The Emotional Lives of Animals - Mark Bekoff Interview
By Claudette Vaughan

Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and a former Guggenheim Fellow. In 2000 he was awarded the Exemplar Award from the Animal Behavior Society for major long-term contributions to the field of animal behavior. Marc is also regional coordinator for Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots program, in which he works with students of all ages, senior citizens and prisoners, and also is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Jane Goodall Institute. He and Jane co-founded the organisation Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Citizens for Responsible Animal Behavior Studies in 2000.

Abolitionist: As an award winning leading scientist, prolific writer and animal activist your latest book is called “The Emotional Lives of Animals”. For people not familiar with your work Marc, tell us about yourself.

Marc Bekoff: I study animal behaviour and my specialty is the study of animal emotions. I’ve done a lot of fieldwork on animals like coyotes and wolves. I’ve studied domestic dogs and I’m just very much interested in animal minds and why animals think the way they do and why they feel the way they do.

How did you arrive at the conclusions you arrived at in “The Emotional Lives of Animals?”

I’ve been studying animal behaviour for a very long time and I’m a biologist, so what I try to do is compare the behaviour with different animals and take a strong evolutionary perspective, so according to this view of if humans have emotions then so do animals although their emotions may be different. Dogs feel joy but dog joy is likely different from human joy and my joy may be different from your joy, and this is called evolutionary continuity. I also look at what is happening with the study of brains and neuroscience in general, paying particular attention to the non-invasive studies that use PET scans and functional Magnetic Resonance Imagining (fMRI), and I tell good stories. My new book “The Emotional Lives of Animals” is just full of good stories. I use scientific data and stories to make a convincing case that many animals have rich and deep emotional lives. And, I like to say, the plural of anecdote is data.

We are 30-40 years into the modern day animal rights movement. What attitudes should have cultivated by now when looking working on a animal behalf that covers the range of experience from then to now?

The attitude is one of compassion and taking care of animals, being very mindful of an individual's well being. Making it so we ensure we are doing the very best we can for them. Stop wearing animals, stop eating animals, stop having rodeos and circuses and as long as those activities continue, take care to provide the best lives we can to the animals. But we must try to phase them all out.

I call it caring and sharing. It’s an attitude I call having an umbrella of compassion that just completely covers all beings – that’s how I look at it. And we must be sure not to cause any intentional pain or suffering.

What area does the animal right movement need to develop more?

One area of development is that sometimes people within the Movement start arguing with one another and it wastes precious time, energy and resources instead of really working together on behalf of all animals. We need to present a united front because bickering among ourselves only weakens our cause.

Also, as a biologist I’m very, very sensitive to the use of animals in research and education but we need to stop eating animals. We need to stop having slaughterhouses, which really are weapons of mass destruction. In terms of the sheer numbers of animals who are abused we must reduce the quantity of pain in the world. We just need to stop eating animals. I’d like the world to be vegetarian but if it’s not we just have to stop eating animals from slaughterhouses and other places where they suffer interminably. We just must not buy factory-farmed animals anymore.

In July I was in Tasmania and asking people not to eat animals. I'm presenting talks around the world and begging people to cut back on meat consumption because that is the way both ecologically and ethically to make the world a better place.

When I was in Finland a few months ago I gave a talk and I had 2 people afterwards tell me they were going to become vegetarians after they saw the evidence for animal suffering in the food industry. I’m not "putting it in their face". I’m saying we are all responsible for goodness and compassion in the world so the quickest way to make a change is stop eating animals and to stop wearing animals. No one really has to eat animals or wear animals.

You wrote an article on “Hope”…

Yes. What I was saying there was we should never ever give up on our dreams. When I was in Hobart last month I was saying to people “We have to have our dreams and we have to live our dreams.” We can’t give up on our dreams because there’s always hope. There is an amazing number of people in the world who are working on behalf of animals and so we need to look at our successes and not our failures. We are making strides. We really are changing how people view animals. We are raising consciousness. People in the past who never gave a hoot about animals are much more sensitive to how they treat animals. There’s so many good things happening and we just can’t concentrate on the things that don’t work.

The “loner experience” or the “outsider” experience describes the feral cat experience to a T but it equally describes a person who’s had a transforming experience as well. Loners from the ordinary run and mill of life. Loners in the animal kingdom include the feral cat, the moth and the seagull. You have mentioned coyotes and wolves. Do you classify animals in this way?

I don’t very much but it could be useful. I haven’t thought about it in that way but I have thought about the loner experience from the point of view of the difficulty of doing activism and really keeping one’s spirit up because sometimes, as you know, we feel as if we are "out there" alone. Although there are so many people working on behalf of animals we just need to take a deep breath every now and again and reflect on what we're doing because we can only do so much and definitely we need to rekindle and align with kindred spirits.

In all your studies about animals what surprises were there for you? I have heard that wolves make great fathers.

Many male wolves are great fathers. I was surprised how smart they are and how they can solve complex problems and in particular how adaptable and emotional they are. They can just adapt to many different circumstances. This is how they make it through very difficult times - by being very creative and by expressing their feelings toward one another. The same is true for coyotes.

I want to ask this question to lawyers as well but as a biologist let me ask you this Marc: As humans, what is it in us that makes us “human” and makes the non-human animal kingdom “them”?

One main difference is that humans have an incredible capacity for evil. Some animals show evil but it is extremely rare, and no non-human animals show evil like humans do. I also think we are the only animal who cooks food. The more we study animals the more we learn about how similar we are and how different we are and we have to honour our similarities and differences.

In “The Emotional Lives of Animals” you have spoken about finding honour among animals in their own environment. What did you find?

I’m very much interested in looking at the question of whether animals can be moral beings and I call that ‘wild justice’. So finding honour among animals means that they sometimes will lie to one another and deceive one another but it’s the exception rather than the rule. Animals do show moral behaviour and do know right from wrong, especially when they play. The apologize to one another and also forgive one another, and will share food and other resources with one another.

What is the way forward for a progressive animal rights movement in the future in your view?

I think the animal rights movement is picking up a lot of stream and we all must work together. We must not alienate people and we just have to accept the fact that there are some people with whom we won’t agree with but the way forward is a united front. There’s just no other way that we will be able to make the kind of progress we need to make unless we all work together.

What’s happening for you in the future?

I have a book called “Animals Matter” coming out shortly and I also have an encyclopedia on human-animal relationships coming out this Fall, and there’s a wonderful little book called “Listening to Cougar” coming out soon. Also, I love visiting Australia. You have such wonderful, passionate activists there. I’m hoping to doing a tour of Australia soon.