Essay On Nonhuman Animals

Most people associate feelings and emotion with only human beings, not with nonhuman animals. Less than 41% of people believe that nonhuman animals have emotions and are capable of displaying and acting on them, similar as to what humans would do (Livescience). There are many signs pointing towards the conclusion that nonhuman animals are also sentient beings. Specifically, scientists said that all vertebrates are in some way sentient beings, ranging from birds to fish, and reptiles to mammals. Animals are able to express their varying emotions through audible sounds, body gestures, and animal-specific stereotypical behaviors. We can detect different emotions from animals based on the sounds that they make, such as laughing or chuckling when happy, or groans and various different moans when upset or disgruntled. Studies showed that different animals laugh when tickled, specifically young orangutans and monkeys, even rats, showing signs of pleasure and enjoyment. Humans also give off sound when being tickled, to show our pleasure and excitement. Dogs are somewhat different in that respect. Although dogs give off audible sounds when being amused, it’s not the same as the laughter that rats, humans, and other monkey species make but it is more of a huffing sound that make when engaged in play or just generally happy.
Animals make sounds in joyous times, in addition to grief-stricken times.
As I previously stated dogs make huffing sounds when they are joyous, but a study showed that when they are taken back to the shelter, they may let out something somewhat similar to a human’s disgruntled sigh, but more times than not, they will become very silent and calm, and to me silence is the loudest sound. The animal that is most similar to human signs of grief are elephants. Recently, I read about and watched a video about and young elephant that was rejected by its mother, the young elephant cried for hours on the ride back to an animal refuge. (ABC
News) Another way animal express their emotions are through their body gestures, or body language. Similar to humans, when animals are feeling a certain type of emotion, whether it's when they’re excited or depressed, the posture and actions of the animal change drastically. Most animals when happy or excited, they stand upright and seem to have some kind of confidence about them, but when upset, their body language changes from standing upright to being slouched over with a lowered head. For example, dogs when ecstatic, they stand upright with pointed ears and a wagging tail. As opposed, to when they are not as exuberant, dogs slouch over in a very submissive stance with droopy ears, and a downed tail. Animals are exactly like humans in that respect, you can tell how they are feeling based on their body language. Animals display emotion through stereotypic behaviors as well. Stereotypical behaviors are behavior, not native to an animal, but happens when animals are held in captivity and under tremendous amounts of stress. It’s said that these behaviors are abnormal because animals in the wild, but because of the minimum amount of habitat-like environment the zoos and/or aquariums can provide because of the limited amount of space they have to use. For example, polar bears held in zoos often display these behaviors. Polar bears are used to walking miles upon miles a day, but confined in small space, they exhibit, what scientist refer to as, “Class A” stereotypical behavior in pacing. Pacing is a common behavior for both human and nonhuman animals. Pacing is caused by nervousness, anxiousness, and stress. Whales in seaworld often have stereotypical, even though more uncommon than pacing, whales often have been documented performing self-harm. There was a case, in which, an killer whale (orca) was being held in a small tub-like tank and the whale cried out, but when no one came, the whale began to bang its head on the tank until it later died from the trauma. Like pacing, self-harming is a behavior displayed by both humans and animals based on their emotion, in this case the animal would have to be in a great deal of stress and emotional pain. Contrary to what most people believe, I feel that animals are capable of having emotions, as well as expressing them, whether it be through the sounds they make, their body language, or the behaviors they exhibit. Sources and Scientist say that animals have emotion and there are plenty of examples and cases shown which lead me to believe that animals indeed have emotions and are able to express them almost as clearly as humans.