation
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
people who own and manage animals need to think about animal feelings because animals have the same core emotions we do. Just keeping animals healthy and well fed isn't enough. We need to give animals enough social contact with other animals and with humans. In the case of cats and dogs to live an emotionally normal life, animal mothers and some animal fathers love their babies. Animal babies love their mothers. Some love their fathers, too. And almost all animals have some form of friendship. Even seemingly unsocial animals, like drafts, are turning out to have friendships. Now the people are studying their social structures more closely. A researcher named MEREDITH Basha at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta started researching draft friendship after two female drafts got extremely upset when the male draft they'd lived with for nine years in the Atlanta Zoo was taken away. Neither female had ever made it with him, And from what the humans could see, the three giraffes hardly interacted much at all, so no one was expecting the females to react badly when the mail was moved. But both females were horribly upset and started repetitive. Lee licking the fence, which is a sign of stress. The reason no one knew drafts had friends was at the field. Studies of giraffes from the 19 seventies had concluded that individual drafts did not form close attachments to other drafts, Miss Bradshaw says. Giraffes just seemed to move about the plains of Africa like random molecules in your coffee cup. But after the female drafts got so upset in Atlanta, Miss. Bushel went to the San Diego Zoo, where the drafts are free to move around a 90 acre park, and she could watch whether some draft stuck closer together than others. She found that drafts have buddies just like every other social animal we know a draft will spend 15% of its time grazing with its friend and only 5% of its time grazing close to any other draft. Another animal expert who has studied giraffe friendships since the 19 seventies, Julian Fennessy at the University of Sydney, says that among Angolan drafts who live in the NAMI desert, particular female spend 1/2 to 1/3 of their time with their female friends. In any social grazing group, you find some mother daughter pairs, but you also find animals keeping company with other animals they aren't related to. Dr. Fennessy has also studied a group made up mostly of males, and the males have friendships to animal. Researchers find animal friendships in most or all mammals. I don't know if montane voles form friendships. They may not, but at this point we believe that all or nearly all mammals and possibly most or all birds form friendships for people. Solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments you can put them through, and it's no different for animals. Animals need friends and companions, and humans need to make sure they have them.