Second Nature

Almost all of the books I read come from a second-hand bookstore or my mother. This particular book, Second Nature by Jonathan Balcombe, could have come from either source due to its subject matter. I read it months ago but kept notes so I could eventually do this write-up once I had the chance.

The main point it seems the author is trying to make is that human overpopulation is a huge problem. Our presence reduces the animals' natural habitats, our numbers place a huge demand on the food supply, and people's demand for meat as food is increasing. Those three things add up to a disaster for the animal kingdom.

Growing up vegetarian, it's difficult for me to understand people's increased demand for meat as food. There are so many wonderful foods that do not have meat, I can't quite grasp why people think meat is the only thing they can eat and consider it a "meal." Putting that aside for now, I think one of the items the author overlooked is the current trend in astronomical portion sizes. If people insisted on eating meat but did so in a more conscientious way, maybe it wouldn't have such a huge impact.

Of course the underlying message throughout the book is that animals are living creatures -- with thoughts and emotions -- and shouldn't be injured, maltreated, or eaten at all. One of the examples he gives is of an experiment done with chickens where they are shown pictures of human faces with varying degrees of "beauty" and, as it turns out, the chickens choose similarly to humans when it comes to measures of attractiveness. But, how do they know the question?

Another example given is that Chimps have better memories than humans. But, what else would clutter their brain to hurt their memory? It's not like they're given these tests in-between pickup times at their children's school, or while they're trying to remember the grocery list for later, or when they had just been given a huge project at work. I'd have a better memory, too, if it wasn't cluttered with everything else in my life.

One of the most surprising things I learned was that it's the environmentalists who are sometimes causing the worst threat to animals. There's a natural rhythm to an animal's life -- with some of us here for a longer time than others, but eventually we all die out and something else takes our place. What the environmentalists try to do is to "save" animals that are becoming extinct, but at the expense of the animals around it. In other words, if one type of bird is about to become extinct because another type of bird is infringing on its territory, the environmentalists will kill the interlopers. Where is the logic in this?

That brings me to the most important thing I learned from reading this book: Goldfish are social creatures and it's tantamount to torture to keep a single Goldfish in a bowl. It's no wonder they usually die after less than a week in their new home.