‘Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains’
When we move into new areas, we often drastically change animals that thrive there. We expect them to go away. When they stay, when they adapt, and when they persist, we don’t exactly greet them with open arms.
MARC BEKOFF: Our relationships with nonhuman animals (animals) are complex, challenging, and paradoxical. We allow dogs and cats to breed themselves to death and continue to harm and kill other animals and destroy their homes at unprecedented rates as we take over and destroy the natural world.
Often we bring other animals in who actually begin to disrupt ecosystems for us, such as cats, Burmese pythons, or even horses. We then label them as “pests” as well, when their actions are no longer acceptable to us.
Many of the animals who find themselves being harmed and killed are referred to as “pests” or “trash animals,” and it’s useful to figure out why these demeaning labels are used to describe some animals but not others. These words are conveniently used because it allows us to get rid of them however, wherever, and whenever we choose.
Along these lines, I was pleased to learn of a new book by Dr. Bethany Brookshire titled Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains. Here’s what Bethany had to say about her important, thought-provoking, and timely book…
MB: What are some of the topics you weave into your book, and what are some of your major messages?
BB: My book is organized around five themes—five ways in which we come to hate the animals around us. The first theme is fear and disgust—why is it that some animals creep us out. The second is niche, how humans act as ecosystem engineers—and why animals end up moving in. The third is belief. So much of whether we love or hate an animal comes down to what we believe—beliefs that are often at odds with the animal’s behavior. The fourth theme is power. In the Western view, humans are the top dog, and any animal that challenges our supremacy quickly becomes the enemy. The final theme is habitat. When we move into new areas, we often drastically change what they look like and the species that thrive there. We expect animals to go away. When they stay, when they adapt, and when they persist, we don’t exactly greet them with open arms.
There are several conclusions to draw from these themes, but one is this: So much of the way we view animals is based in our idea that we are in charge, that we have dominion over our environments. But that’s not a universal human view. We do not have to be this way. I got the chance to learn from many Indigenous peoples over the course of this book. I learned different ways of looking at “pests” and different ways of seeing our place in the world—ways that might work a lot better for both us and the animals that bug us…
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about so-called “pests” they will tolerate them and treat them with more respect and concern for their lives?
BB: Maybe? What I’m really hopeful of is that people who read the book will look at themselves. They’ll look at their own relationship to their environment, why they think some animals “belong” and others don’t. I hope they’ll realize how many pest problems are the result of people, the way we live and how we behave. So I hope we’ll improve ourselves, change our views. If we did that, we probably would end up treating some animals with more tolerance and understanding. SOURCE…
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