About Animals As Seen Though My Eyes

Humans are the most intelligent beings on this planet, as every one of you will confirm to be so. They might not always act with as much responsibility as they should, but this does not lessen the fact that no other being in the world reaches close to the human's level of intelligence.
But I dare say that this is not as special as most of us think it is. There are other creatures that are bigger, faster, older or more beautiful than us; there is an animal that's the most poisonous, one with the highest wingspan, one with the best sense of smell, the best vision or the most deadly weapon. There is always a species that is the best at some category or another. And the human being the most intelligent is a simple evolutionary coincidence and does not imply that only because he's the most intelligent, he's also the only one that's intelligent. If one was to believe this, it would be the same as presuming that an eagle, which has the best vision of all (about 3-4 times sharper than ours) was the only creature that could see at all, which would make all the other beings blind (including humans).
Still, I admit that being the most intelligent has a lot more benefits than having the best vision. Even an eagle's eyes can't see as far as the telescopes that emerged from our intelligence, and there is almost nothing we can't do nowadays to reach whatever goal we aim for, be it a good or a bad one.
But back to what I mentioned before: humans are the most intelligent, not the only intelligent beings in this world. It would make no sense to assume that intelligence (and emotions, for that matter) only evolved in humans, because something as complex (and useful!) as that would take a lot more time to evolve than those few physical differences that divide us from apes (99% of our and their genomes are the same!). Also, if intelligence would not have rudimentary existed in reptiles, even before birds and mammals evolved from them, it would be very unlikely that birds showed quite an impressive level of it as well. (Look at these videos to get an impression of how intelligent they can be:www.youtube.com/watch?v=efcIsv… www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrYPm6…  www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSySlw… <- Keas, my favourite)
Same with emotions: why in the world should animal's feelings be reduced to physical perceptions, if humans have such a diversity of different emotions that lead them though their lives? Have you ever wondered what a so-called "instinct" feels like? Why would love be a privilege for humans that no other being can feel? And most importantly: what drives animals to act the way they do if not emotions? Just what is it?
I personally cannot imagine any being to live without emotions because I believe that life itself founds in love. But this leads too far away.
Back to the intelligence of mammals: did you know that dolphins, and as I've heard even pigs (latter are by far more intelligent than dogs) give themselves names? Pigs are also said to use about 80 different expressions to communicate with each other, and some elephants even mimic human speech to communicate with their keepers (even though they apparently don't actually understand the meaning of the words, but they get what they want:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjsiY… www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcT2C1… )
Elephants also have quite a good memory and real feelings as well: They remember the place where a beloved member of their family died, return there on their journeys, and whenever they stop by the place they touch the bones with their trunks. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjsiY… This video doesn't show the sequence that I've got the information from, since I saw it on German TV)
If you have a cat you might have noticed that these animals also use their voice to communicate with us, even though they don't mimic our language. Cats meow because they want us to give them food or tell us when something hurts them or for whatever reason they might want to tell us about their feelings. I personally don't have a cat but my neighbor's cat answers the question whether she's hungry with a "meow" when she wants to eat.
Another stunning fact about cats and animals in general is that they seem to have a sense for something humans can't perceive nor understand so they call it "supernatural". I've read in a book about a cat named Li-Ping who lived with Vivian Allgood, a nurse from Sandusky, Ohio. When Vivian was offered a good job in Orlando she left the cat with her sister because in her new house she was not allowed to keep pets. But five weeks later when she went for an evening walk, Li-Ping appeared before her, hurt and limping, but it was her without a doubt. Vivian confirmed it was the same cat because of some unique features that only her Li-Ping had. The little cat had found her keeper after traveling 2300 kilometers. Li-Ping had never been to Orlando before and how did she know where to look for Vivian?
But there is also a very sad prove that animals have some "supernatural" senses. In the time of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain the Russians (and apparently the USA as well) made some utterly horrible animal testing. Their goal was to find a way to communicate from inside their bunkers with their submarines which were thousands and ten thousands of kilometers away. It was impossible to stay in touch via radio due to the distance and the thick walls of the bunkers, so they came up with another idea: A female dog who had just had puppies was placed in the submarine and her pups were left in the bunker. Then, one after another the pubs were tortured in the most horrible ways (which I don't want to mention here because I find them so utterly sick and inhuman) and were killed in the end. Same time the mother on the submarine felt what was happening to their children and reacted howling and yowling like she felt their pain, even though they were miles apart. Not to mention, this was their newly invented way of communication of course. (I've got this information from a book as well and you can't imagine how much I wish it was wrong.)
Back to some more pleasant things because I feel sick when thinking about that.
It's not only animals that seem to have some "supernatural" senses, but plants do as well. Some plants are warning others about vermin that is attacking them, about forest fires and maybe they even know if a human wants to hurt them. But one after another: the warning system that plants use founds on chemical substances that they release into the air when being attacked by vermin, as we know today. The trees in the attacked tree's area get informed about the vermin and even before it befalls them as well, they start producing bitter substances in their leaves that the vermin doesn't like. So the chemicals seem to contain information about the kind of vermin they have to fight. But even more impressive and surprising than this is the following experiment executed by Cleve Backster.
When a human being feels a heavy emotion the (electrical) resistance of their skin changes. This phenomenon is used in lie detectors. Now Cleve Backster attached a lie detector to the leave of a plant to see whether it would bud when he lit one of the plants leaves. But surprisingly the lie detector budded even before he lit it, but when he was only thinking about it. In other words: Backster's intention to hurt the plant put it into distress. Does that mean, plants can read our minds and see our intentions before we even actually do something? It would take too long to tell the whole story here but the experiment was repeated by Cleve Backster over and over again and it seems that the answer is: yes, they can. I cannot tell if it really works since I don't have a lie detector but I really want to try this once to see for myself. If it was true that plants know our intentions then being nice to them and talking to them will make them really grow better, as some people say.
Thank you for reading all of this to those who have come to this point. Before I end this journal I would like you to remember all of the things I've said about animals and think about the way they are treated nowadays. If you've never considered to become a vegetarian please do it now. If you have considered it once, think again. If you already are a vegetarian or can't become one because of your health then think of more ways than this to help animals that are treated badly. There are so many and every contribution in whatever form helps.

Let's make this world a better place together.

WindSwirl