To kill a mouse: thoughts on treatment of animals

THIS WAS WRITTEN A LONG TIME AGO, IN JUNE OF 2002.

I killed a mouse last night. I heard the distinctive click of the mousetrap, impressing itself through layers of sleep. And this morning, there was the hind half of a mouse, trailing an impressive tail, protruding from the mousetrap, still and quite dead. And on the way to dispose of the corpse behind the shed (surely nature knows how to recycle a dead mouse?), Imarveled at the exquisite detail in this creature of nature, the fine fur and complex pads on the bottoms of the hind feet. This new-fangled mousetrap that I bought yesterday has a cover so the squeamish customer has no need to see the squashed head or neck, and no need to worry that their hand might brush against mouse fur during the disposal process. I felt a certain affinity for this mouse, having discovered her first causing a racket while trying to drag a Hershey's Dark Chocolate With Almond candy down through a burner into the stove. I didn't see her for several days, and thought she might have left. But later, having ignored potatoes and onions, and convicted by her droppings, I found she had stolen four individually-wrapped Andes Candies (mint). Chocoholic -- a mouse after my own heart.

In the dawn I dreamed of dead mice in traps. I dreamed of finding a rat in the trap, only wounded, who spoke and said, "Well, Bart, it's come to this, has it?" I dreamed of recovering a dozen baby mice, now doomed. Killing creatures bothers me. I've heard this is a natural reaction, extending back into our prehistory. We humans can surely inure ourselves to this reaction, as farmers and herders have done reliably through the generations. Our soldiers adjust to killing fellow humans -- in the relevant, efficient short term, even if scars remain.

Why this primal reaction? I suppose it has to do with empathy -- our ability to put ourselves in another's shoes. A very useful skill for living in social groups. A useful skill for hunting previously unknown prey, to understand them the better to feast on them. Maybe just an offshoot of our general intelligence. The connection is easier the more easily we can map from our parts to their parts. Fellow mammals are a shoo-in. Ants, with their recognizable heads, bodies and legs, are easier to identify with than worms. Fish have eyes and mouths going for them, though their fins are foreign. Trees are a stretch, but with their size and limbs, they have it over moss and mushrooms. Dolls can get our empathy because they are crafted to look like us, despite lacking life force.

More recently, we have brought our reason to bear on how we feel about our fellow creatures. When our science tells us that a loved one is brain dead, and has no chance of recovery, we consent to hastening the death of the remaining physical body so others can benefit from organs, though our primal empathy with this body remains so strong.

We also try to figure out systematically how similar animals are to us. For which purpose we need to know: Who are we? We experience this world -- it has a "seemingness" to it, the wonder of consciousness. For all the magnificent structure our science has sketched for us about why things areas they are, it has been astonishingly silent on why consciousness should exist. But exist it does -- and when we stop to reflect, we realize that this consciousness is the one thing we are sure of -- something is seeming! With no clear evidence about why we are conscious, most of us figure that animals who are similar to us must be conscious too, and have an experience of life. This experience includes pleasure and pain. This consciousnes shas a value, this pleasure and pain has weight, and if we are thinking about a just and harmonious world, animal pain is bad.

Another recent realization has been the existence of ecosystems and biodiversity, and our all-too-real power to destroy them. As fascinating and complex results of evolution, they have value in their own right. We realize that extinction is bad because a type of being is lost forever. All individual organisms are mortal, but populations can go on indefinitely. I certainly value efforts to preserve ecosystems and biodiversity, but think it is largely a separable issue from animal rights. The last passenger pigeon and last wooly mammoth did not suffer extra stress and agony because neither knew they were the last, nor could their heads hold such a concept.

So aside from feeling pleasure and pain, what do we think animals do? Some seem to have plans and goals. They remember things. Do they reflect on their consciousness, as we do? It's hard to know. We have some evidenc efrom our own experience as children -- the idea that we know we are conscious comes as a revelation, long after we know a great deal and exhibit as much foresight as the most advanced animals. Monkeys typically react to their reflection in a mirror as if it were another monkey. Great apes (chimps, gorillas, orangutans) don't, and a clever experiment was done to show that they realize they are looking at themselves. The subject apes were anesthetized, and a patch of red dye was put on their forehead. Whenpresented with a mirror, these apes suddenly became distressed, feeling their forehead repeatedly even after the mirror was gone. It doesn't prove much, I suppose, but recognizing ourselves in a mirror is something we pick up very early as children, and if only our fellow great apes can do so, it doesn't speak well of the philosophical capabilities of all the other animals.

What are reasonable goals for our domestic animals? Here are a couple possible answers. One is that since they are under our control and we have taken responsibility for them, they should get the best of everything. This is how some well-off animal lovers treat their pets. They may not always understand what their animals want, and may project human desires onto them, but their goal is that the animal should have the best. A classic dilemma is whether this lame, arthritic dog is enjoying life, or (having no fear of death itself) would be better served by euthanasia-induced nonexistence. Another possible view is that the animal should get as fair a shake at life as a similar wild animal. This is a far lower standard. For all her intricacy and wonder, nature is not kind to individual animals. They suffer from starvation, disease, and predation. By this standard, a steer who lives his short healthy life grazing on the range before being rounded up and slaughtered is getting a pretty good deal. This steer would have been castrated (as we neuter many of our domestic animals), a physical trauma, but in the absence of gonads to create the appropriate urges we have no reason to think that the animal misses its sex life.

So what about exploitation or slavery, aside from physical suffering? These are wrong for people, because people know about exploitation and slavery, and want to be free. Beyond the most egregious abuses, we in the human world have much to debate concerning equality, equality of opportunity, responsibility and reward for past choices. A different subject entirely.

I don't think animals understand exploitation. They live and react. Our need to respect animals is either in their role as part of a treasured ecosystem, or as rather dim beings with limited awareness, not as individual victims of exploitation. I've also heard concern among animal rights groups over the fear or anxiety an animal may experience on its way to the slaughter. Is this out of line with what nature metes out? One thing the animal is not doing is reflecting on the end of its life and an eternity of nonexistence. This moment has no special status to the animal compared to other fears or anxieties.

What is wrong, I think, is raising animals in a way so that the bulk of their lives is spent in misery. Confinement of veal calves seems wrong. Raising any animal in excessively cramped and crowded conditions seems wrong. These wrongs are most glaring when their only purpose is the maximization of profit. These wrongs are much easier to address than the more far-reaching agenda of having all animals within our reach have wonderful lives. If I'm right, vegetarianism for the sake of animals is not in itself an answer. Animals might suffer more to produce dairy products than to produce meat. What matters is how the animals live.

It's much harder to evaluate what animals suffer for the sake of scientific research. It's possible to wonder whether chickens or fish feel pain. It's possible to wonder whether modern computer programs have any conscious experience. We can say they surely don't, since we can understand how they work mechanically. Yet it ignores the possibility that some day we may understand how human brains work, but still have no idea why we are conscious. Could consciousness arise somehow from certain kinds of complexity?

In the end, I think my mouse had a good life. She did not have time to suffer. I chose to end her life because of my own convenience, wanting to reserve my space and my food for humans. The trap is still there, awaiting any pals my mouse may have.