The Intelligence of the Animals
By James Donahue
I have a cat that I dearly love. While I doubt if the cat understands the emotion of love I know that she does reciprocate my affection with her trust and a form of adoption to me as her “owner” and the guy that makes sure she is fed, watered and given the comforts of a life at and around my feet. When a strange cat, dog or bird of prey makes her feel threatened she turns to me for protection. It is a responsibility I chose to adopt when this cat came into my life.
I have an understanding of the animals that I think may go beyond the way most people think of these creatures . . . especially those living in the wild. It is impossible for me to hunt and kill any animal so consequently I have become a vegetarian in the foods I choose to eat. I know through news reports and stories passed on via the social media that numerous “hunters” like to boast about the wild creatures they shoot or trap. I have seen the fear in the eyes of the livestock being driven into the slaughterhouses. They seem to know what is about to happen to them and they cry out and buck in a last-ditch effort to break away from the inevitable.
By contrast I grew up on a farm in Michigan where the white-tailed deer lived. There were times when my father and I would be working together in the woods and discover a deer standing nearby, watching us. We were not there to kill and the deer seemed to understand this. I always sent mental thoughts of welcome and friendship when the deer were nearby and they seemed to be content in my presence.
During a time when we lived in Show Low, Arizona, on the edge of the Apache-Sitsgrieve National Forest, I often hiked alone on trails that wound their way through the wilderness. We shared that forest with bear and mountain lion. I know this because I saw their track and the bear sometimes would come into town in the night to raid people’s garbage. I am quite certain these large creatures watched me as I passed them but I never felt threatened. I was not hunting them and they seemed to know this.
One afternoon during the Christmas season I was sitting on our second floor porch enjoying a handful of shelled peanuts when I had a colorful woodpecker land on a nearby railing. The bird was clearly eyeing the nuts in my hand, so I tossed one to the porch floor just to see what would happen. The bird lost no time in seizing the nut and flying off with it. It was not long and the bird was back with friends. Thus began a game of tossing nuts out and watching as they took their prize and flew off with it. Each time I dropped a nut, however, I brought it closer and closer to my feet. Eventually the birds considered the prize too dangerous because it was too close to me. If I looked away they seized the nut and flew off. They understood that if I was watching them they did not dare get too close.
At this point the game between me and the woodpeckers reached a dead heat. I refused to look away and the nut lay within inches of my feet. Suddenly I heard a loud rapping on the side of the building behind me. I turned to see one of the woodpeckers there making the racket. When I looked back the nut was gone. I realized that I had been cleverly tricked by these smart little birds. And they had worked together to trick me. That was intelligence.
Of course I need at this point to tell the treasured family story of a crow that teased my father over his vegetable garden. It seem that this crow showed up just as Dad was planting a row of beans. He had used his hoe to cut a straight pit through the dirt and then began dropping seeds. When he glanced back he found the crow hopping along right behind him, eating the seeds. His efforts to chase off the bird failed so Dad busied himself the rest of that afternoon, building a scare crow and setting it in the center of his garden. The next morning when Dad returned to the garden he found the crow perched on one shoulder of the scarecrow, staring at him.
At this point I think if my father had possessed a gun he would have shot the crow. But it was never in his nature to kill the animals so Dad resorted to other tactics. He tried leaving a radio playing 24 hours a day. The crow seemed to like the radio messages. He experimented with various scents to no avail. The crow was obviously enjoying his daily tiff with my ever angering father.
The situation with the crow got ridiculous before it was over. My parents slept in a second floor bedroom at the rear of the house, with a window overlooking the garden. One morning Dad awoke to find that crow standing on the window sill staring in at him. I think back on this story with personal amazement that a bird in the wild could engage in a personal game with my father as complex as that one was.
I don’t think my father enjoyed the humor in his crow story at the time it was happening. But it was a story told and retold with much rivalry in the years that followed.
By James Donahue
I have a cat that I dearly love. While I doubt if the cat understands the emotion of love I know that she does reciprocate my affection with her trust and a form of adoption to me as her “owner” and the guy that makes sure she is fed, watered and given the comforts of a life at and around my feet. When a strange cat, dog or bird of prey makes her feel threatened she turns to me for protection. It is a responsibility I chose to adopt when this cat came into my life.
I have an understanding of the animals that I think may go beyond the way most people think of these creatures . . . especially those living in the wild. It is impossible for me to hunt and kill any animal so consequently I have become a vegetarian in the foods I choose to eat. I know through news reports and stories passed on via the social media that numerous “hunters” like to boast about the wild creatures they shoot or trap. I have seen the fear in the eyes of the livestock being driven into the slaughterhouses. They seem to know what is about to happen to them and they cry out and buck in a last-ditch effort to break away from the inevitable.
By contrast I grew up on a farm in Michigan where the white-tailed deer lived. There were times when my father and I would be working together in the woods and discover a deer standing nearby, watching us. We were not there to kill and the deer seemed to understand this. I always sent mental thoughts of welcome and friendship when the deer were nearby and they seemed to be content in my presence.
During a time when we lived in Show Low, Arizona, on the edge of the Apache-Sitsgrieve National Forest, I often hiked alone on trails that wound their way through the wilderness. We shared that forest with bear and mountain lion. I know this because I saw their track and the bear sometimes would come into town in the night to raid people’s garbage. I am quite certain these large creatures watched me as I passed them but I never felt threatened. I was not hunting them and they seemed to know this.
One afternoon during the Christmas season I was sitting on our second floor porch enjoying a handful of shelled peanuts when I had a colorful woodpecker land on a nearby railing. The bird was clearly eyeing the nuts in my hand, so I tossed one to the porch floor just to see what would happen. The bird lost no time in seizing the nut and flying off with it. It was not long and the bird was back with friends. Thus began a game of tossing nuts out and watching as they took their prize and flew off with it. Each time I dropped a nut, however, I brought it closer and closer to my feet. Eventually the birds considered the prize too dangerous because it was too close to me. If I looked away they seized the nut and flew off. They understood that if I was watching them they did not dare get too close.
At this point the game between me and the woodpeckers reached a dead heat. I refused to look away and the nut lay within inches of my feet. Suddenly I heard a loud rapping on the side of the building behind me. I turned to see one of the woodpeckers there making the racket. When I looked back the nut was gone. I realized that I had been cleverly tricked by these smart little birds. And they had worked together to trick me. That was intelligence.
Of course I need at this point to tell the treasured family story of a crow that teased my father over his vegetable garden. It seem that this crow showed up just as Dad was planting a row of beans. He had used his hoe to cut a straight pit through the dirt and then began dropping seeds. When he glanced back he found the crow hopping along right behind him, eating the seeds. His efforts to chase off the bird failed so Dad busied himself the rest of that afternoon, building a scare crow and setting it in the center of his garden. The next morning when Dad returned to the garden he found the crow perched on one shoulder of the scarecrow, staring at him.
At this point I think if my father had possessed a gun he would have shot the crow. But it was never in his nature to kill the animals so Dad resorted to other tactics. He tried leaving a radio playing 24 hours a day. The crow seemed to like the radio messages. He experimented with various scents to no avail. The crow was obviously enjoying his daily tiff with my ever angering father.
The situation with the crow got ridiculous before it was over. My parents slept in a second floor bedroom at the rear of the house, with a window overlooking the garden. One morning Dad awoke to find that crow standing on the window sill staring in at him. I think back on this story with personal amazement that a bird in the wild could engage in a personal game with my father as complex as that one was.
I don’t think my father enjoyed the humor in his crow story at the time it was happening. But it was a story told and retold with much rivalry in the years that followed.