When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (9 page)

An error to which anthropomorphism can lead is to see bears through our own emotions: we fear them, so we perceive them as

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angr\' and hostile. The equal and opposite error into which the fear ot anthropomorphism can lead is to refuse to recognize that bears can feel their own emotions. Rogers learned to observe bears in terms of those emotions, discovering that the bears themselves were often fearful. He learned what frightened them and how not to frighten them. "Once I started looking at bears in terms of their fear, and interpreted all the things that used to scare me and interpreted those in terms of the bear's fear, it was easy to gain their trust and begin walking with them very closely, sleeping with them —doing all the things that you have to do to see how an animal really lives in its world." So well did Rogers learn to understand the wild bears that he could curl up for the night a few feet from their den or even handle their cubs. Asked whether scientists don't usually avoid using words like fear and trust to describe animal behavior, he replied, "Yes. But I think that we miss the mark more by ignoring those emotions than by taking them into account. Those are basic emotions that animals and people share."

His description of a suddenly alarmed bear shows how humans can learn to "read" bears: "You can be very close to a bear and have things be calm, until some little unidentified noise happens far off in the forest. Then the bear is suddenly keyed up, wary. . . . Whenever there's anything that makes the bear take a deep breath, which is the first sign of their fear, and then you see its ears prick up, you think, 'Better give the bear a little bit more room, don't be standing right on top of it, because there's a good chance it'll whack you,' " says Rogers cheerfully. "It feels threatened by some other thing and it wants room and the peace of mind firom you to deal with that. After being told in no uncertain terms by bears to get away in that situation, after a while I learned."

A Cornerstone Emotion

Of all emotions animals might feel, fear is the one that skeptics most often accept and one of the few that comparative psychology investigates. One reason is that fearfulness has an obvious evolutionary advantage. Fear can serve as a mechanism to trig-

FEAR, HOPE, AND THE TERRORS OF DREAMS

ger defensive behavior, so its survival value is clear for any organism capable of defense. Fear can set animals running, diving, hiding, screaming for help, slamming their shells shut, bristling their quills, or baring their teeth. If an animal had no mode of defense, fear would confer no benefit. Yet fear has also been known to interfere with survival: the actions of a panicking person or animal are not always the wisest, as when a terrified soldier on a battlefield runs into the hne of fire.

People also find it easy to believe that animals feel fear because this emotion is one that humans often elicit from animals, and may even enjoy eliciting. An urban dweller who has never so much as visited a zoo has probably scattered birds into flight, shooed insects away, seen cats flee from dogs or dogs flee from bigger dogs, and has no reason to doubt that animals feel fear.

Nor does a powerful intellect seem necessary to experience fright. Intellect may help one detect subder reasons to fear, but the less intelligent still find plenty to fear. Those who wish to believe that a great gulf separates people from other animals seldom seem threatened by the notion of animal fear. In animals it may not be called an emotion, however. Thus, while dictionaries call fear an emotion, animal behaviorists may prefer the definition of fear that appears in The Oxford Companion to Animal Behavior: "a state of motivation which is aroused by certain specific stimuli and normally gives rise to defensive behavior or escape."

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The biological traces of fear are easy to find in a laboratory. (Indeed, what animal would not have reason to fear a laboratory?) A small electrical impulse to a cat's amygdala (part of the brain's limbic system) produces alertness, a larger one produces the expressions and actions of terror. A rat whose amygdala has been removed loses the fear of cats and will walk right up to one. Researchers at New York University trained rats to expect an electric shock when they heard a tone, and discovered to their surprise that the nerve impulses in the rats taught to fear the tone went straight

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from the ear to the amygdala, instead of via the usual route through the auditory cortex. The theory is that the amygdala attaches emotional import to some forms of learning. Endocrine studies show that hormones such as epinephrine and norepinephrine help pass along fear messages. Geneticists say that in just ten generations of breeding, two strains of rats can be produced from a parental stock, one fearful, one calm.

