The Atlantic’s Mixed Messages

The March issue of The Atlantic features an article called “What the Crow Knows” about evidence for consciousness in animals with a focus on birds. But as if to make sure birds aren’t taken too seriously, The Atlantic posted an “entertaining” video simultaneously, about a rooster named Tungrus, who is treated mercilessly by his human family.

The Atlantic: “What the Crow Knows,” March 2019

LETTER TO THE ATLANTIC by Karen Davis

I am encouraged by the case for animal consciousness beyond our own. Yet the bias persists that consciousness is a feature to be ranked in a hierarchy from humans on down. Surely this model of consciousness is a hindrance to the “experience of enlightenment.”

The article rightly proposes that we may reasonably assume “a whole universe of vivid animal experience” beyond ours. The question is, what will we do with this realization? Will we continue to pick and choose which animals are “conscious” based on how we want to use them, deciding, for instance, that those we like to eat have lesser consciousness? Hopefully this article will help us perceive more attentively and caringly the myriad conscious individuals we share the Earth with. – Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry Concerns

The Atlantic, “The Pet Chicken ‘From Hell’”

LETTER TO THE ATLANTIC by Vera Pesek

I fail to understand why The Atlantic decided to post the horrific tale of abuse that is the story of Tungrus.

How could anybody think it is funny that a sentient being was bought to serve as a toy for cats and not expected to survive more than one or two days. He then against all expectations survives and tries to carve out a living despite being rarely shown any affection. He tries to bond with the humans, and if given the chance, he would have shown them what a wonderful and complex being he was.

But instead, the only people he knows and trusts take him to his death, and we are left to see his throat being cut and his still living body carelessly thrown into a drum where he spends his final moments struggling and screaming to the point that the drum shakes.

Where is the fun in all that?

Just a week ago this same magazine posted a wonderful article on how scientists are rethinking animal cognition, “What the Crow Knows.”

I was heartened by that article and shared it on social media. And just days later I see that The Atlantic did not learn anything from that article. Shameful. – Vera Pesek