📘 Part 3: Animals

This episode's vocabulary

Foremost (adj.) - most important or best; leading.

Companionship (noun) - the enjoyment of being with someone.

Make up for something (idiom) - to use as a replacement for something missing, lost, or lacking.

Deficit (noun) -  lack of something.

Guard dog (noun) - a dog trained to protect a place.

Miserable (adj.) - very unhappy.

Mismanage (verb) - to organize or control something badly.

Consistent (adj.) - always behaving or happening in a similar, especially positive, way.

Induced (verb) - to cause something to happen.

Deteriorate (verb) - to become worse.

Vivarium (noun) - a container, often with a glass front, in which small animals, especially small reptiles, are kept as pets or so that they can be studied.

Beast of burden (noun) - an animal used to perform work.

Niche (adj.) - interesting to, aimed at, or affecting only a small number of people.

Frank (adj.) - honest, sincere, and telling the truth, even when this might be awkward or make other people uncomfortable.

Flora and fauna - the flora and fauna of a place are its plants and animals.

Biodiversity (noun) - the number and types of plants and animals that exist in a particular area or in the world generally, or the problem of protecting this.

Integrity (noun) - the quality of being whole and complete.

Poach (verb) -  to kill animals illegally to get valuable parts of them.

Vanish (verb) - to disappear or stop being present or existing, especially in a sudden, surprising way.

Burden (noun) - something difficult or unpleasant that you have to deal with or worry about.

Domestic animal (noun) - an animal that is not wild and is kept as a pet or to produce food.

Framework (noun) - a system of rules, ideas, or beliefs that is used to plan or decide something.

Advocate (noun) - someone who publicly supports something.

Vindictive (adj.) - having or showing a wish to harm someone because you think that they harmed you; unwilling to forgive.

Lesser of two evil (noun) - the less unpleasant of two choices, neither of which is good.

Vanity (noun) - the personal characteristic of being too proud of and interested in yourself, esp. in your appearance or achievements..

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Questions and Answers

M: Why do people like to keep pets?

R: Well, lots of reasons. I think the foremost is companionship though. Some people struggle to find another person to spend their lives with and an animal makes up for that deficit a little bit. It can be nice to have something that depends on you to come home to and spend time with. And a smaller number of them, keep them for their status or security purposes, like lap dogs and guard dogs.

M: Are zoos good places for wild animals?

R: For some wild animals. If they are cared for and well looked after, yes. Things like amphibians and fish seem to do just fine in zoos. Maybe larger, more complex animals seem to suffer more. I remember seeing a brown bear in Moscow Zoo and it looked pretty miserable, to be honest. Um, and there are zoos which should be shut down completely because they mismanaged their animals so badly.

M: What's the difference between zoos and the wild?

R: Well, zoos have a more consistent and controlled environment compared to the wild, so they're safer. But there's a greater chance of human induced stress on animals if they aren't handled properly. By contrast, the wild is pretty nasty and brutish, and life is shorter there. Some habitats are deteriorating as time goes by also. It seems like the zoos are the lesser of two evils, but not by much.

M: Do animals cause more problems in the countryside than in cities?

R: I have no idea. Um, I suppose in cities there are more likely to spread disease, whereas in the countryside the population is more spread out. They could damage property, but you can always repair that, although I imagine farmers have differing opinions.

M: How are pets now different from those in the past?

R: Well, in the main, there are more pets and greater variety and they are better kept them before. My best friend and his husband have just got a lizard, for example. He seems quite happy to live there in his vivarium. This is just part of the general technological and economic progress of recent decades, I suppose.

M: Is there any difference between the way animals were used for work in the past and nowadays?

R: I suspect fewer animals are used for work purposes compared to before, when the range of fields has narrowed. You used to have beasts of burden on every farm in the country, but now a lot of them have been replaced by machines. Those that remain are raised to provide products more than services. On the other hand, there are more care animals and service dogs, for example, which used to be more niche. The general trend seems to be that there are fewer of them in work more generally though.

M: Why do you think wild animals should be protected?

R: Well, I'm not certain some of them should, to be honest. I'm not really sure what purpose panda bear serve anymore, to be frank, they can't reproduce properly and they don't benefit the general environment in any way. There are some species like tigers which are classed as umbrella species, which means that by protecting them, we also shield and support other flora and fauna. This is an efficient use of resources and helps preserve our natural heritage for future generations. And that's important for grounding people in their context.

M: Do you think animals are important?

R: Not as important as people, but they're still important because they provide important food sources, biodiversity, they maintain environmental integrity, and they help people directly in a number of ways.

M: What should we do to protect endangered animals?

R: Well, nothing we aren't doing already, really. Maybe just do it more consistently. Poaching should be stopped, of course and markets that encourage it should be closed down. Nature reserves should probably be more closely guarded and people should be taught to respect nature as our common heritage. Although I think most of this is happening already, it just could be enforced better.

M: What will happen when some species disappear on Earth?

R: I guess that will depend on their position in the food web or food chain, I think. Some species could vanish today and we won't even notice. Well, I think of all the whales died, for example. Then managing populations of other animals like squid would become a solely human burden since the natural predators of squid would be gone.

M: What problems will keeping pets bring?

R: Do you have to make time to look after them and then make money to feed them and arrange care when you're away? And unlike children, they never leave home. So that's a serious investment of time, money and resources. Despite these issues, though, I think they're worth having.

M: Is it safe for animals to live in cities?

R: Probably safer than in the countryside if we're speaking about domestic animals. City environments are more controlled and there's greater access to resources.

M: Why do some people refuse to eat animals?

R: Well, lots of reasons. There can be moral, ethical or medical in nature. For example, some religions like Jainism prohibit harming anything. And there are frameworks like veganism and vegetarian which preclude this. Or you can have an allergy to animal products, for example, like eggs.

M: Why do more and more people become vegetarians?

R:  I imagine many reasons. For some people it's a fashion choice and they're just following a trend or caving to peer pressure. Others think it's saving money. Probably the majority of people think it's a good moral and ethical choice and it's got a growing number of advocates. So in all of these cases, it's usually people doing what they think is the right thing.

M: Do you support experimentation on animals?

R: When I'm feeling a bit more vindictive towards certain classes of criminal, I often think we should experiment on humans. Since this will probably yield more effective results. Since I think people like murderers, rapists and paedophiles pretty much gave up their humanity by behaving in such ways. But if I rein in my disgust with them and think about it, it's probably not the right thing to do, ultimately. I also think using animals in medical experiments that are absolutely necessary and cause the minimum amount of pain and suffering in the cause of helping others is acceptable. It's like a lesser of two evils. Using them to test make up products to cater to people's vanity is not great. It's kind of despicable, actually. I don't like that.

M: Why has human activity affected some kinds of animals more than others?

R: Well, Charles Darwin said it came down to survival of the fittest, but often people mistake this to mean the strongest. It's actually about the animals best adapted to a situation that will fare the best. So in this case, human expansion across the planet has led us to include animals like dogs and cows for specific purposes which benefit us. This in turn benefits them, but it changes them to animals that we no longer have a use for, or which get in our way don't do so well. So it's a case of fitness for the situation, it seems. I'm not saying that's the right way to do things. I'm just saying that's why it's happening.

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