Sometimes I look back through old photos and remember a time when I knew less. Ignorance is bliss.
This photo is a queue of cars at West Midlands Safari Park. I visited a few times, also in a queuing car (not pictured, of course). Can’t remember if this is a picture of us getting into the safari or driving through it, but, if the timestamps on the picture files are anything to go by, then we’re already in the safari at this point.
I was a teen when this photo was taken. I loved animals – still do now. Really looked forward to visits to the safari, but also the farm, the zoo, the aquarium, or even just the local duck pond on the way to school.
How do animals feel? I mean, not as in, how do they respond, mentally and physically, to human domestication, adoption, farming, training, raising, or subjugation (although these are good questions too, perhaps worthy of discussion at a later time). I mean: can we empathise with animals? Do they have wants and desires the same as us? How can they communicate them with us?
Can we empathise with animals?
I wonder if it’s carefree to graze on a pasture, swim from river to river, or take to the skies. Is it a worry-free life, not having the weight of very human troubles like bills, deadlines, and expectations, or do animals ponder their mortality too?
In the absence of animals’ ability to directly answer human questions with human language, we can only gauge their feelings indirectly through physiological, cognitive, and behavioural means. Even so, this tells us how animals respond when given the chances of a happy life – and even a measure of self-worth – but do they have a sense of usefulness or purpose of life? If so, then I imagine that this is where morbidity sets in.
Sometimes I think back to when I see animals, be it at the safari, zoo, aquarium, pond, or farm. How must they be feeling? Do I wish to be one of them? Perhaps ignorance is bliss.