The Inner Life of Animals by Wohlleben

Ref: Peter Wohlleben (2017). The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion- Surprising Observations of a Hidden World. Greystone Books.

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Summary

  • Can horses feel shame? Do Deer grieve? Why do roosters deceive hens? We tend to assume that we are the only living thins able to experience feeling, but have you ever wondered what’s going on in an animal’s head?

  • Emotions have no need for intelligence. Emotion’s steer instinctive programming and therefore are vital for all species, and therefore all species experience them to a greater or lesser degree.

  • When you see photographs of fishing trawlers pulling aboard nets filled with living, slowly suffocating ocean inhabitants, when you see a trout thrashing around at the end of an angler’s bent rod, you have to ask yourself how society tolerates such behavior in light of today’s discussions about animal welfare. It’s probably not a case of intentional ill will, but rather acceptance of the mostly unproven assumption that fish are witless creatures that swim around in rivers and oceans not feeling anything at all.

  • When you think how sensitive pigs are, how they teach their young and help them deliver their own children later in life, how they answer to their names and pass the mirror test, the thought of the annual slaughter of 250M of these animals across the EU alone is chilling.

  • We have already cleared, built on, or dug up an unbelievable 80% of the Earth’s land mass.

  • Pure science, which today is defined by its demand for objectivity, might not help us advance, because it requires us to set our emotions aside.

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Insects

  • Moths: Use the moon to orient themselves, so electric lights confuse moths who continually correct their course to keep the moon on the “correct” side, but what’s really happening is that the moth is flying in circles around the light. The spiraling flight takes the moth ever closer to the light until it finally ends up at the center. If the artificial moon is a candle, there’s a brief “puff,” and the moth’s life is snuffed out.

  • Bees

    • Bees must visit 125K flowers to get enough nectar to produce a single oz of honey.

    • 11C; the temperature at which it gets too chilly for bees to venture from the hive.

    • Male Drone Bees: Spend much of their time at home in the nest feeding off the nectar produced by worker bees while occasionally flying out to mate with any nearby queen. During the late summer, the once- pampered males are removed from the hive (or stung to death if they refuse) by the worker bees and subsequently die of starvation or are eaten by a predator.

    • Female Worker Bees: Have a life span of up to 6y.

    • Queen Bee: Develops from normal, fertilized larva and are fed a special food called royal jelly (as opposed to nectar and pollen given to all other bees), which is produced in the hypopharyngeal glands of worker bees. While normal larvae develop into mature bees in less than 21d, the diet of jelly produces a new queen after just 16d. A queen flies only once in her life- her nuptial flight. And it is during this flight that she mates with drones (a.k.a. male bees). After her return to the hive, for the rest of her life (about 4-5y), she lays up to 2K eggs a day, interrupted only by short winter breaks. The queen can live up to 25y.

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Mammals

  • Warm-Blooded Animals: Regulate their own body temperature and keep it constant. Humans are a good example. When we get cold, we shiver to generate the heat we need. When we overheat, we sweat and cool down as our sweat evaporates. In contrast, for better or worse,

  • Cold-Blooded Animals: Dependent on external temperatures. When it gets too cold, they can forget about physical exertion.

  • Pigs: Descendant from wild boar.

  • Rabbits: Live ~2.5y; rabbits on the lowest social level often die just a few weeks after reaching sexual maturity, while those of high social standing live for up to 7y; the decisive factor being lower stress levels. A life with less worry and therefore more rest and relaxation meant less risk of intestinal illnesses, which are the leading cause of death in rabbits.

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Misc Quotes

  • Gratitude is the greatest of all virtues.-Cicero.

  • Justice, every member of a community should be treated equally. If they aren’t, resentment quickly bubbles to the surface and, if this resentment is constantly fed, it can lead to violence. In human communities, laws are supposed to protect everyone’s interests.

  • During traumatic experiences particular chemical markers (methyl groups) get attached to genes. They work like switches and alter the activity of the genes. According to the discovery’s researchers made using mice, this means behavior can be changed for life. The research also predicts that, thanks to these altered genes, certain patterns of behavior can be inherited. In other words, our genetic code passes down not only physical characteristics but also, to a certain extent, experiences. And what experience could be more traumatic than the severe wounding or death of your next of kin? It is not a pleasant thought that the majority of the animals living around us are traumatized (Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich).

  • Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which translates brain activity into digital images, test subjects were observed making decisions (whether to push the computer button with their right hand or with their left). The activity in their brains clearly showed what their choices were going to be up to 7s before the test subjects themselves were aware of them. This means that the behavior had already been initiated while the volunteers were still considering what to do. And so it follows that it was the unconscious part of the brain that triggered the action. It seems that what the conscious part of the brain did was to come up with an explanation for the action a few seconds later (Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, 2008).

    • It’s amazing to think that so-called free will is often playing catch-up. All the conscious part of the brain is doing in this case is coming up with a face-saving explanation for our fragile ego, which, thanks to this reassurance, feels it’s completely in control at all times. In many cases, however, the other side—our unconscious—is in charge of operations.

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Terminology

  • Courage: Realizing that it is important to act despite recognized danger and then doing so.

  • Fungi: Subsist on organic substances from other living beings. Their cell walls are made of chitin, like the exoskeleton of insects.

  • Glycerin: Inhibits the formation of larger and sharper ice crystals, allowing some animals to overwinter. 

  • Instinctive Behavior: Actions that are carried out unconsciously without being subjected to any thought processes. These actions can be genetically hard wired or they can be learned. What is common to all of them is that they happen very quickly because they bypass cognitive processes in the brain. Often these actions are the result of hormones released at certain times (in moments of anger, for example), which then trigger physical responses.

  • Limbic System: Allows us to experience the full range of joy, grief, fear, or desire and, together with other areas of the brain, it facilitates the appropriate physical reactions

  • Self-Regulating Population: A way of saying that animals die ghastly deaths.

  • Superorganism: A collective in which each individual is part of a greater whole.

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Chronology

  • 1973: “Stockholm Syndrome” is termed by Criminologist/Psychiatrist Nils Bejerot while investigating the relationship between a man who robbed a Swedish bank and his victims. The hostages had developed feelings for the 32y-old kidnapper that were similar to the feeling’s children have for their mothers, whereas they hated the police and the authorities.-Inner Life by Wohlleben.

  • 2.5 Ba: Most earth species live anaerobically (without O). At some point around this time, photosynthesizing cyanobacteria began to spread with astonishing speed, releasing O as a waste product into the air. At first, this gas was taken up by rock, and rock that contained Fe, for example, rusted. But at some point, there was so much excess O that the air became increasingly oxygen rich until finally, a deadly threshold was crossed. Many species died out, and the ones that remained learned to live with O. At the end of the day, we are the descendants of the creatures that adapted.-Inner Life by Wohlleben.

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