Our Relationship with Animals and the Earth

Our relationship with Animals and the Earth

            I remember, a few years back, having a conversation with a friend. We talked about his experience visiting the Los Angeles Zoo. After walking around for a few hours and checking out some of the exhibits both he and his girl started to cry. The emotions the animals projected at the subconscious level resonated with him and opened their bodies to uncontrollable sobs. He could feel the sadness and see the loneliness that the animals experienced being locked up.

            In retrospect, I think that their experience might have been much deeper than that. I recall reading a short essay found in John Berger’s About Looking, which focuses on how contemporary society views animals. Since the later part of the 19^th century humans began to sever their relationship with animals. Their presence on this earth began to take a more marginal role where they play the role of entertainers or performers, and where they are looked at and observed. Prior to these phenomenon animals were integral to the human psyche. Certain character traits were said to resemble a particular animals’. Animals were viewed differently than the way we view them today. Berger suggests that people viewed animals with a respect of the other, while the other in turn kept its distance, and ever since the traveling circus and the first city zoo things have drastically changed.

            If this type of perception was experienced with all the cultures of the world prior to the 19^th century then the detachment of the natural environment of the animals that now live in zoos is similar to the detachment that we, as humans, have experienced with nature. Though one must not forget that those in power, whether it was in Meso-America, Mesopotamia, Greece or China always had a proclivity to have a private collection of wild animals, and it was exclusive only to them. Now almost every city has a public zoo and we no longer have a respect for the animals that live in their natural habitats, but instead treat them as a nuisance. The hunting of wild animals for centuries was seen as a sport, but a sport that also helped expand the boundaries of human habitation. During the Qing Dynasty the emperor would send men on horses to circle wide mountainous areas to flush out animals living in the area, and soon the games would commence. Now a days cattle owners worry about losing one cow to a dwindling pack of grey wolves or the over hunted coyote that still continues to spread further north. On the other hand we’ve come to point where every other animal that is out in nature is found, tranquilized, labeled with a mini radio transmitter or with a tiny brace, and let go. 

            These past years, I’ve come across several types of animal species, and through my travels managed to observe different types animals of which I never thought I’d get to see. Let’s just say that some of the eagles we hear about or even get to see in the zoos gave me an opportunity to appreciate and be in awe of nature’s majestic fabric. Growing up in Los Angeles, I was never fully aware of the abundant wild life that exists in this city. I have been fortunate enough to see opossums run down La Brea Blvd and have seen a liter of raccoons following their mother into the gutter, I wasn’t fully aware of what was out there, besides the scavengers. I had to travel out of the states and spend time in areas where wildlife is now just an afterthought, and things wild can only be found in zoos. A few years ago I was lucky to see a bobcat, though by the time I saw it I had already jetted myself into my car. Now I can look back and appreciate the fact that this particular animal was out in its natural habitat. Though we don’t know it our ears hear about 5-7 different species of birds a day in this city. Some don’t even realize that spotting a hummingbird is one of the greatest visual treasures of the Americas. Only in the Americas can this tiny little bird be seen.

            It’s a bit disappointing though that we have just about destroyed most of the natural environment of these animals, but at the same time we have given up our old ways of living for what we have today – dishwashers, concrete rivers, computers, nice green lawns and electronic toys. Sometimes old trees get cut because they take away from the value of a home. Nowadays, we spend about 2 hours on the road on a daily basis, stuck in traffic and weaving through slow moving cars. We have 24 hour stores and refrigerators that keep everything “fresh,” but what have we given up for all this progress? What we have deemed progress might very well be our acceleration to destruction. So it is not surprising that when we are not “on” something we are not consciously aware of the fact that animals living in a zoo are living a reality that is just as unnatural as people going to the 24 hour supermarket to buy a frozen pizza. It is a complete disconnection with nature and our real being. Our sub-consciousness might be in great suffering at this very moment and crying as much as my friend did that day, though we might not know it. We have all been conceived from the very thing we alter every day, earth.