Bekoff: Feeling the pain of animals

We're not the only ones who have emotions

April 1, 2007

As a scientist who's studied animal emotions for more than 30 years, I consider myself very fortunate. I love what I do. I love learning about animals, and I love sharing what my colleagues and I discover with others. Whenever I observe or work with animals, I get to contribute to "science" and develop social relationships at the same time, and to me, there's no conflict between those activities.

While stories about animal emotions abound, there are many lines of scientific support (what I call "science sense") about the nature of animal emotions that are rapidly accumulating from behavioral and neurobiological studies (from the emerging field called social neuroscience using fMRIs and PET scans). Common sense and intuition also feed into and support science sense, and the obvious conclusion is that at least mammals experience rich and deep emotional lives, feeling passions ranging from pure and contagious joy shared so widely among others during play that it is almost epidemic, to deep grief and pain. There also are recent data that show that birds and fish also are sentient and experience pain and suffering....

Source: Bekoff: Feeling the pain of animals
Author: Marc Bekoff

Link: Time in the Animal Mind


Other EVANA-articles about this topic:
USA: This land is their land, too (en)

Dr. Marc Bekoff - the interview (en)

New book by Marc Bekoff: The Emotional Lives of Animals (en)