Why do we think we can cuddle a bison?
Do not attempt to cuddle the bison
This year, an 83-year-old woman was gored by a bison in Yellowstone National Park.
Yes. Gored.*
It lifted her a foot off the ground. I hope she’s ok. No one deserves that.
This is not the only time. This happens every year, at least once per year someone will be injured by a bison in Yellowstone National Park. They are always a tourist. They are always doing something around bison that they should not be doing.
In my work on human/wildlife conflict, I focused most often on the animals we hate. But what I found made me think a lot about the animals we love. Because whether we love or hate animals, what I found is that we don’t respect them.
One of the things that I learned most clearly when writing my book is that we approach animals from our own perspective. We see them as we expect them to behave. And we expect THEM to see us in the same way.
What we think of them
First, we see animals and we have expectations about their behavior. I often blame this on things like documentaries and Disney, where we see the natural world safely behind a screen. Where animals speak with human voices. In those shows, David Attenborough crouches gently next to a wild creature, and the wild creature barely reacts.
The reality is that documentaries are meant to make you feel close to an animal. But they aren’t not meant to be REAL. Sometimes, animals are filmed in zoos. Often cameras are powerful enough that the filmmakers are much further away than you think they are. This is important because wild animals are, er, wild. You get too close and that animal may not react like you think.
One of my favorite examples of this is when a highly endangered kakapo up and mated with the back of a cameraman’s neck during filming.
Hilarious? Oh absolutely. But this poor man had cuts on his neck and blood pouring off his ears when the bird finally left. Animals aren’t going to act like we think they will.
What (we think) they think of us
We expect wild animals we encounter to see us and recognize that we, a bipedal hairless thing probably wearing some sort of hat and approaching holding out a piece of equipment like a weapon (a phone), and know that we do not mean it harm. We expect that somehow, a 2000lb anger cow will see into our souls and know we just want to, um, commune?
We assume a wild animal will know how a human behaves, and we often get disappointed when it acts like we are a large scary predator. There’s a tiny bit of us that is still disappointed when we quietly approach a bunny, and the bunny makes a run for it.
We used to hunt and eat rabbits. We still eat rabbits. In what universe do we expect this particular rabbit to know that this time, we do NOT want to eat it?
Again, we are approaching these animals from a human perspective. In this case, we expect them to react like humans. We expect them to see our intentions, written plain on faces that they cannot read.
Respect and cuddles don’t go together
What joins these two perspectives together is bigger than Disney or documentaries. It’s our entire culture (the Global North one)** which tells us that animals exist to do with as we please. Animals exist to wow us, to please us, to feed us, to care for us, to help us know ourselves and commune. We have lived, many of us, our entire lives with the underlying assumption that all the living things around us are in our control in some way. If they aren’t, we assume we can EXERT that control easily, with a few quiet words and a slow approach.
And then someone gets gored by a bison.
Because when we assume this, when we assume animals in Yellowstone are used to tourists and therefore will be fine, when we assume the raccoons just want snackies (please do NOT FEED RACCOONS SNACKIES), when we feed the deer…what we aren’t doing is treating animals with respect.
Consider: Would you just walk up and take a photo in someone’s face because you thought they were beautiful? Would you get up into another human’s space and touch them when you don’t know them?
You would not, and you would criticize people who do. You would say they had no manners. Because what they are showing is that they do not RESPECT another person.
When we do the same thing to animals, we are showing we don’t respect them. Respect for an animal means space. Respect for an animal means learning about it before you approach it, recognizing that just because you like it doesn’t mean it likes you.
Where do we get these ideas?
I often have put the weight of these ideas on documentaries and Disney. But I’m starting to think we also lose respect for wild animals because we have so little respect for our domesticated ones.
In some ways, we have a GREAT deal of respect for domesticated animals. For pets, especially. We make their lives comfortable, we devote large amounts of money to their medical care (at least I sure do).
We also scoop them up and snuggle their little faces. We hold them until they squirm. We plop them on our laps and pet them without asking. Most of the time, this works out fine. Domesticated animals have engaged in a tradeoff of food and shelter and comfort for hairless biped snuggles. But it also means that many of us grow up with the idea that our domesticated animals are walking teddy bears. Why should we think wild ones any different?
But domesticates, our hyper-tame animals that live so close to us, are not the same as a bison we go to see in a park, and we have forgotten that difference. We see our dogs or cats, and we do not see the thousands of years that got us here. The thousands of years that taught dogs to follow our gazes and cats to recognize when their owner says their name. The thousands of years that we worked with cows that made them capable of potty training.
We elide those thousands of years into the animal we interact with now. We forgot how drastically different they are. How much they have changed. And how much, in our interactions with them, we changed too.
Part of that change has been a loss of respect. You don’t respect a cuddly teddy bear’s autonomy. You know it will not hurt you no matter how badly it is hurt. Is it any wonder we translate that same lack of respect to other animals—and pay the price for our ignorance?
Where have you been?
Is it reading about how the Supreme Court held up mifepristone? It was on procedural grounds, but a win is a win.
Maybe it’s reading this fantastic piece about CO2, how it’s measured in rooms, what it means for COVID…and why it turns out that viruses like a good room full of CO2. We have missed a wonderful opportunity to improve ventilation.
Maybe it’s reading about malnutrition in kids. The effects do not just go away when we re-feed. Kids like those starving in Gaza will feel the effects for the rest of their lives.
Or maybe it’s reading this wonderful piece on gender-affirming care. Written FOR teens. Explaining how it works, why people pursue it, and what kids can and cannot have access to and when. Everyone could learn something!
And of course I’ve got to call out this great piece on microplastics. They are in you.
Where have I been?
Writing about phoenixes! Well ok not about phoenixes. But about other creatures tough enough to take extreme heat. And guess what? Tardigrades do NOT make the cut.
I’ve been putting all my Insomniac Anatomy Academy videos on YOUTUBE! You can subscribe and follow for gems such as how defibrillators actually work (yikes), why babies have holes in their hearts (yes!) and how to find out if you have an extra nipple.
Anti-discourse actions
I’m letting writing, obviously. I’ve also started in on large size dog sweaters because a Philly street special*** deserves a loving home and to look handsome and snuggly too. They take a lot longer though.
I donated to someone who needed help.
I’m getting involved in the Freelance Solidarity Project, in an effort to get freelancers more rights over their work and get us all PAID a living wage.
I’ve also joined my local native plant group! It’s an opportunity to learn more about my local plants, and help foster them in my yard.
*Doesn’t mean it was a bull. Both male and female bison have horns! It’s a good thing to come armed if you’re living full time as a herd on a plain you know? Female bison (They are technically called “cows” but “bisonette” was right there guys) are very protective in particular of their offspring and those horns come in handy.
**Sometimes called Western, sometimes called Judeo-Christian, sometimes called First World. None of those quite cover it.
***What a lot of adoptable dogs in Philadelphia are called. A little bit of something, mostly pitt. I love their sweet little brick heads.
I agree, we absolutely don't respect wild animals enough. A famous red deer stag in Scotland, that used to hang out by the side of a viewpoint in the Highlands has just had to be put down as people were feeding it so much junk its teeth had rotted.
Love this! Keep up the good work Bethany!