Watching this video made me want to write about a topic very dear to my heart; animals and animal rights. I have 4 reasons why animals are important in our lives:

1- Animals are part of our ecosystem cycle. Simply put, if we don’t respect their co-existence or protect them and their habitats from the possiblity of man made extinction, then the whole food chain cycle will be disrupted.  Animals of all kinds, including primates, will directly suffer the consequences of our actions.

2- Animals have elevated senses.  We as humans have super senses, but even our eyes, ears and sense of smell are of no match to those of the animals. Further, the evolution of the animal is linked directly to the Earth and the historical changes of our planet through time.  For example, sharks use the electromagnetic field from the earth’s north and south poles to detect their direction using electrical wave lengths. Elephants can communicate through the vibrations from their foot steps. They can, in fact, communicate with a herd of elephants 10km away just by sensations on their feet! Bears hibernate the whole winter, slowing the heart rate down to one beat per minute, saving energy throughout the whole winter season. Bats use ultrasound wavelengths to detect prey in the dark. Some scientist believe the nocturnal bat inhabited the nightlife to avoid the dinosaurs who hunted during the day.  Survival intinct.  Alligators are cold blooded, not producing any heat and saving energy for months without the need of sunlight. There are many more examples of the greatness of the animal kingdom that we can learn from and adapt to our technologies.

3- Humans evolved only 200,000 years ago unlike animals and insects who were present on earth since its creation almost 3 billion years ago.  Some animals have survived for millions of eons and are still alive such as alligators, ants, beetles and bees.

4-The myth that animals do not have brains and that is why they do not have a spoken language, which makes humans superior to every living thing. Well, first of all, animals do have brains and they do have language, but their language is different. They did not evolve with tubes to talk, but instead communicate through sound effects, as seen commonly with all birds and not so commonly with the meerkat.  Scientists can determine from each sound pitch if they are afraid, hungry, happy or sad. Therefore, animals do have emotions and of course brains!

I can go on forever here, but all I can say is, please, appreciate nature with its beauty from the animal kingdom, and that includes all plants and insects. Without them we wouldn’t be who we are now.