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Journalism of Courage
A domesticated elephant, obedient and docile for years, goes on a rampage one day and kills people, including its mahout. A pet dog, for no reason at all, suddenly savages a child. A cow chewing cud in the middle of a busy road, suddenly chases down and gores people. A monkey, accepting bananas from your hand one moment, is mugging you the next. A horse, trotting around amiably suddenly rears, throws and kicks its rider and flees.
We take corrective action (usually that means putting down or relocating the offender) and shrug and exclaim, “Well what can you expect? It’s an animal after all.” Or “it’s a wild animal, for god’s sake!” And when one of us behaves the same way and slaughters children in a kindergarten with a machine gun, we shake our heads and say, “What an animal!”
Actually, most animals don’t really behave like “animals” — we do. The natural habitat and normal life of an elephant is not at a place of worship, or in a wedding procession or at a hotel foyer where, day after day, it greets guests by saluting with its trunk. It’s not even in a national park or sanctuary, taking people for rides to look at other elephants. It’s with its family — those other elephants.
Dogs which have been domesticated for thousands of years, tolerate far too much from us, so much that they run into acute psychological problems when we so much as leave them alone for 10 minutes (it’s called separation anxiety). When these problems go out of whack completely, the animals turn around and bite us, the same way as when one of us, recently dumped or made redundant perhaps, dresses in army fatigues and marches into that kindergarten with a machine gun and opens up. The cow that sits quietly has probably been building up a head of steam for weeks, thanks to the incessant honking and bedlam around it. One day, the pressure cooker has to burst. The horse that suddenly rears up and throws its rider, has probably been pricked with the spurs or lashed with the whip one time too many.
In nearly every case, animals usually behave like “animals” when they have dealings or interactions with us. Of course, they do fight in the wild, sometimes to death, but only for territory or partners, or while defending their young or hard-won meals. Most fights are decided before either of the combatants gets seriously damaged (ah, if wars could be decided that way, there wouldn’t really be any wars). When a family — be it of elephants or wolves — gets too large, it splits usually without rancour (well, so do many big business families, but without rancour?!).
We often say that one of the major purposes of a zoo is to educate the public about animals and animal behaviour, besides keeping them for captive breeding. The education part can only go so far as to show us what, perhaps, the animal looks like. Nothing more, because no zoo animal behaves like one in the wild. Wild animals do not pace relentlessly up and down, or shake their heads or pluck themselves bald. Behind bars or a moat, they are not allowed to hunt, or chose their mates — or fight for them. Some zoo-raised animals don’t even know how to look after their babies — and behave like “animals” by eating or attacking them. Those babies have to be rescued and hand-reared, keeping the vicious cycle of ignorance going. Their moms behave like this because they’ve never been taught by their own moms or families how to deal with babies (Like what we’re doing with sex education now). Besides, a caged environment is by definition a stressed one.
Back there in jungleland, few animals have mental issues or feel the need to see a psychiatrist. They’re too busy living their own lives, roaring, preening and showing off, fighting for or defending mates and territories, escaping predators, hunting, and bringing up their young. It’s only when we meddle with the equation that matters unravel. Amongst themselves animals generally know how to behave; they behave, should I dare say, humanly.
The family or group knows who’s boss, and why. (And often the boss is not the most macho dude, but a wise old lady who gets along with most, but stands no nonsense from anyone). Rules and decisions are obeyed; everyone knows their place in the hierarchy and pecking order (of course we have a hierarchy and pecking order too, but we spend most of our time pecking at the order!).
While hunting, you might argue that they behave like “animals”. After all, wild dogs and wolves often disembowel and eat their prey alive and that’s cruel. Lions taking over a pride kill the cuddly cubs of the deposed leader. Also cruel. Are our methods of killing (whales, for example) any kinder? We slice fins off sharks and throw the animals back into the sea. And we all know what happens when dictators and terrorist groups take over a country, or take hostages; especially to women and children. So are we behaving like “animals” or are animals trying to behave like us? Some are learning — chimps go to war, so do army ants and killer bees attack in swarms.
But they have a long, long way to go before they can truly behave like the “animals” a lot of us behave like right now. In the meanwhile, let’s stop saying that they do.
Ranjit Lal is an author, environmentalist and birdwatcher.
