When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (26 page)

Dawkins's calculations aim to predict whether altruism toward kin will take place. For example, he describes a hypothetical animal finding a clump of mushrooms and debating whether to give a food call that will attract its brother, its cousin, and an unrelated member of its own species to share the food. If it does so, it gets fewer mushrooms for itself but also benefits the brother and cousin, who share some of its genes. Dawkins's equation for the advantage of summoning the animal's relatives entails an elaborate cost-benefit calculation. It comes as no surprise to find that Dawkins does not suggest that any animal actually makes such a computation. What he does suggest is that "the gene pool becomes filled with genes which influence bodies in such a way that they behave as if they had made such calculations."

COMPASSION, RESCUE, AND THE ALTRUISM DEBATE

In another example, he discusses whether a male elephant seal should attack another male who has access to many female elephant seals, or whether he should wait for a more favorable time to attack. After imagining the elephant seal's internal debate on this subject, Dawkins says:

This subjective soliloquy is just a way of pointing out that the decision whether or not to fight should ideally be preceded by a complex, if unconscious, "cost-benefit" calculation. ... It is important to realize that we are not thinking of the strategy as being consciously worked out by the individual. Remember that we are picturing the animal as a robot survival machine with a pre-programmed computer controlling the muscles. To write the strategy out as a set of simple instructions in English is just a convenient way for us to think about it. By some unspecified mechanism the animal behaves as if he were following these instructions.

But picturing the animal as a "robot survival machine" seems perverse. Clearly it is a living, feeling creature. Arguably, this "unspecified mechanism" includes emotions.

In both people and animals altruism is likely to be accompanied by emotions, which accordingly must be examined along with it. In the case of altruistic behavior, this "mechanism" includes the altruistic emotions of compassion, empathy, and generosity. These emotions, even if they serve "selfish genes," may also bring into being genuine altruism in the usual sense.

When discussing altruism, a hypothetical situation theorists frequently use is that of saving others fi-om drowning. In a discussion of how a gene for saving relatives from drowning might spread, biologist J. B. S. Haldane noted that he had twice saved (possibly) drowning people without ever pausing to consider whether doing so was genetically beneficial. Richard Dawkins notes: "Just as we may use a slide rule without appreciating that we are, in effect, using logarithms, so an animal may be preprogrammed in such a way that it behaves as if it had made a complicated calculation."

HUEN ELEPtL-iNTS HEEP

In real life, do animals save unrelated others from drowning? There are ancient tales of dolphins saving humans from drowning, but although some of these are plausible, none are documented. They seem plausible in part because dolphins and whales not only support other cetaceans but also carry inanimate objects on their heads from time to time. When they do so, they act like a dolphin mother with a baby. When a calf dies, mother cetaceans may support its body at the surface for as long as several days. Scientists who have seen female belugas supporting logs or other driftwood on their heads in this way believe that these are mothers whose calves have recently died. An Atlantic botde-nosed dolphin carried a dead leopard shark on her snout for eight days. Perhaps it is species vanity, but it seems possible that humans are at least as winsome as logs or dead sharks.

Washoe, the famous chimpanzee who was the first to be taught sign language, lived for a time on a "chimp island" at a research institute. When she was seven or eight years old, a chimpanzee who had just arrived at the institute was placed on the island, but became panicky, jumped over an electric fence, and fell into the moat with a tremendous splash. As researcher Roger Fouts ran to the scene, intending to dive in and rescue her (a risky endeavor, considering how much stronger chimps are than humans), he saw Washoe run to the fence, leap over, land on a narrow strip of bank at its base, edge out into the mud, and clinging to the grass with one hand, pull the chimpanzee to safety with the other. Fouts notes that the two chimpanzees were not acquainted.

