humans & animals

      

Dear Mr. Rifkin

         Humans and animals have a long history together. For a long time we have taking animals for granted and treated them poorly. With today's sciences we know that animals are very similar to us in a lot of ways. I agree with Rifkin that animals are very similar to us, even more than we thought, but not to the extent that Rifkin implies in his article.
        Mr.Rifkin uses a lot of studies that have been done to help prove his point and indeed their are a lot of studies to support that animals are very close to us. These studies have shown that animals can share the same feelings and emotions as humans, even ones like grief and happiness. For example pigs like and need attention. if they do not get enough attention or playtime then it "can result in deterioration of health." This is a fact of kids when they are growing up. It is mentally unhealthy for a kid to not get enough attention, and it is physical unhealthy for a growing kid to not have any play time, he'll become fat. It has been long believed that humans are the only one who have the ability to make tools, but this might not be so. A New Caledonia crow was given a straight and a hooked wire to get food out of a small tube. the crow choose the hooked one. Even more impressive is when they took away the hooked wire the crow bent the straight wire so it would hook into the food, so the crow could eat. Their are other traits that humans and animals share.
       I think these things prove that animals are very similar to humans and we should treat them better because of it.