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When Animals Rescue - Catherine - 04-11-2021
Animal behaviorists have resisted attributing emotions and intelligence to animals. Certainly all thought of animal empathy and altruism is rejected.
In her book Belinda Recio presents a series of stories of animals acting with empathy and compassion. She presents the case for animal altruism by showing us cases of animal altruism. We can explain some of the examples, but when it is a hippo preventing a wildebeest from drowning, it is hard to find another explanation. She has many stories and they do make people think, even behaviorists.
It is a book that needed to be written.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/eye-opening-acts-of-empathy-in-the-animal-kingdom/2021/04/08/5a6f76a2-80ff-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html
We really do resist seeing animals as they really are. We don't want to see their intelligence or their emotions. We certainly don't want to see them as kind and compassionate. That would mean that they sometimes behave better than we do and perhaps more than sometimes.
If enough people read and reflect on acts of animal kindness we might see animals in a better light and we might feel the need to behave better ourselves.
Good thing this book was written.