If I Could Talk to the Animals, Should I Talk to the Animals?
If I Could Talk to the Animals, Should I Talk to the Animals?
What should you say to a swan if you could say something to a swan?
This is the world of Doctor Dolittle
The wonderful world of Doctor Dolittle
Where crocodiles talk
And elephants sing
And animals do most any old thing
I have no hesitation admitting that I talk to my cat.
I ask her if she slept well.
I ask her if she’s hungry, even though all of the physical indicators suggest that she is.
I also did this with the pack of pups we always had running around the house when I was growing up.
Maybe it was my Southern manners, but it just seemed rude not to.
I never expected a response outside of a purr, a groan or bark that I could wildly misinterpret to whatever narrative I had in my head. In fact, it probably would have been worse if I fully understood their responses. It was and still is a reassuring interaction that makes me feel a deeper connection to the non-human world. And I’m not alone.
One survey found 84% of people regularly converse with their pets. So maybe you’re the weird one if you’ve got your face scrunched up like a judgemental driving instructor right now.
So when I came across the Earth Species Project (ESP), I was pretty stoked.
The ESP uses artificial intelligence to try to decode non-human animal communication into something we can humans can understand. If you don’t immediately think this is amazing, watch and listen to this talk by founder Aza Raskin.
“We believe that an understanding of non-human languages will transform our relationship with the rest of nature.” - Earth Species Project
Pretty wild stuff, eh? My mind immediately starts racing.
What would a member of the endangered Southern Resident orcas tell me about the vessel noise that inhibits their ability to talk to their pod?
What would the water vole in England tell me about its resurgence after it was nearly wiped out by American minks imported for the fashion trade?
How would the prairie dog, who Terry Tempest Williams has written so beautifully about, respond to being called “pop guts”?
What would a polar bear say about its image being used without compensation by a company selling colored sugar water? (That also happens to be the world’s largest plastic polluter.)
While I am curious as all get-out, I don’t think we could handle their response. And I don’t think we’d use such a gift with the wisdom it requires.
Case in point, Atmos recently published a piece on the ethical dilemmas of non-human animal communication.
“Imagine any story you’ve ever heard about Earth’s non-human species. In all of these stories, the animal is the object or the subject, but never the narrator or the reporter.” - Katie Zacarian, co-founder of the ESP
Zacarian makes a really good point. Even as I write this, I center my experience of engaging with my cat. I don’t know for sure exactly how my cat experiences my questions, and maybe even frustration that I can’t understand her responses. It might not be a game changer to hear from my domestic shorthair, but first hand tales from the plight of an Arctic Polar Bear? Heck yes.
However, the article also brings in perspective from the founding director of the More than Human Life Project at New York University, César Rodríguez-Garavito.
Rodríguez-Garavito is quick to point out that cracking the code of non-human animal language could bring up serious questions. For example, if we can understand what language attracts animals, what is to stop a tour boat operator from using it to lure whales to unsafe distances near tourists?
As I’ve written about with geoengineering, while the technology may be amazing, we live in a capitalist, market-driven society with relatively low regulation. We’ve moving at pace with little oversight. To put it bluntly, this shit could go terribly wrong.
That’s why Rodríguez-Garavito is working with a team of ethicists and experts including “Indigenous leaders, anthropologists, and biologists” to set some “ethical guardrails.” I hope they work fast.
I fear that what we’d find is not Dolittle’s vision of elephants singing and crocodiles talking, but our cohabitors of planet Earth pleading with us to just shut up and listen.
One More Thing
Polar Bears Increasingly Crossing Paths with Humans (The Guardian)
I get immensely frustrated by stories like these.
“It took 20 shots before it thought about leaving, I’ve never seen that before.” A fisherman in Rankin Inlet talking about firing gun shots to warn polar bear off a summer fishing spot.
We humans think we have a prevailing right over non-human animals to resources like fish. Yet, as sea ice melts and polar bears go searching for food, these human and non-human interactions will increase and humans don’t stand much of a chance against polar bears.
While we may or may not be able to communicate with polar bears in the future, we will still share a planet with them…hopefully. Giving them the respect they deserve and a wide berth to secure their and their families’ livelihood is the least we can do.