But even biologists concede that physiological symptoms alone do not form a complete description of fear. Philosopher Anthony Kenny has given the example of a person who fear heights and avoids them scrupulously, as compared to a relatively fearless mountain climber. The person who avoids heights may succeed in doing so and, as a result, seldom exhibit physiological signs of fear. The climber, more often at risk, may show such signs more often, yet cannot be said to be more afraid of heights. Perhaps, though, the notion of a "counterphobia," developed by the psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel, is not entirely inappropriate here. He spoke of people seeking out the very thing they most fear because the fear is unconscious. Thus at least some climbers are terrified of heights but cannot acknowledge this fear to themselves. Their behavior is a kind of deep overcompensation, an internal self-deception meant to keep the feared but fascinating object in constant view. Is this, hke the well-known compulsion to repeat traumas, a search for mastery?

Perhaps counterphobia is not confined to humans. Many animals of species that are frequently preyed upon show a macabre interest in the deaths of others like them. Studying hyenas in the Serengeti, Hans Kruuk was struck by the frequency with which hyenas or other predators at a kill were closely observed by wildebeest or gazelle who had drifted over to watch. This has been called "behavior of fascination" or "the bystander phenomenon." Such onlookers are attracted even when the victim is not of their own species. Animals of prey species also show interest in predators who are not at kills, watching and even following them. A cheetah being observed by a crowd of gazelle made a sudden dart and caught one of them, so the behavior has risks. Kruuk speculates that this dangerous behavior conveys a selective advantage—

FEAR, HOPE, AND THE TERRORS OF DREAMS

either because it is worthwhile for prey species to keep an eye on the predator, preventing ambushes, or because they learn valuable information about predators. In his classic study of red deer, F. Eraser Darling noted that "deer have a marked objection to allowing any person or object out of their sight which they may think to be a source of danger." It may also be an example of counterphobia.

In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin made a systematic study of how animals look when they are afraid. In both humans and animals, he found, some or all of the following may occur: the eyes and mouth open, the eyes roll, the heart beats rapidly, hairs stand on end, muscles tremble, teeth chatter, and the sphincter loosens. The frightened creature may freeze in its place or cower. These rules hold true across a remarkable array of species. Somehow it is surprising to learn that when dolphins are terrified, their teeth chatter and the whites of their eyes show, or that a frightened gorilla's legs shake. Such familiar behavior in a wild animal is a reminder of our ultimate kinship. Melvin Konner has written, "We are—not metaphorically, but precisely, biologically—like the doe nibbling moist grass in the predawn misty light; chewing, nuzzling a dewy fawn, breathing the foggy air, feeling so much at peace; and suddenly, for no reason, looking about wildly."

Other symptoms of fear may be more specific to a species. A frightened mountain goat, biologist Douglas Chadwick reports, flattens its ears, flicks its tongue past its Hps, crouches and raises its tail. According to Chadwick, a kid raises its tail when it wants attention or to nurse. The adult continues to raise its tail when fearful. If the tail is partially raised, Chadwick says, it means "I'm worried," and a completely erect tail means "I'm scared," or maybe "Help, Momma!"

Aviculturalist Wolfgang de Grahl notes that fi-ightened young grey parrots in new surroundings may not only flutter wildly at the approach of humans but may hide their heads in a far corner. In de Grahl's view, these birds probably believe, like the ostriches who were once said to hide their heads in the sand, that they cannot be seen when they do so. But this is Hkely based upon an overestima-tion of the stupidity of birds. Humans who cover their eyes or turn

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their faces away from scary sights do not believe they cannot be seen. Perhaps, hke humans, the parrots cannot bear the sight of what frightens them, or are trying to keep their feeHngs from overwhelming them.

