Animal Envy

by Ralph Nader

  These last two pieces received high ratings, so much so that some animals felt they had humans in the palm of their paws (or flippers or wings), and should hit them with some harder fare about environmental degradation. But wary of the near debacle brought on when the mosquitos and bed bugs came on screen, the TRIAD decided to keep up with the soft soap.

  Why not do a show that had been prepared with children in mind? After all, children had imaginary animal friends in all human cultures. Preschool children are very animal-centric, so much so that they imagine themselves as those creatures. They have another, less admirable side to them, however. The younger the children are, according to Dr. Kellert, a social ecologist at Yale, the more “exploitative, harsh and unfeeling” they can be, putting needs of humans over those of animals. The TRIAD wanted to appeal to the former traits to sensitize the human youth of the world for they will be the future decision makers. The TRIAD also wanted to reach and encourage the thousands of adult writers of children books for pre-teens whose major themes are fairytales of children rescuing animals or animals saving the children from danger or evil ones.

  When they were constructing this segment, an e-mail from a swallow suggested the right approach: show the children how animals feed and raise their young, how they guard the young with their lives, no matter what. The swallow cautioned that the parents would not like the child-raising to start with any lovemaking or mating rituals, especially among mammals or the big fish. They might see such sights as pornography. The Elephant was, of course, the first to agree, and the TRIAD took up the swallow’s idea. It fit with a candid camera approach.

  Live pictures from all over the world were assembled. Some were very dramatic, like that of an elephant herd slowing down for an injured baby elephant to keep it from being eaten by hunting lions. Marsupials were next, always fascinating with their pouches and the tiny, tiny size of the newly born. In one clip, newborn goats in the Rocky Mountains, hardly able to walk, were being taught by their parents to negotiate scary cliffs and cross swollen streams. Other shots showed an eagle’s nest with the wide-open, trusting mouths of the eaglets swallowing whatever mother eagle brings from her incessant hunting raids on land and on sea.

  Millions of moms and dads, with their young ones, turned off their usual kid TV shows and were glued to “Animals Are Kids Too!” Nothing so far in this remarkable hundred-hour immersion so sensitized and, in their parlance, “humanized” the animal world like this program.

  One part showed a big brown mother bear defending her little ones from a perceived threat from nearby hunters gunning for moose. The bear hurled itself at the hunters at top speed, far from the cubs, and was shot by the fearful hunters, leaving the cubs to certain death at the jaws of wolves or coyotes. The little children broke down in tears flowing from a transformative—the TRIAD hoped—empathy.

  Another part broadcast the fact that a single pair of chickadees will forage for their babies between 400 and 570 caterpillars a day, from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. “Can you imagine such dedication?” wondered out loud a very wary caterpillar clinging to a red oak.

  “I sure can,” added another just before being plunked away by the beak of a mother chickadee.

  “Incredible information feedback,” tweeted a young software designer working on avant-garde apps.

  “Beyond magical, what play action,” observed his mentor.

  What made these touching spectacles so engrossing was that the papas and mamas were communicating to the humans as they were on the screen. Many human parents began calling for two-way interactions, so they could talk to, say, the goat mother. The Human Genius who devised this cross-species software had to intervene and say that was not possible yet but he was working on it.

  Maybe it was just as well, whispered the Owl, “We don’t want too many human references to be the context, which would happen if two-way was too quickly underway.” Already, the humans’ Discovery Channel series of gorgeous nature photography titled “North America” had been criticized by humans for giving the pictured “animals’ struggles overly human frames of reference.”

  At this point, with humans so full of empathy after watching the animal families, the TRIAD was ready to try some of the more difficult stuff, the rehabilitation of other despised species. Cockroaches hadn’t done so badly, though bed bugs had proved a hard, no, impossible sell. What about maggots? And their good buddies, leeches?

  Disgusting but Enlightening

  A global chorus of “ughs” rose to a near crescendo on seeing the repulsive creatures on the screen, which was just the point the leech and the maggot wanted to make: to begin to break the putrid stereotype in a spectacular way.

