An observation about captive vs wild animals
Having watched thousands of videos of both captive and free-range wildlife, as well domesticated animals, I recently had an epiphany of sorts: nearly all of the scenes where the animal(s) displayed obvious joy, humor, and just basically a sense of happiness, were the animals that felt safe--mostly from being in captivity.
Exceptions? Yes, of course, all kinds and for a multitude of reasons--but I'm not speaking of those.
My whole life, I have almost unquestioningly accepted that wildlife needs to be free--like after an injured animal is healed, it must be returned to the wild, for some reason; else its spirit would eventually be crushed.
But, in this current era of YouTube etc and the nearly unlimited footage of critters being critters, I've come to believe that captivity is not the worst thing that an animal--even a wild one--can face. Almost without exception, footage of wildlife in the wild depicts animals struggling to survive, palpable fear expressed in its eyes and movements. Always on the lookout for prey or predator.
But, in captivity, they quite often display genuine joy, happiness, contentment, playfulness, curiosity, exploration, even a sense of humor. Noticing this has had a profound effect on how I view our relationship with other creatures.
As a child, I can remember crying when I thought about how terrible life for captive animals must be--even my own pet birds and fish and hamsters and cats and dogs, even though they were well cared for--like they were being deprived of some magical experience of living in the wild. In truth, living wild is a terrifying, brutal existence for most creatures.
Just a recent observation I thought I'd share. Plus, there's a lesson there for human society as well, that when the need to claw one's way through life, struggling for every meal, for shelter, for survival, there's little left over for joy, happiness, curiosity, exploration, etc. We've been fed a lie about necessity being the mother of invention, and that lifelong continuous hard work is the only way to feel satisfied. I think human society is so utterly dysfunctional in large part because of this. And it doesn't *have* to be that way.
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got misty eyed over the joys of wild living, although we delight in seeing it. But my assumptions and observations are similar.
We winter surrounded by wilderness and marsh here in FL. Twice a day a pair of Sandhill cranes carefully brings their youngsters who can't fly yet back and forth across the water to dig holes in our yard, and every day they face grave danger from the alligators who watch for them. The parents squawk and flap their wings when they see one close by but are helpless to actually stop one. There are other predators, too, like hawks when they're small.
Now that the kids are teens, the parents both fly across and the kids stalk up and down the bank looking for a place where they can chance swimming. Just kids, but apparently learning to watch for sudden death comes before learning to fly. Yesterday they found a chance quickly, but the day before they stalked up and down the water's edge for nearly a half hour before daring. Last week I scared off Herschel, one of the alligators, when I saw him heading toward where they were entering the water, but it's rare that I'm able to see them.
Domestic critter here, and just watching wild's too much stress for my happiness.
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