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Because people have lived and worked with horses for so long, some of the things that frighten them are fairly well understood. In addition to such obvious dangers as predators, they may be alarmed by unfamiliar motions, noises, and smells. Changes in their environment often frighten horses. Skittish horses even appear to be alarmed by imagined changes: an object that a horse has passed countless times may suddenly cause a horse to shy although there has been no alteration. What frightens one horse will leave another horse unmoved, and some horses seldom display fear. Horses may also be afraid to go to places that do not smell as if horses have been there. A horse that goes happily into horse trailers will sometimes refuse to go into a brand-new horse trailer.

Personal history also plays a part in the genesis of fear for a particular animal, who can learn to fear something that it did not fear before. This is expressed in commonsense beliefs. For example, if you pick up a stick to toss for a dog to retrieve and instead it cringes in fear, your first thought is likely to be that the dog has been beaten. Animals form associations of fear with objects that have frightened them in the past. Memories can be triggered by resemblances or perhaps even by wandering thoughts.

Animals also learn fear to avoid pain. Laboratory rats fear pain and learn to fear receiving an electric shock. Coyotes learn to fear getting a faceful of porcupine quills. Monkeys learn that a long fall is painful.

FEAR, HOPE, AND THE TERRORS OF DRR4MS Fear ana Selr-Derense

Most animals fear their predators, logically enough. How they recognize them as predators if they have never seen them in action is not always clear, but the reaction is. In the Rockies, Chadwick one day saw a lynx stalking a large mountain goat billy. It sneaked to a ledge above the billy, to a position that seemed perfect for pouncing, but hesitated. Then the goat spotted the lynx, and backed off into a corner. After a while the goat came forward, stamped his feet, and began leaping up in the direction of the cat, hooking toward it with his horns. The lynx watched for a while, now and then dangling a paw toward the goat before finally walking off. It appeared that the goat was fi-ightened of the predatory lynx at first, but then lost its fear and became aggressive. The lynx was mildly frightened of the goat—enough not to attack immediately and eventually to give up.

One factor in the recognition of predators may be an innate response to staring eyes. Birds have been found to be more likely to mob a stuffed owl if it has eyes. Young chicks who have never seen a predator avoid objects with eyes or eye-spots on them, particularly if the eyes are large. Wild birds at a feeder table are much more apt to flee if a design that is highlighted on the feeder resembles eyes, and the more realistic the eyes, the greater their panic.

Fear of falling from heights also appears to be innate in many animals. Infants of many species (including humans) show terror when confronted with a steep drop, or the convincing image of a steep drop, even if they have never been dropped or seen a drop. The fear of heights is probably triggered in some species more easily than in others. A creature that lives in high places cannot survive if it spends too much time quaking with alarm. Yet the mountain goats observed by Chadwick also showed signs of fear when searching for a foothold on cliffs too precipitous even for them, or when loose rock underfoot started to slide toward a drop.

A brown bear cub who fell into the McNeil River in Alaska and was carried out into the rapids showed signs of fear—flattened ears and wide, rolling eyes. His mother saw him fall in but did not seem alarmed, only going after him once he had been carried a

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considerable distance away. Perhaps she did not reaHze that what was safe for her was not safe for him. Or perhaps she reahzed, or felt, that he was in no real danger. The cub succeeded in getting out on his own.

Alone and Lost

For social animals, or for the young of most species, loneliness holds fears. The fear of being alone is sometimes hard to separate from the fear of being lost. Wingnut, a particularly timid brown bear cub observed on the McNeil River, was said by Thomas Bledsoe to be literally afraid of his own shadow. He was afraid of being left alone, and would call "hysterically" every time his mother left to fish, continuing until she returned. Again, it may well be that an earlier experience lies behind this reaction. A Pacific bottle-nosed porpoise, Keiki, who lived in a marine park, was released into a bay nearby. Separated from his companions into a location he did not know, Keiki was stricken with terror, teeth chattering and eyes rolling.

Zoo keepers report that captive elephants are subject to "sudden-death syndrome" or "broken-heart syndrome," which happens (most often with young elephants) when they are separated from their social group or put in a new enclosure by themselves. Jack Adams of the Center for the Study of Elephants ascribes this to "gripping fear."