Representing Animals

Tag: Animals

Post #2

October 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments
Sea World Seal Show

Sea World Seal Show

When I was younger my favorite place was the aquarium at the boardwalk near me. I had my birthday there every year until I was 8 because I loved the animals. In particular, my favorite was a seal, named Lucille, who had been blinded in an accident with a boat and had been rescued. She was trained to do tricks, which according to the aquarium staff, were rehabilitation exercises. She was my favorite.

This image of the seal reminds me of Lucille and her tricks. It is taken from a Sea World seal show and depicts a seal balancing on its flippers while balancing a soccer ball on its nose. The seals are trained by rewarding them with food after they preform a task correctly. While it appears that the seal enjoys doing the tricks, after reading Berger’s essay I look at this differently because as humans, how do we know that the seal is experiencing pleasure in performing. This isn’t a behavior that they exhibit in the wild so are we forcing the seal to learn tricks solely for our amusement, or is there an advantage to these zoo shows.

I think this example is what Berger refers to as “humans viewing animals as toys for our amusement”. After reading Berger’s essay, I can understand his opinion on animals in captivity, especially as they grew in popularity with children, animals have almost become like toys, instead of just our companions. It is very common to teach domesticated pets, like dogs, obedient behavior and while it does not seem to bother a domesticated animal, is it fair to train wild animals to do tricks as well in zoo performances?

On page 23, Berger states, “A zoo is a place where as many species and varieties of animal as possible are collected in order that they can be seen, observed, studied.” He is stating here that we are viewing animals as things that we can collect and categorize and analyze as though they weren’t living, creatures. He goes on to discuss how captivity makes it possible for humans to view animals like they would view art in a gallery. I think this is a fair statement however, I disagree with his generalization that zoos are not useful. While I agree that zoos aren’t always the best solution and agree that they really can emphasize human control over animals, I think they help us learn and understand animals we can’t normally interact with. Because humans are able to get up close and interact with animals (like tigers, elephants, polar bears etc.) safely, we are able to make relationships with animals that, if we never got to develop this relationship with  them, we wouldn’t appreciate them and would see them as vicious and dangerous to us.

I think zoos have allowed us to better understand animals and save some species from extinction by keeping them in captivity. While it’s not always a wonderful solution it has really helped bring about preservation movements and I believe that they can be critical in preserving our environment. Because we are now able to develop companionship with animals that we never would have before, humans begin to care about what happens to polar bears for example because we can safely look one in the eyes and understand why we should save such a beautiful creature. I don’t however, think that there is a necessity for animal shows. By forcing them to preform tricks and behaviors they would never do in the wild, we are purely using them for entertainment. While we don’t think that these tricks harm the animals, how can we be sure that the animals are finding enjoyment out of this? I think that zoos can be very beneficial to the preservation of the environment, but, after reading Berger’s essay, I believe that the tricks and shows are purely an instance of us using the animals as our toys.

No Longer Man’s Best Friend

September 15, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The Far Side

Although my time in class has not dramatically affected my attitudes and views regarding human-animal relationships, it has encouraged me to put much more time and effort into thinking about and analyzing the source of these views and their underlying components. When I came across a Far Side comic drawn by cartoonist Gary Larson, I found myself searching for details that would tell me more about what Larson was attempting to say about human-animal relationships.

The comic depicts a domestic scene with a couple eating dinner in their living room and the family dog on the floor nearby. The dog is highly anthropomorphized, standing upright on two legs and wearing an angry expression that would be more at home on a human face than a canine one. The dog is wielding a revolver pistol and aiming it directly at his owner, and the caption reads, “’Hey, bucko…I’m through begging.’” Although they are being held up by their dog over food, neither human in the image appears at all concerned. The man looks at the dog with a blank expression and his mouth full of food, while his wife seated opposite him doesn’t even give the dog any heed.

Before joining this class, I would have found the image moderately amusing and moved on to other ventures. However, now that I have spent time in class thinking in much more depth about human-animal relationships, this seems to be an exaggerated example of the impact that exploitation at the hands of humans can have on animal psyche. The dog is clearly fed up with his low-ranking position in the household and his use as a novelty as a pet. Blue, the horse in Alice Walker’s Am I Blue?, experiences the same feelings as he is left alone in his field until he is wanted for human purposes, be them riding or breeding. Even when under these circumstances, Blue is treated as an object and not as a living being since the children who ride him, “ride furiously for ten or fifteen minutes, then get off, slap Blue on the flanks, and not be seen again for a month or more.” His mate is also taken away immediately after he impregnates her, hammering home the point that Blue is simply seen as a tool by his owners. Like Gary Larson’s dog, Blue also becomes fed up with this and snaps after his mate is removed, wearing, “the look of disgust with human beings, with life; the look of hatred.” Both the Far Side comic and Am I Blue? Are making the point that when their intrinsic value is ignored in favor of their instrumental value, irreversibile damage is done to the human-animal relationship.

 

Sources for the Post:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/f3/e6/f8/f3e6f810211343108914aa115b1c37b4.jpg

 

Regan, Tom, and Alice Walker. “Am I Blue?” Other Nations: Animals in Modern Literature. Waco, Tex.: Baylor UP, 2010. 182-187. Print.

A Different View

September 13, 2014 / / 1 Comment

images

The image that I have chosen shows a baby pig in the hands of a human. It looks like the pig and human are in a grassy area and the pig appears to be looking at the viewer of the picture. This picture depicts the animal as very cute and loveable, but also somewhat helpless based on its size and the careful way that it is being held with two hands. Because the human is holding the pig, the relationship between the pig and the human seems to be shown as a caretaker/pet relationship. When I first saw this picture, I thought that it may have been a pet pig based on the way that it is being held and because small pigs are now becoming a common house pet. However, when I looked on the website that this picture came from, I learned that this picture is actually used on a website that provides information about a “Master of Animal Science” program. The text around the image explains the program and how it provides information about caring for animals, as well as “practical applications in areas from captive animal care to recreation, sport and biological research.” There is no caption that provides information about this individual pig, and it is possible that this image was only chosen to capture the attention of animal lovers who may be interested in a career working with animals. This picture seems to show a caring relationship between the human and animal, and contrasts the actual purpose of the major which is primarily focused on the use of animals as a resource.

 

Before reading Berger, I would have viewed this image and simply appreciated how cute it was. I would not have given a lot of thought about the context of the picture or what the actual life of this specific pig is like. Now that I have read Berger, I am much more interested in the life of this individual pig and how it is treated. Although this picture may originally give the viewer a sense of the intrinsic value of the pig because it appears to be looking at the viewer and is very cute, the website that this picture is used for is actually primarily concerned with the instrumental value of the pig. Berger would likely comment that this picture proves that human ambition has led to the marginalization of animals. Despite the fact that this image seems to portray an individual life, the purpose of the website is less focused on individual animals and is more focused on what humans can gain from groups of animals as a whole.

 

References:

 

Berger, John. “Why Look at Animals?” About Looking. New York: Vintage, 1977. 3-28. Print.

 

http://www.land-environment.unimelb.edu.au/future-students/grad/animal-science.html

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