September 26, 2010 – Fauna Sunday

Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church

Texts: Numbers 22:22-38, Psalm 104:1, 10-30

A guy sees a sign in front of a house "Talking Dog for Sale." He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the back yard. The guy goes into the back yard and sees a mutt sitting there.

"You talk?" he asks.

"Yep," the mutt replies.

"So, what's your story?"

The mutt looks up and says, "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, ‘cause no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running.

"The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired."

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog. The owner says "Ten dollars."

The guy says he'll buy him, but asks the owner, "This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him for $10?"

The owner replies, "He's such a liar. He never did any of that stuff."

Another story about a talking dog – a man tells his friend that his dog can talk. Friend says he doesn’t believe it. Man says, “OK, I’ll ask him a question: what’s on top of the house?” Dog says, “Roof! Roof!” The friend rolls his eyes, and the man says, “What? You don’t believe it? I’ll ask him another – who’s the greatest Yankee baseball player?” And the dog answers “Ruth! Ruth!” The friend is disgusted and walks away. The dog looks at his owner and says, “What did he want me to say? DiMaggio?”

Of course these jokes, like this morning’s Bible story, depend on the impossibility of animals talking – but in recent years, there have been a number of different researchers showing that animals can indeed use language. The most famous of these was a gorilla named Koko, who learned hand signs for many words. A recent issue of Time magazine had its cover story on “What animals think” and described a center in Iowa that is working with bonobos (members of the ape family) and language. Researchers are teaching them language using, essentially, flash cards with symbols for words – one of the bonobos, Kanzi, knows 384 words. These don’t only include nouns and verbs like ball, Jell-O, run and tickle, but words expressing concepts such as from and later. Kanzi has even learned endings such as –ing or –ed which show tense. And Kanzi puts words together to create new labels for items – for example, kale takes longer to chew than lettuce, so Kanzi put together the words slow and lettuce to describe kale. After the flooding in Iowa a couple of years ago, one of the bonobos put together the words big and water to describe the flood. When the author of the article visited the Iowa center, Kanzi wanted to play ball with him, so the man went to find the ball and it took him a while. Upon his return, one of the scientists asked Kanzi if he was ready to play ball, and the ape pointed out the symbols for the words, “Past ready.”

Research like this makes it increasingly difficult for us to dismiss animals as essentially different from humans. Even some birds can use tools, and use them intelligently. Last year, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge found that a rook (a crow-like bird) could figure out that adding rocks to a pitcher of water would raise the water level high enough so that the bird could reach the water to drink. More interesting, the rook apparently started with the larger rocks, which displaced more water.

Lions and hyenas are both known as ‘social carnivores’ and these animals can work together with others of their species cooperatively to catch and kill prey. And they do it in very calculating ways – a hyena can take down a wildebeest by itself, but needs others to catch and kill a zebra. So if they go out in a hunting party together, they will pass up wildebeest and wait to find a zebra.

Most pet owners have seen their pets exhibit pretty human-like behavior – I once saw a cat reaching for food on my plate, and when she saw me eyeing her, she pretended that she was reaching out to lick her own paw…in other words, she understood she was doing something I wouldn’t like, and she lied about it. My dog Santo, when trying to wake me, will use the smallest sound possible, increasing incrementally until I finally give in and get up. To me it seems as though he doesn’t want to be caught waking me up, and so does it as quietly as he can. Elephants mourn their dead, capuchin monkeys show a preference for generosity, and even rats can show compassion and empathy. Animals are capable of redemption as well – after Michael Vick was arrested for animal abuse, animal trainers were not very optimistic about his dogs – dogs that had been bred and trained to fight. There were 49 of them, and experts thought that they might be able to save 8 or 10 from being euthanized. After they all were evaluated, it turned out that only one was incorrigible and had to be put down. The others were all able to learn a new way of being. Hmmm, many of us humans find it hard to change our behavior – maybe some animals are ahead of us!

