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Artwork (Digital) / Animal related (non-anthro)
Species Pig / Swine
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More from Jive
On farm sanctuaries, pigs are playful and social; they enjoy running, socializing, relaxing, and playing in the mud. Like dogs, they recognize their names and come when called (if they like you). As scientific advisor to the British government Dr. Donald Broom explains, pigs “have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.”
Indeed, pigs are the smartest of the barnyard animals. As just one example, pigs have been taught to play video games. Wired reports that “pigs could be as smart as chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates,” says Stanley Curtis, former professor of animal sciences at Pennsylvania State University. Curtis says that the pigs learned to play [video] games every bit as quickly as [chimpanzees]. In fact, “Hamlet and Omelette exhibited more interest in the task at hand than their primate cousins…” Animal cognition researcher Dr. Sarah Boysen notes that “pigs are capable of focusing their attention with even more intensity than a chimp.”
Similarly, pigs are also emotional beings, just like humans. For example, the UK daily The Independent writes that researchers “taught pigs to give one response when they felt normal and a different response when they were anxious (in this case, they were given a drug designed to induce temporary anxiety). Not only could the pigs discriminate between these two states but later they made the same ‘anxious’ response when exposed to novel events such as an unfamiliar pig or a new pig pen.”
Finally, pigs are socially quite advanced, exhibiting methods of interaction with one another observed previously only in primates. A story from the Press Association titled “Pigs ‘share brain skills’ with humans and primates” discusses research from the University of Bristol (UK) that found that “pigs use their brains to outwit each other in much the same way as humans and chimpanzees. For instance, they were able to learn to follow other animals to desired items such as food before stealing away the prize. Victims of such thefts responded by behaving in ways that lessened the chances of being followed.” As Dr. Mike Mendl explained, “Our results suggest that pigs can develop quite sophisticated social competitive behavior, similar to that seen in some primate species.”
from http://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/.....omething/pigs/ (links to sources in article)
"It's the same thing with an animal who pisses you off, except that it is in the stick pit, you are going to kill it. Only you don't just kill it, you go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I'd be sticking, and I would just take my knife and--eerk--cut its eye out while it was just sitting there. And this hog would just scream.
One time I took my knife--it's sharp enough--and I sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left on my hand--I was wearing a rubber glove--and I stuck the salt right up the hog's ass. The poor hog didn't know whether to shit or go blind."
from Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz
When some human being is treated like an animal, we assume the worst of fates for them. To be treated like an animal is to be treated like an object, a possession, a thing. It is to have your sentience denied and torment completely ignored, looked at as a necessary means to an end, or--worse--viewed as a fun pastime.
When we say "don't treat me like an animal," we reveal something startling about our view of non-human animals and how it is acceptable to treat them.
What if we didn't treat anyone with disrespect? What if we didn't exploit other species and stopped judging their worth by what they can do for us? What if we didn't treat them with such disregard that their very consciousness is something many people debate?
When we don't presume a right to another being's life, despite them being a member of another species, we have no need to fear treating other humans "like animals." When we respect all life as existing for its own purpose, and not here for us to use because we can, we cannot help but extend that respect to those closest to us.
Who is going to look at a pig and say "I refuse to eat you, because your life is your own," or at a cow and say "I will not wear you, because I do not want to do you harm," and then look at another human being and see anything but a fellow soul, with every right to exist on their own terms? Many nasty prejudices are rooted in this idea of "us and them," and what arbitrary gap is wider than that between humans and non-human animals?
Just because someone is different doesn't mean they don't deserve respect. Just because someone doesn't look like you doesn't mean they don't have a right to live. And they certainly have more of a right to that life than does someone else.
reminder: don't shoot the messenger
Indeed, pigs are the smartest of the barnyard animals. As just one example, pigs have been taught to play video games. Wired reports that “pigs could be as smart as chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates,” says Stanley Curtis, former professor of animal sciences at Pennsylvania State University. Curtis says that the pigs learned to play [video] games every bit as quickly as [chimpanzees]. In fact, “Hamlet and Omelette exhibited more interest in the task at hand than their primate cousins…” Animal cognition researcher Dr. Sarah Boysen notes that “pigs are capable of focusing their attention with even more intensity than a chimp.”
Similarly, pigs are also emotional beings, just like humans. For example, the UK daily The Independent writes that researchers “taught pigs to give one response when they felt normal and a different response when they were anxious (in this case, they were given a drug designed to induce temporary anxiety). Not only could the pigs discriminate between these two states but later they made the same ‘anxious’ response when exposed to novel events such as an unfamiliar pig or a new pig pen.”
Finally, pigs are socially quite advanced, exhibiting methods of interaction with one another observed previously only in primates. A story from the Press Association titled “Pigs ‘share brain skills’ with humans and primates” discusses research from the University of Bristol (UK) that found that “pigs use their brains to outwit each other in much the same way as humans and chimpanzees. For instance, they were able to learn to follow other animals to desired items such as food before stealing away the prize. Victims of such thefts responded by behaving in ways that lessened the chances of being followed.” As Dr. Mike Mendl explained, “Our results suggest that pigs can develop quite sophisticated social competitive behavior, similar to that seen in some primate species.”
from http://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/.....omething/pigs/ (links to sources in article)
"It's the same thing with an animal who pisses you off, except that it is in the stick pit, you are going to kill it. Only you don't just kill it, you go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I'd be sticking, and I would just take my knife and--eerk--cut its eye out while it was just sitting there. And this hog would just scream.
One time I took my knife--it's sharp enough--and I sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left on my hand--I was wearing a rubber glove--and I stuck the salt right up the hog's ass. The poor hog didn't know whether to shit or go blind."
from Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz
When some human being is treated like an animal, we assume the worst of fates for them. To be treated like an animal is to be treated like an object, a possession, a thing. It is to have your sentience denied and torment completely ignored, looked at as a necessary means to an end, or--worse--viewed as a fun pastime.
When we say "don't treat me like an animal," we reveal something startling about our view of non-human animals and how it is acceptable to treat them.
What if we didn't treat anyone with disrespect? What if we didn't exploit other species and stopped judging their worth by what they can do for us? What if we didn't treat them with such disregard that their very consciousness is something many people debate?
When we don't presume a right to another being's life, despite them being a member of another species, we have no need to fear treating other humans "like animals." When we respect all life as existing for its own purpose, and not here for us to use because we can, we cannot help but extend that respect to those closest to us.
Who is going to look at a pig and say "I refuse to eat you, because your life is your own," or at a cow and say "I will not wear you, because I do not want to do you harm," and then look at another human being and see anything but a fellow soul, with every right to exist on their own terms? Many nasty prejudices are rooted in this idea of "us and them," and what arbitrary gap is wider than that between humans and non-human animals?
Just because someone is different doesn't mean they don't deserve respect. Just because someone doesn't look like you doesn't mean they don't have a right to live. And they certainly have more of a right to that life than does someone else.
reminder: don't shoot the messenger
Category Artwork (Digital) / Animal related (non-anthro)
Species Pig / Swine
Size 1280 x 950px
File Size 1.5 MB
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