Asked whether he was surprised at Washoe's actions, Fouts paused, bemused. "Only later, when that theory came out and people said that there's no such thing as altruism. But prior to that ..." He burst out, "You know, I was about to do the same thing. I didn't know the chimp that well either, and I was headed down into the water, too, taking my wallet out of my pants and getting ready to go in after her. Washoe beat me to it. So I guess I was responding to the same stimuli Washoe was—individual in trouble." Unfortunately, how the other chimpanzee behaved toward Washoe after being rescued is unknown. Fouts also cited a case in which an adult chimpanzee at the Detroit Zoo fell into a

COMPASSION, RESCUE, AND THE ALTRUISM DEBATE

moat. The keepers were afraid to go in after him because adult chimpanzees are so strong, but a zoo visitor leaped in and saved the ape.

lb help others, usually one must be able to realize that they need help. This recognition might be instinctive, cognitive, or both. One night in an arctic bay where beluga whales gather, three belugas got trapped near land by low tide. A gravel bar that they had swum over at high tide now barred their way. The three belugas, one adult and two juveniles, "screamed and groaned and trilled." The other belugas, free, swam back and forth on their side of the gravel bar and answered. A biologist waded out to the gravel bar, which would ordinarily have caused the whales to flee. This time, in their excitement, they paid no attention.

The whales were unable to help their fellows, but whale watchers kept the stranded belugas wet and they swam away on the next high tide. This is a story of raw emotion. The trapped whales were frightened and called for help. The other whales were concerned and came to help or possibly to show their concern. Whales are able to ask for aid from each other and to receive it in some situations. Here, the whales seemed to feel fear and empathy, even though the free whales could not actually help the trapped ones. Biologists Kenneth Norris and Richard Connor remark, "If . . . stories of dolphins pushing humans ashore are true, they must be viewed in the same context as humans pushing stranded dolphins back to sea."

Animals also have a capacity for dispassion, which tends to dismay people. They regularly do things that shock us, such as eat their dead infants or allow their offspring to eat one another. A lion who has lost all but one of her litter will often abandon her remaining cub. A parent who has been vigorously defending its young from a predator may, if the predator finally succeeds in catching the young one, walk away with apparent indifference— although it could be despair.

Yet just as kindness and cruelty can coexist, so can compassion and dispassion. Incidents that suggest the presence of one do not cancel out the other.

UHEN ELEPH4NTS liTEP Compassion Across Species

As with any social emotion, a creature is most likely to display compassion toward a member of its own species. Some animals seem to recognize relationships broader than "member of my species," such as "fellow cat," "fellow bird," or "fellow cetacean." For many humans, the greatest thrill an animal can give is to treat us as one of their own. A remarkable instance of fellow-feeling is displayed by orcas, also called killer whales. In contrast to great white sharks, there is no known incident of an orca fatally attacking a human in the wild, though these carnivores eat anything in the sea from large fish to giant whales, to dolphins, seals, and birds, and even occasionally a polar bear. Though they could easily prey on people, they have consistentiy refrained from doing so. Given what they do eat, not eating humans suggests real fellow-feeling. Is this restraint compassion? Does it entail recognition of commonality? If so, our species has not reciprocated in kind.

Despite our differences, dolphins often treat humans as peers on some level. Even wild dolphins are sometimes interested in playing with humans. The famous wild dolphins of AustraHa's Monkey Mia Beach have been coming for years to play with people. While it is traditional to offer them fish, the dolphins often do not accept the fish, or accept but do not eat them. It seems logical enough that a creature that can easily catch fresh fish might not be tempted by an hours-dead specimen.

What goes through the mind of a dolphin when it accepts a dead fish and then lets it drift away? Two reporters who visited Monkey Mia saw a dolphin receive a fish from a tourist, then push it toward them. Confused, they accepted it. As the dolphin watched them, they felt socially awkward and wondered whether they were supposed to eat the thing, give it back, or do something else. As they dithered, the dolphin swam close, grabbed the fish back, and dived away, leaving them feeling they had committed an unknown faux pas.

Another way an animal might treat a human as one of their own would be to ask it for help. The act of asking for help— soHciting compassion—may itself be said to indicate a capacity for

COMPASSION, RESCUE, AND THE ALTRUISM DEBATE

compassion in that species. How could an animal ask for compassion to be shown if it did not know what compassion was? Why would it have an innate ability to solicit something nonexistent in its species? Mike Tomkies tells of rescuing a wounded badger: "It explained her living alone in the sett, and perhaps why, after getting our scent and somehow sensing we were friendly, she had come close to us. It was odd how many sick wild creatures, including dying red deer in winter, came close to us, as if knowing they would be protected."

