Animal Rights

Every conscious being has interests that should be respected. No being who is conscious of being alive should be devalued to thinghood, dominated, and used as a resource or _________. The key point of the idea known as animal rights is a movement to extend moral consideration to all _________ beings. Nobody should have to demonstrate a specific level of intelligence or be judged beautiful to be given moral consideration. No being should have to be useful to humanity or capable of accepting “duties” in order to be extended moral consideration. _________, what other animals need from us is being free from duties to us.

Animal rights is about letting animals live on their own terms. It can be written into our laws, but is not an actual list or bill of rights as we have for human society. It begins with our promises not to act like _________ of others. Animal rights is about justice — treating animals fairly.

Why is animal rights _________? It is because we humans often act as though we are the only beings on the planet. Although we depend on other animals for our very survival, humans are the only animals that have upset the balance of nature. There are lots of ways that humans _________ animals. We domesticate them and use them for food, even though our nutritional needs can be completely supplied by a(n) _________ diet. Although other materials are available, we use animal’s skin and other body parts for clothing, furs, hats, boots, jewellery and even pet toys. Humans can talk about it but animals cannot. All animals wish to experience life in its fullness. Unlike many animals who have to kill to survive, humans do not. Why should humans cause _________ to other beings when it’s not necessary?

As we do, animals protect their children; they feel fear; they warn each other of dangers; they play. We might differ from other animals in some ways, but that doesn’t give us the right to _________ them down, take their lands, pollute their waters, or use them for our conveniences. Animals also experience pain and it’s not difficult to observe ____________ of pain in the way a conscious being reacts to it. We take advantage, cause distress, and act ____________ when we use animals for amusement. Lots of pets are ____________ on the streets when their owners no longer find it convenient or affordable to keep or care for them.

Whether we admit it or not, it’s a prejudice to think we are ____________ to animals and that it is our right to control them, which can only make people act mean, hateful or neglectful. However, each of us has within us the power to ____________. We can adopt a different attitude, one that reshape our destiny. This will have wonderful effects on the planet’s other communities, for life is ____________ avoiding suffering. It is interacting, singing, pursuing joy. We humans can learn to live responsibly, with respect, kindness and love.

One morning in early fall, I spotted a pair of wild geese on our pond. The beautiful sight caught me by ________, because we had never seen geese there before. I wondered where they came from and why they’d ________ our pond. As the days passed, I couldn’t ________ getting a closer look and started talking to the geese. They craned their necks and raised their heads ________ but seemed to realize I was a friend and not an enemy. I felt ________ we were bonding.

One day as they were feeding in the grass near the driveway, I discovered the reason for their ________—the male had a broken left wing. He was ________ to fly, and his lifelong mate would not leave him behind. I marveled at the ________ between them.

I asked a wildlife biologist friend what I should do. He explained that sometime a broken wing will heal by itself and suggested letting ________ take its course.

________ the first day of November, I was working in the vicinity (在……附近) of the geese with my tractor. I caught some ________ from the corner of my eye.

Both geese were running toward the pond, wings beating ________. The geese gained enough altitude to clear a neighbor’s house, then ________ back toward me, flying no more than 50 feet over my head as if to say goodbye. Then they were out of sight.

I grew ________ them during their stay at our pond, and I miss them. I’ll never forget their ________ to each other. We could all learn a lesson or two from this pair.

Dogs Bow to Wolves as Cooperators

If you need help herding some sheep or retrieving a stick, you can count on your canine companion, because dogs always seem to be keen on _________. But only if their partner is a person. When it comes to cooperating with one another, dogs are truly _________… and instead it’s wolves who’ve mastered the art of teamwork. That’s according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For thousands of years, humans have been breeding dogs that can do all sorts of neat tricks. And because pups aim to please, we’ve come to think that domestication has somehow _________ dogs’ powers of cooperation. But researchers in Austria have been wondering whether that notion could be barking up the wrong tree. Because left to their own devices, dogs are bigger _________ than wolves.

“So wolves live in _________ family packs, they cooperate in raising the young, they also cooperate in hunting and in defending their territory. So they really have a strong _________ on cooperation in many aspects of their lives. _________, free ranging dogs actually seek food mostly by themselves. It’s only mothers that raise their young. And they do form packs but they tend to be somewhat more _________, if you want.”

That’s Sarah Marshall-Pescini of the Wolf Science Center at the University of Vienna. She and her colleagues decided to test dogs’ and wolves’_________ powers of cooperation. In the setup, a pair of animals… either two dogs or two wolves… is __________ with a contraption (装置) that will allow the participants to __________ a tray of food… but only if both members of the team simultaneously pull on the two ends of a rope.

A dozen wolves and 14 dogs took the challenge. And the results? The wolves ran circles around their doggie descendants. In some 400 attempts, the wolf teams __________ a snack 100 times, which may not sound all that impressive until you compare it with the doggie couples, who, in nearly 500 trials, succeeded only twice.

Now, it’s not that dogs are less earnest learners. Or that they turned tail and avoided the apparatus (装置). Marshall-Pescini says the pooches (杂种狗) were __________ about the device.

“What seemed to be happening was that they didn’t want to get into conflict with each other. So they wouldn’t both go and try things on it but rather took it __________. And this really set back their capacity to cooperate.”

So rather than step on each other’s toes, the dogs took turns bowing out, giving their teammate a chance at the plate. That show of social grace left the poor pups with their tummies growling. And no __________ to enjoy.