Animal Intelligence

Today as I was driving along a wooded road I noticed a squirrel had been hit and was laying dead alongside the pavement. Less than a foot away another squirrel sat looking at what I presume was her friend or sibling. My car didn’t scare the small creature from its place of waiting. I could sense the questions that the dedicated friend or family member held. Maybe not words but true caring and concern that went beyond precisely formed words or perfectly punctuated sentences.

Yesterday my brother told me of a story he watched about a mother duck and her babies and a group of guys working nearby. They noticed the mother and a few ducklings standing beside a storm drain. One of the guys went over and saw several babies swimming below trying to get back to their mother. The humans got a bucket and fished out each baby. When they were done the mother refused to leave. The humans didn’t understand. Finally another baby was spotted in a pipe so they flushed it out and caught it in the next storm drain and returned it to the mother who THEN waddled off with her kids.

When people say animals don’t have feelings or they are unaware or unconscious or don’t have emotions, I think of stories like these. Intelligence isn’t necessarily the ability to string a series of symbols together to make words, sentences, stories. Intelligence can be the simple act of caring, of compassion–of knowing that you are needed.

The arrogance of humans and our ability to destroy life puts us at the lower end of the intelligence scale…or at least I think it might. Perhaps it depends on how we respond to people, wildlife, places…our planet…when threatened or injured. What do you think? How intelligent are you?