  “So you think we’re just so disgusting that you’ve turned our names into dictionary epithets,” sucked the leech.

  “So you think my name is associated with sickly fleas, flies and vultures, aye,” chewed the maggot.

  “Well,” they said together, “think again. Modern medical science has taken ancient usage into new applications.”

  The leech explained that its natural ability to draw blood with saliva containing a rare mix of anticoagulants, vasodilators, and anesthetics is used in hospitals for patients undergoing reconstructive surgery or the reattachment of limbs. He quoted Dr. Ronald A. Sherman, saying, “Decompressing the appendage by draining venous blood with leeches for a few days, until the venous drainage system can reconnect itself, often saves the transplant.” At Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, physicians use “leech therapy for some patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.” But not any leeches. “They have to be medical grade, bred and processed to meet FDA regulations as medical devices,” proudly declared the leech.

  The maggot was not to be outshone. “We medical-grade maggots are used to treat far more frequent ailments such as diabetic foot ulcers, bedsores, and gangrene. For we excrete the kind of enzyme that dissolves dead tissue while disinfecting the wound to speed healing. Granted, we need to be sterilized first and placed under a specially constructed dressing. So before you turn your curled lip further, remember, if you had these painful conditions in your body, you’d have a more open mind at how much relief maggots and leeches can give you without the cost of drugs with side effects,” revealed the maggot as it and its partner the leech slid off the stage.

  Of all the horrifying reactions from around the wild world, the least shocked were Mexican viewers since in their country wild insects, including stink bugs, crickets, grasshoppers, and giant winged ants, are fast expanding as culinary delicacies and in some restaurants high gourmet cuisine. Miguel and Maria Espinoza, watching together, even found the leech and maggot attractive and wondered if they could persuade one of the food companies to look into breeding them. “Protein is protein,” exclaimed Maria.

  Let’s face it, the world’s human citizens are all concerned about health so the news of the leech’s and maggot’s medical value did cause quite a few viewers to reassess their attitudes toward these fauna. And then there’s a strong segment of humans who love to try the newest cuisine, loving to claim they were the first to taste the latest food. They, too, wondered about putting a few bugs in the blender.

  The TRIAD was congratulating itself on pushing the right buttons. With these sensitizing shows succeeding both in ratings and depth of impact on humans, the TRIAD believed it was time to test humans’ capacity to rethink some of their worst images of some fauna. The TRIAD selected and invited the snakehead, called a “slimy fish,” out of Little Hunting Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, to go on the screen and make a most personal appeal:

  Dripping with mucus, the snakehead began:

  “It is true that due to no fault of our own, you humans have defamed us, first as ‘an invasive species’ from East Asia and now as ‘mud fish’ that slimes its way through life, fast breeding, fast growing, ugly headed, chomping down amphibians when not hibernating during the winter months.

  “Here are my facts.

  First, are we really t
hat bad looking? As the Wall Street Journal noted, many of us live in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. We find each other attractive. Even so, beauty is in the eye of the beholder so I must accept your verdict. Even if my wife doesn’t.

  “Me and my wife live in stagnant waters with very low-dissolved oxygen. She lays tens of thousands of eggs near the top of our favorite hydrilla patch, which we guard until the larva hatch. We are not hunters like the Asian carp, but we’ll swallow little fish that happen to pass by our mouths. Because we live near the water’s surface, we are often attacked by strong birds. Humans who have caught and fried us find our white and mild meat very delicious.

  “Sure, if we’re hooked by fishermen, we’ll fight like hell, wouldn’t you? In that struggle for survival, we’ve been called ‘bulldog[s]’ or, it’s said, we ‘hit like a freight train’ on the deck of the boat. Your fish biologist, John Odenkirk, does not think we’re unsettling the Potomac’s ecosystem. You can catch up to twenty of us per fisherman per day.