If animals are more like humans than we had previously thought, it does call into question the way we treat them. And humans continue to treat animals in ways that are unconscionable – neglecting or abusing household pets is bad enough, but the way we treat animals who are raised for food should be illegal. The system known as CAFO’s – concentrated animal feedlot operations – are not only unspeakably cruel to animals, but also have a terrible impact on the environment in terms of water usage, and we are now learning that some of what is done in raising meat creates conditions that are increasingly unsafe for humans too. Keeping so many animals in such close contact creates situations that are very susceptible to disease, so antibiotics have been routinely used. In an attempt to increase the growth of animals, they are often fed hormones. The hormones and antibiotics are still present in the meat. And because it is easier to fatten animals up by feeding them grain inside rather than letting them graze, most commercial beef is now grain-fed – but this results in a food that is nutritionally different than the naturally-raised grass-fed beef our grandparents ate. Grass-fed beef is lower in fat and calories, and has an abundance of omega-3 fats – grass fed beef can contain up to ten times as many omega-3s. Grass fed beef has the ideal ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats. Research shows that people who are low in omega-3 have a higher risk of cancer, depression, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, allergies, asthma, dementia, high blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat. The meat that is produced in CAFO’s deprives us of nutrients that are important – grain fed beef is also lower in vitamin A and vitamin E. Further, in most cases, grass-fed cattle graze – they are able to be outside, and have a life worth living before being killed for our dinner. Obviously, it’s better still for animals if we don’t eat them at all, and studies show that a plant-based diet is better for us in terms of cancer and heart disease, too.

Even worse than feeding cattle grain is feeding cattle animal by-products, which some animal feeds have contained. Turning a vegetarian cow into not only a carnivore but a cannibal has turned out to have bad consequences – this is what has been blamed for “Mad Cow Disease” – a progressive incurable disease that is eventually fatal to humans. Perhaps we should not be surprised that turning a cow against its nature would have a bad result.

And beyond the animals that we keep as pets, and the animals that we raise for food, we also treat wild animals badly – driving species after species into extinction. We have been learning how complex our world is, and how the interdependence of different species creates a web of life that supports all life forms. Most of us don’t really know the consequences of allowing species to become extinct, nor do most of us understand how many species are at risk. Fully 40 percent of all animal species are now at risk of extinction: 1 out of 4 mammals, 1 out of 8 birds, 1 out of 3 amphibians…are at risk of becoming extinct in the current century. Now we know that a certain amount of species extinction may be natural – this natural extinction is known as the “background rate” of extinction. But conservation scientists estimate that even last century the rate of extinction was roughly 100 times the background rate – because of habitat degradation, climate change, agricultural monocultures. and other human behavior. We are wiping out animal species at a rate of 100 times what might naturally occur. Vertebrate species fell by nearly one third between 1970 and 2006, natural habitats are in decline, genetic diversity of crops is falling and sixty breeds of livestock – the animals whose breeding we manage ourselves – have become extinct since 2000.

Some scientists believe that species extinction is a greater threat to the earth – and the humans who live on it – than global climate change. Perhaps if we can’t treat animals well for the animals’ sake, we might learn to treat animals well for the sake of humans. But as we consider what we see about animals in the Bible, maybe we can change the way we treat animals, for God’s sake.

While most of the Bible is about the relationship between humans and God, there are passing references to animals that are kind of interesting. For example, have you noticed that in the description of the Garden of Eden, humans were only provided plants as food? Apparently even our ancient forebears believed that life as God intended it would not include our eating animals. Also, many of the prophetic passages in Isaiah, the passages describing God’s dream for the world, describe a world where animals don’t even kill one another – “…the lion shall lie with the lamb…and a child shall lead them.” In the stories of Noah, of the Exodus, and of Jonah, the fate of animals was linked to the fate of the humans among whom they lived. Passages describing a good king make the comparison to a good Shepherd (which is also one way Jesus described himself) and a bad king is compared to a bad Shepherd – suggesting that mistreating the animals we are called to care for matters as much to God as when humans are oppressed. And in the story Ted read to us this morning about Balaam and his donkey – the animal is the prophet to the prophet…and when Balaam is going to abuse the animal, God creates an intervention. The Psalm we read this morning also describes a world of interlocking relationships, a world where God cares for all of us by putting us into relationship with one another: humans and humans, humans and animals, animals and animals, God caring for us all. While we might elevate humans to some different kind of status in the world, God doesn’t seem to – each one of us matters to God. None of us is disposable, each of us is important to the web of life that supports us, and this planet we share. From the mighty lion to the one-inch Karner blue butterfly (both of which are at risk of extinction): each species matters.

Just as in a family or church system each person is important, so too in the biosystem of creation, each species is important. Unfortunately, most animals don’t talk in ways we can understand…and so we need to speak and act on their behalf – so, for their sake, for our sake, and for God’s sake…let’s take care of the animals. Amen.