📘 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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Discussion

M: Rory, thank you so much for your answers! Oh, my God, there are so many topical vocabulary about animals and all the stuff related to animals. So why do we keep pets? Well, pets like dogs, cats, fish, lizards that Rory has mentioned. We also can say domestic animals, so make sure you know what pets are and what domestic animals are. Domestic animals: cows, horses, pigs, chickens,

R: Domesticated animals, yeah.

M: Domesticated animals. Nice. So we keep pets for companionship.

R: Yeah, it's like they're your friends.

M: Like your company. They make up for the deficit of what?

R: Oh, well, the deficit of human companionship. So if you have a deficit, it just means something isn't there or it's not there in a great enough quantity for you.

M: Yeah. So we can say like an animal makes up for the deficit. It's nice to come back home to a dog or to a lizard or a snake. How lovely. Some people keep lap dogs. They're small dogs, usually pretty expensive dogs that you can put in your purse in your bag. Or for those who are blind, for people who can't see they have guard dogs.

R: Well, and guide dogs.

M: Guide. Guard dogs and guide dogs.

R: Yeah. Guide dogs are for people that can't see or hear. Guard dogs just guard your property.

M: Oh right, yes.

R: On the subject of property where you keep dogs, you could keep them in your property. Or if you have a lizard, you keep them in a vivarium.

M: Oh, my God. I love that word.

R: It's like a fish tank for lizards. It's just like another way of speaking about a place where you keep them.

M: You keep your fish in an aquarium or a fish tank, right. Lizards go into vivarium. Fish are called amphibians, right?

R: Not quite. Amphibians are animals that can live in the water and on land.

M: All right. Okay.

R: So like frogs are amphibians.

M: And some zoos, according to Rory, should be shut down because they mismanage their animals badly,

R: So if you shut something down, in this case it's just to close them and mismanaging animals is just treating them badly.

M: Yeah, because animals in some zoos are pretty miserable, like brown bears in the Moscow zoo. A very good word is habitats, so animals' habitats are deteriorating. Oh God, this is so good. Deteriorate.

R: Yeah, habitats are where they live in the wild and deteriorate is just they're falling apart. They're not working well.

M: Yeah, you can use this word deteriorate like to become worse about someone's health. People's health can deteriorate or your level of English is deteriorating. Well, not deteriorating because you're listening to this. Listen to our episode about maintaining your English level. Rory, you've used a nice one. It's the lesser of two evils.

R: Yeah. So whenever you find yourself talking about difficult situations where there's no right or wrong answer, you choose the one which is the least bad. But instead of saying the least bad, you say the lesser of two evils.

M: When you talk about animals, you can say that they spread disease so animals in city can spread disease or damage property. What did you mean by saying beasts of burden on a farm?

R: Well, we covered this in our episode on farming beast of burden. Just do the jobs that nowadays are done by machinery,

M: Horses, right?

R: Yeah, horses pulling plows, for example.

M: Or bulls?

R: Don't think bulls pull plows too. Maybe they do or did. Now they don't.

M: Ok. So on a farm, we have beasts of burden. Wow. We talked about pets, domesticated animals, guard dogs. We also have care animals and service dogs.

R: So service dogs are just dogs that are trained to perform a particular service like guide dogs for the blind or deaf people.

M: I like when you talked about flora and fauna and mind your pronunciation, its flora and fauna. So we also shield and support flora and fauna.

R: Flora and fauna is just another way of saying plants and animals.

M: Yeah, and we shield like we shall protect.  So by protecting certain species, species like kinds of animals, we also shield other flora and fauna. Beautiful, very specific language used. We also can talk about biodiversity. So animals are important, wild animals, domesticated animals, because they contribute to our biodiversity. And they maintain environmental integrity.

R: Yes.

M: That's also from your biology classes?

R: No, that's. Oh, God, I can't remember where I read that. Maybe when I was reading about biology. Um, anyway, environmental integrity is just the preventing things from deteriorating for preventing them from getting worse, keeping them functioning. Making them work properly.

M: Yeah. Poaching should be stopped. That's the word poaching.

R: So poaching is hunting animals, well protected animals in order to harvest them for something. So usually you poach for ivory, which means you shoot or kill elephants and take their tusks.

M: Poaching or poachers. So poachers, people who are into poaching. Poaching, pretty much illegal hunting. Nature is our common heritage. Can we say that animals are our common heritage?

R: Yeah, they make one part of it. So it's just the things that we all use to ground ourselves in reality.

M: Yeah, we can say it like certain animals are disappearing or they are dying out so we can talk about endangered species, or Rory has used a synonym, which is certain species could vanish. Vanish, like puu and no whales anymore.

R: Exactly.

M: Thank you so much for listening and supporting us on our premium. Now we have some cool words about animals and pets and whales and the poaching.

R: So now you can poach some of our vocabulary for your speaking test.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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