  “So what’s our crime? We’re just trying to raise and provide for our family and dodge our predators. As for our mucus, have you ever seen the grease on your professional wrestlers? Or humans who use bear grease to protect them from insect bites in the wilds. At least our mucus is mucus!

  “But let’s look at the possible benefits to you of my existence. Humans need protein, which is what fishes are made up of in goodly amount. Yet humans, I must say, in selecting fish to eat are restricted in full use of the protein by a vanity, or more precisely two vanities. First is the looks of the fish. Second is the popularity on the restaurant menus.

  “So for decades you caught cod and salmon, but threw back into the Pacific waters the pollock. What’s the difference? All of them are protein and have a good taste and texture. Finally, pollock have reached your menu. But each year, fishes without popular trade names are thrown back into the ocean, the estimate is millions of tons. Pardon, if ye old snakehead calls this the vanities of the fisheries.

  “The second point I want to make is about looks. Few people like squid or octopi or jelly fish because of their looks. Some people used to recoil at seeing catch fish. Now it is the Asian carp’s turn. Asian carp is a delicacy in China but if caught in the Mississippi River it is considered garbage. But Americans who have tasted it say it’s OK.

  “I’m just saying, think about me. I’m not good-looking, stuck with a horrible name, and am sure not on any restaurant menu. I am targeted for extinction because I eat other fish—so do others you have on your menu, like the voracious salmon—and now I’m stuck with a virus killing largemouth bass. So, for me, if it’s a choice between extinction or turning into a menu item, I’ll take the latter any day.

  “May I suggest to you humans an article by John Kelly in the Washington Post titled ‘Maybe the Snakehead Just Needs a Good Publicist.’ Mr. Kelly asks, ‘What if I was called the American freedom fish or sponsored a charity event? Would people like me more? So is there a public relations firm willing to represent us ‘snakeheads’ for the greater good of us and the human diet? Bon appétit.’

  “Ponder his words, humans,” added the snakehead.

  The ratings hadn’t plummeted, but many humans, the polls were showing, couldn’t process the information. They were disgusted by the fish’s ugly look and couldn’t fit that with his self-presentation as a caring family man and tasty dish. And as the TRIAD pondered their next segment, an interloper ran on stage. This was the worst possible time for the human public, after being bombarded with views of the snakehead, to have to see a pair of stinkbugs!

  Stinkbugs Gone Wild

  Seeing so many other once-loathed bugs and fish being rehabilitated, these impetuous bugs felt that their time had come and that their besieged position justified their running on stage.

  One said, “Humans are plotting to round us up with lures in traps and gas us to death. At the same time, Mexicans are catching us in the wild for crunchy, delicious food, even eating us live in their tortillas! We’re spreading and multiplying fast all over the country. We know you’ll catch some of us, so why not export us in volume to Mexico for hard currency? It will be at least a useful end for us to feed hungry Mexicans, and for you, it’ll help your balance of payments. P.S. Can’t you give us a more dignified name? As they say, one man’s bad smell is another woman’s perfume.”

  It was a short message, but rubbed humans the wrong way. Suburban Virginians were sending messages of alarm. “Show us what we can do about stink bugs that are eating our gardens alive and crawling everywhere in our homes,” the Virginians wrote. Limburger yelled, “These noxious vermin should be exterminated.”

  Meanwhile, other garden dwellers were voicing solidarity with these maligned stinkbugs. A torrent of support came from black-and-yellow garden spiders, a Chinese mantis, a wheel bug, and a European mantis, all of whom were busy devouring ever more stinkbugs. In unison they cried: “Show humans how we insects can be on their side, how we can reduce their invasion of stinkbugs, an immigrant from Asia that cost human farms and gardeners millions of dollars in crop losses.”

