”We are all animals m'lady.”

Jacqueline Windh (scientist and a writer) spoils an otherwise sensible article about the ‘Disnyfication’ of wildlife, and the way this causes conflicts…

Changing human behaviour on the individual scale also had an effect. Due to most people's isolation from the "wilderness", they no longer know how to act there. For many, their only interaction with wildlife and predators is through a TV screen. Confronted with a real wolf or cougar in the wilds of Vancouver Island, rather than experiencing fear and instinctively fleeing the animal, many humans' natural reaction today is to try to get closer to take a photograph.

..with this utter drivel:

Last month, Bolivia announced that it will enshrine the fundamental rights of nature in law. In Bolivian law all natural entities – plant or animal, river or mountain – will enjoy equal rights to those of humans, including the right to life or to exist, the right not to be polluted and the right not to be genetically altered. Ecuador enacted similar, though less specific, legislation in 2008. And last month, the Cambodian prime minister retracted his previous approval for a new titanium mine, reportedly worth billions of dollars, in favour of environmental values.

Yes, you read that right – in Bolivia, you have the same rights as a trout or a tree. I think they’ve been smoking their top export…

And they aren’t the only ones:

… as disconnected as we are from nature in our daily lives, we must remember that we are a part of it, no matter where we live. And our ecosystem affects us, regardless of whether we choose to think about it. Despite all of our technological successes, for the most part, we are a species no more special than any other.

Really? Human beings, with all their infinite diversity and their technological progress, are no more special than a rock hyrax or a tamandua?

For some of us, this is a foundation of spirituality; for all of us, it is a scientific fact.

I’m doubting your version of ‘science’ just as much as I’m doubting that of the tourist who smears jam over his toddler’s face to get a better close-up of a bear in Yosemite….