Cross-species Communication--Part 1

Cross-species communication is a subject that many people have explored over the ages—with mixed success. Indigenous peoples felt that they could readily do so, as they conferred with their totem animals and other critters around them. Human-to-human communication is sometimes fraught with its own limitations, but is immeasurably easier, because we have evolved a complex and cogent language. Additionally, we humans share a similar sort of mind which assures us that we think alike and hence more readily relate to one another. Finally, human culture is strikingly disparate from animal culture, and that difference adds a major barrier to cross-species communication.

Despite these contrasts, it's been only in recent decades that humans have come to accept the fact that we are just another animal and that we may be able to be more in touch with others critters than we think. There is little fundamental difference between us and many other members of the animal kingdom (especially other mammals)—it's more a matter of degree in how we vary. We seem finally willing to give animals feelings, emotions, and even thoughts—capabilities we once denied them. Among other progressive results, it has brought about better treatment of animals on our part. Where once we even denied them the ability to feel pain (thanks to René Descartes), we now understand that many have the ability for cognitive activities that we once thought were impossible. Yet we still struggle to communicate with our fellow animals.

I recently read a book that delves deeply into an example of the issue of cross-species communication: The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals, by Charles Siebert. He writes about a profound experience he once had with a chimpanzee named Roger. Siebert had long been exploring the ways in which humans treat animals, such as when we domesticate them or keep them in zoos—especially fellow hominids such as chimpanzees. He was researching the ways in which people treat captive chimps, when he visited a Florida retirement home for former apes who had starred in movies, on TV, and in the circus.

One of the chimps, Roger, a former circus star, preferred to keep to himself—ignoring his fellow retirees. When Siebert arrived at Roger's cage, escorted by the director of the retirement home, Roger zeroed in on Siebert, fixing him with a stare, almost as if the chimp knew him from somewhere. It transfixed the man.

Over the next couple of weeks Siebert sojourned at the retirement home and spent many hours, one-on-one, in intense contemplation with Roger. During that time the author experienced some deep connections with the chimp—causing him to shake off many of human society's presumptions about “dumb” animals and how we have mistreated them.

More on communication next time...