  Particularly vociferous were the Asian beetles known as the emerald ash borers. They wanted to go on stage to complain, “It’s true my kind has killed tens of millions of ash trees in the past ten years—whether in cities or in the wilds—and we don’t have a single ax. Humans are throwing everything they’ve got against us: the hated woodpeckers, nuthatches, and those lousy parasite wasps who find us tasty. Foresters estimate losses so far of as much as twenty-five billion dollars.

  “We know ash trees are used for making baseball bats and furniture. We want you, oh mighty TRIAD, to broadcast this message: ‘Humans, know that we came from China, hitchhiking in packing materials. In case you have never seen us, we’re a half-inch long bug with green wings and a reddish stomach. You can’t stop us from our meal. Neither Chinese wasps nor birds can stop us. They can eat a lot of us but we still multiply. You might be asking why I’m telling you all this. It’s because you need to be more humble. Compare our brain neurons with yours and guess who’s winning. I’m sorry to have to make you angry, to make you humble, but humility can become a great asset for your own survival and health. Now, excuse me while I continue to munch through this temporarily magnificent eighty-foot ash near Detroit.’” Hmmmm, hummm, crunch.

  The TRIAD was not about to allow these guys to get on screen to further offend humans. Indeed, the Owl noted a story in the Wall Street Journal that quoted Andrew Liebhold, an insect researcher with the U.S. Forest Service, who said, “We have just seen the tip of the iceberg. In Detroit, there are a lot of dead trees everywhere. We’re going to see that in every Eastern city in the next 20 to 30 years. It’s kind of a horrific thing.”

  Things were looking grim as the TRIAD scrambled to regain the initiative; just then they were hit by another body blow.

  A raven flew into the position room of the TRIAD with a gloomy press release by the publisher of a new book called Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America. “Quickly take note,” the raven said. “This is serious, you need to read the fearful attitude toward animals Americans have, as examined by the author, Jon Mooallem. You must develop a response to treat this pessimism that has devastating consequences for all of us, forever more.”

  Open Mike

  The TRIAD declared another recess and announced resumption of the TALKOUT in three days. Ravens are taken seriously by the animal kingdom, more so than crows, who seem more nervous and frantic. Mooallem’s book had to be examined. The TRIAD announced an open mike assembly worldwide, temporarily encrypted to block the human audience by the Human Genius, so as to elicit candid suggestions on the following thesis:

  Mooallem recognizes humans are destroying the planet and then moves to introspection about why the human animals deal with the wild animals in North American as they do. He says that our movies, books and schools are full of fish and fowl that act like peo
ple, giving them human attributes which humans have “draped over animals, and on top of each other like translucent silk scarves.” Mooallem questions whether humans have ever been able to see wild animals at all.

  Humans’ concept of the wilderness is being redefined every generation as it shrinks or relies for its survival on conservation efforts. He calls this “gardening the wilderness,” which moves conservation toward domestication, e.g., zoos and captive births. He portrays full-time conservationists as members of a species of “achingly imperfect people, working to achieve something more moral than they are. This is all there is, and all there ever could be,” he concludes sadly.

  Such deadly pessimism is contagious, related the TRIAD, and this pessimism/depression/futility can only be lifted by the animal kingdom, whose slow-motion destruction comprises the basis for the gloom and the doom. Take it from here, open mike ANIMAL KINGDOM!

  Of all animals provoked, the sloth stepped up first. “I am not known as a motivator, but humans are really going off my chart with their despair. They must think too much. Here they are on top of the evolution ladder, with all their cumulative power over us, and they’re wringing their hands. Too many perverse temptations or cravings and too many bad guys.

  “I say, question their maturity, invite them to see how we do more with less and have no neuroses, no nervous breakdowns to my knowledge, and we don’t commit suicide or make big armies kill each other. Humility is one cure for their ills, and we’re the ones to get them to that state,” the sloth concluded.

  “I would add tranquility,” uttered the venerable tortoise. “Look what it has done for us. We live up to and sometimes over a hundred years under our protective shield. Humans need to simmer down, take it easy, and stop always being on the run, chasing rabbits with greyhounds.”