In Hope Ryden's Lily Fond, she recounts how an elderly female beaver she had been observing for several years, run down and with a paw injury, unexpectedly approached her. As Ryden sat on the banks of the pond with her binoculars, the old beaver Lily swam over, hauled herself out of the water, clambered up the bank, looked Ryden in the eye, and uttered the wheedling sounds of a beaver kit. Ryden's response was to begin bringing aspen branches (much appreciated by beavers) to the pond to supplement Lily's diet. The aspen was accepted. Though Ryden had brought branches to the pond before, she had done so surreptitiously, intending that the beavers not know she was the source. Lily's grown son Huckleberry was perhaps less compassionate, frequently trying to steal aspen branches from his mother's grasp.

Cynthia Moss has written about a very ill Mild elephant who walked up to the window of her Land Rover and stood there, "hfting her eyeHds from time to time and looking in at me. I do not know what she was doing, but I sensed that she was somehow trying to communicate her distress to me and I was very touched and disturbed." Barry Lopez, author of Of Wolves and Men, tells of a hunter who caught a large black wolf in a leghold trap. VVTien he came up to the trap, the hunter reported, the wolf extended his trapped foot to the hunter and whined.

At times the appearance of a bid for compassion may be deceiving. A rabbit in extremis, as in the jaws of a coyote, utters a surprisingly loud fear scream. Other rabbits ignore the scream, neither speeding to see what is the matter nor taking cover themselves. The benefit of the scream, it is believed, lies in attracting other predators to the scene, and rabbit fear screams do attract

HUES' ELEPHAMS HEEP

predators. Apparently, in the ensuing fracas between predators, rabbits sometimes escape.

An aspect of empathy that is not considered genetically objectionable is that which results in cooperation, a situation in which botli parties win. Thus if a lion understands that another lion is hunting a group of wildebeest, and joins in or helps, and shares in the resulting kill, this is considered cooperation, not altruism. In fact, it seems that when lions hunt cooperatively, they catch substantially more prey than they do when they hunt singly. If the lion helped another lion hunt, and then did not share in the kill, and the other lion was not its offspring or close relative, that would be considered altruism.

Compassion ior One's Ow^n

Unfortunately for the study of altruism toward kin and kin selection, observers usually have a frustrating time figuring out who is related to whom. Most scientists, when they see one wild animal aid another, have no way of knowing if the two are related or how closely. Long-term studies like those initiated by Jane Goodall at Gombe throw some light on these matters. Most ethology studies do not have access to as much history. Even at Gombe, observers may know who a chimp's mother is, but may only be able to guess who its father is. When they do know how the animals are related, they often don't know whether the animals themselves are aware that the other is, for example, their sister or uncle. A handful of studies have shown that some animals sometimes seem to favor their kin in surprising situations. Infant pigtail macaques preferred to play with other macaques who were their half siblings, rather than unrelated macaques, even though they had never seen them before. Whether this is connected with altruistic behavior, incest avoidance, or some other function is unknown.

Assumptions about which animals are kin can be mistaken. Among mountain goats, young animals may be seen following nanny goats with younger kids, as many animals follow their mothers for a year or two. Thus observers seeing a goat group compris-

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COMPASSION, RESCUE, AND THE ALTRUISM DEBATE

ing a nanny, a kid, a yearling, and a two-year-old might often assume this to be a biological family. However, it has been discovered that yovmg mountain goats often follow nannies other than their biological mothers.

Altruism toward kin has scientific respectability, since it can contribute to the survival of a creature's genes. Also respectable to humans is reciprocal altruism, in which beings do favors for others in the expectation of receiving favors in return. That this does occur in animals as well as humans has been shown. Yet people as well as animals often help those who are unHkely to help them in return. Indeed, society expects minor acts of this kind to be performed on a daily basis, and when they are not, there is much indignation.