These photos and the story has been circulating in the internet for a long time now. I am sure many of you have seen it before. I am reproducing the photos and the story here because I’m sometimes told by some people that I should not “humanise” animals, that they have no feelings and they do not feel as we do.
I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
An female sparrow is injured on the road. A car had hit her.
She cries for help.
He mate flies down and brings food for her.
He goes back and forth, trying to bring as much food as possible for her.
But he soon finds her lying still. He tries to move her to wake her up.
But she is already dead.
He still tries to revive her, but to no avail.
He stands beside her, aware that she will never come back to life.
He cries in sorrow.
Apparently, millions of people cried after seeing these photos in America, Europe, Australia and even India.
The photographer sold these pictures for a nominal fee to the most famous newspaper in France. All copies of that edition were sold out on the day these pictures were published.
And many people think animals don’t have feelings?
Comments
6 responses to “A sparrow story”
Sister, another related video that is happening post-Japan quake.
Thank you so much for sharing.
Dr. Chan, you misunderstand. Not humanising animals does NOT mean that animals do not have feelings. They do, but they do not reason like humans do.
Hello Anon,
Thanks for clarifying. I agree they cannot reason like humans as they are not humans. You're absolutely right on that.
My vet tells me that all the time too. But he also tells me they cannot feel. We just agree to disagree on that!
Are you the one who commented on Joanie and the one who asked me to get Wii adopted months ago when I first highlighted his plight? It sounds like you! But you'd rather remain anonymous?
Well, thank you very much for your comments. You were right about Wii.
Are you by any chance, my vet???
haha….
BTW, I'm not a vet, so I don't know much about animals.
Hope to hear (and learn) more from you again. Thanks!
kahyein
Yes, dear, I am the same … and no, dear, I ain't your vet … but I am approaching to being a "barefoot" vet ….
And yes, dear, I do agree with you that your vet is wrong, so wrong about animals not being able to feel … aiyah, how can a vet be so wrong lah …
Animals can and do have a great capacity to feel, especially the love and gratefulness part (much more than many, many 2-leggeds). And they also have a feeling of trust and loyalty. But they do not hold grudges or take revenge. They only act in self defense for fear of harm.
Not humanising them simply means we must understand they do not have our 3rd lobe of the brain for reason and logic. They have the other 2 lobes that we humans have.
However they are able to connect incidents which enables them to be trained.
Example, when they knock over the garbage bin, it makes a big sound and you always appear out of nowhere like a giant with a red, angry face.
That is why every time that garbage bin falls over with a huge bang, your furball runs away, it expects to see your red angry face.
Or each time you appear and reach for the kibble jar, rattling it before scooping the goodies on to their dish, those smart alecs connect your appearance, the sound of kibbles in the jar with "yummies coming!" and they meow in harmony like a well rehearsed orchestra! 🙂
Extremely happy to know about Wii, dear! Extremely, extremely happy!
No all vets are familiar about animal behaviour, just like not all doctors are familiar with human psychology. It is another specialised area. It takes an animal behaviourist to understand animal behavior. And it takes a cat behaviourist to understand cat behaviour because animals are different. For example, cats behave differently from dogs because cats are not pack animals while dogs are. And then prey animals behave differently from predator animals. Cats are belong to the group of animals which are both predator (towards smaller animals like rats) and prey (by larger animals like wolves and dogs). Also, the physiology of a cat is different from that of a dog in that a cat is an ultimate carnivore with different dietary needs compared with for example, a dog which is omnivore. One more thing is the toxicity of certain foods and medication which are alright with dogs but not okay for the cats.
And sadly, not all vets are informed about all these details. They just get about treating the animals with what they learnt in vet school ….