http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/unwind/story.html?id=225ee5b1-9bc6-4fcc-983a-aa12ea57c488

Yes, animals can feel pleasure too
Ethologist discusses the theories of how animals experience joy

Stuart Derdeyn
The Province

Sunday, September 30, 2007

It seems pretty obvious that animals experience pleasure in much the same way as us. Just scratch your cat's tummy and wait for the purring.

"Pleasure is a concept that everyone on the street understands as a fundamental concept and it seems obvious that it extends to the rest of the animal kingdom," says Dr. Jonathan Balcombe. "But science has neglected this subject, choosing to concentrate instead on pain rather than pleasure."

The noted ethologist (that's an animal behaviour expert) says that's why he decided to write a book on the subject.

It's called Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good. Balcombe will discuss his theories on how animals experience pleasure today at Vancouver's ninth annual Taste of Health Festival.

Produced by the non-profit EarthSave Canada organization, the fair promotes awareness of health, environmental and ethical consequences of our food choices and how we can move toward more sustainable, animal-friendly, plant-based diets.

Dr. Balcombe believes that the more humans learn about the animal world, the less likely they will want to eat them.

"We can't have it both ways," says Balcombe. "If you accept the fact that a dog or a cat behaves to certain situations in ways that look to us like pleasure then you have to extend it to the over 300 chickens a second that die every day in the U.S. for the food industry.

"Not surprisingly, farm animals are often disparaged as simpletons, which helps us distance ourselves from what we do to them."

You know where the doc sits on the issue of vegetarianism, but he's not one to turn animals into humans for the sake of a dietary argument. He's a scientist first. His research for the book was lengthy.

"We have to be careful to avoid the tendency to anthropomorphize," says Balcombe. "The smile of the dolphin is fixed. You can't read anything into that in terms of its emotional state."

OK, but what about Balcombe's research into how lemurs get high?

"It would appear that way," he says. "Some lemurs pick up a kind of millipede and will rub it over their body until it begins to secrete toxins that they then lick which makes them start drooling and stumbling around. They will pass the millipede around in a group in the same way humans might."

There is also the question of gorillas stand-up comics -- like the one at the San Diego zoo with a sizeable vocabulary. "The researcher held up a white sheet and asked what colour it was and the gorilla said 'red,'" explains Balcombe.

"This continued a few more times until the animal's grin couldn't be contained. Finally, after one more asking of the question, the gorilla reached over to the sheet, gave the same answer again and then reached out and plucked off a piece of red lint."

Dr. Balcombe has many more such examples, which he will share today with visitors to the ninth annual Taste of Health Festival, Croatian Cultural Centre, 3250 Commercial Dr., 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tickets: $7.