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https://www.science.org/content/article/not-dumb-creatures-livestock-surprise-scientists-their-complex-emotional-minds>
"Dummerstorf, Germany—You’d never mistake a goat for a dog, but on an
unseasonably warm afternoon in early September, I almost do. I’m in a red-brick
barn in northern Germany, trying to keep my sanity amid some of the most unholy
noises I’ve ever heard. Sixty Nigerian dwarf goats are taking turns crashing
their horns against wooden stalls while unleashing a cacophony of bleats,
groans, and retching wails that make it nearly impossible to hold a
conversation. Then, amid the chaos, something remarkable happens. One of the
animals raises her head over her enclosure and gazes pensively at me, her
widely spaced eyes and odd, rectangular pupils seeking to make contact—and
perhaps even connection.
It’s a look we see in other humans, in our pets, and in our primate relatives.
But not in animals raised for food. Or maybe we just haven’t been looking hard
enough.
That’s the core idea here at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology
(FBN), one of the world’s leading centers for investigating the minds of goats,
pigs, and other livestock. On a campus that looks like a cross between a farm
and a small research institute—with low-rise buildings nestled among pastures,
stables, and the occasional dung pile—scientists are probing the mental and
emotional lives of animals we’ve lived with for thousands of years, yet, from a
cognitive perspective, know almost nothing about.
The work is part of a small, but growing field that’s beginning to overturn the
idea that livestock are dumb and unworthy of scientific attention. Over the
past decade, researchers at FBN and elsewhere have shown that pigs show signs
of empathy, goats rival dogs in some tests of social intelligence, and, in one
of the field’s, um, splashiest recent finds, cows can be potty trained,
suggesting a self-awareness behind the blank stares and cud chewing that has
shocked even some experts.
“There’s a lot to be learned by studying the mental lives of these creatures,”
says Christopher Krupenye, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist who explores
cognition in humans and more traditional animal models such as chimpanzees and
dogs. Ignoring livestock, he says, has been a “missed opportunity” by the
scientific community."
Via Diane A.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
