Chapter 1: Biophilia - CHAPTER 1 - Biophilia In 1984, the renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson, already famed for his studies of ant societies, published a slim book called Biophilia .I Subtitled The Human Bond with Other Species , the book has had a profound impact on how we think about life on earth. Blending his own world travels with the history of biology and the bond between science and the humanities, Wilson built the case that humans are uniquely attracted to all other species, plant and animal. He wasn''t shy about it either. In the first edition of the book, Wilson made statements that strongly suggest he believed biophilia was innate; that is, genetic: "Biophilia. I will be so bold as to define as the innate tendency to focus on life and life processes."1 Did he really mean that we have genes that underlie our "focus on life"? If so, they are there because they promoted survival in the past--they''ve been naturally selected.

You don''t have to rack your brain to think of what might look like obvious examples: being attentive to the movements of prey like deer, or the calls of the wolf, or knowing through learned experience (tuned by genes) where to find food--plants, insects, other animals--as challenging as that might have been. Yet the idea of biophilia being a genetic trait seemed an overreach to some, and concrete evidence for that has been hard to come by. Wilson himself changed his stance somewhat nine years later, with this statement: "Biophilia is not a single instinct, but a complex set of learning rules."2 That either muddied the waters or opened the door to new ideas, depending on your point of view. A surprise twist to this? You could even use the exact opposite--biophobia--to argue that the much better evidence for the genetic basis of fear of spiders and snakes shows that emotional attitudes toward nature, positive or negative, can be genetic, as Wilson himself believed: "We need to include biophobia under the broad umbrella of biophilia."3 Whether biophilia is indeed genetic or, more likely, some combination of genes, culture, and individual variation, it plays a supremely important role in pet-keeping. "Pet-keeping" is a broad term; you''d expect it to manifest in a myriad of ways, and indeed, there''s a huge variety of relationships between people and pets. We all know pet owners who treat their pet as a member of the family, but even E.

O. Wilson seems to have treated his pet lizard Methuselah as just another piece of lab equipment on the table: "It would often remain in the same spot for hours or even days without changing its position."4 Beyond pets, there''s no question that we have a special interest in, and focus on, other forms of life, but sometimes that interest can go a little haywire. Given the interest is expressed by humans, it''s not surprising that it can be exclusively focused on humans. Here are two examples, one ancient, one contemporary; one used animals for political purposes, the other for boosting self-image. But first, a brief history of the artistic origins of biophilia. The inner walls of European caves at Chauvet and Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain are enlivened by hundreds of vividly colored images of animals and people. The Chauvet cave art is the oldest, estimated to date to about 35,000 years ago.

It is Ice Age art. Several of the animals are long gone, like the aurochs, cave lion, cave hyena, and woolly rhino. Altamira, in Spain, is nearly the same age, with its own array of animals, like horses, goats, and bison. Lascaux, an elaborate series of chambers, is more recent, about 20,000 years old, but again devoted to depictions of local wildlife. The discovery of these caves in the nineteenth century led to a radical new appreciation of early modern humans and their culture--these people were clearly obsessed by large animals, some dangerous predators, others potential dinner. There is actually evidence of a much earlier connection between art and the animals that surrounded these ancient humans. The Neanderthal people were fascinated by birds'' feathers and talons. One example is an arrangement of eight white eagle talons that were cut and polished, presumably intended to make a bracelet.

That was an incredible 130,000 years ago. That and the much later Ice Age art in France and Spain confirm an all-consuming fascination with wildlife. Exactly what that fascination meant is still uncertain, but the existence of images of what appear to be human-animal hybrids suggests imaginative, visionary thinking about humans, animals, and nature. At the very least, the relationship went beyond hunting or being hunted: ancient biophilia. But change was on its way. Move forward millennia to the great kingdoms of three, four, or five thousand years ago and our knowledge of what transpired is much more detailed and authenticated, and it doesn''t paint a pretty picture. Wildlife continued to play a central role not in the way it did in the lives of ordinary people, which the cave paintings arguably suggest, but for the very rich and very powerful. And the role of the wildlife was integral to that social standing.

There were menageries, similar to zoos in the sense that they were collections of wildlife unfamiliar to the people who would see them, but with a very different purpose from the zoos of today. Hierakonpolis is a good example. Hierakonpolis was an important city in ancient Egypt about 5,500 years ago, long before the reigns of the pharaohs. A series of archaeological excavations have revealed what has been called the first zoo, including the bones of baboons, elephants, hippos, wildcats, crocodiles, and a hartebeest--even some dogs. The animals were buried beside some of the most celebrated humans of the time, and there might have been a connection: that is, that the death of a ruler prompted the sacrifice of exotic animals as tribute. If so, this wouldn''t be the last time the demonstration of power and influence would be realized by the death of exotic animals. At the same time, though, there was respect; one elephant was buried on a reed mat and covered with linen. The Egyptian fascination with wild animals continued through the following millennia.

Most of the later pharaohs maintained gardens and zoos with animals mostly imported from far up the Nile River. (In fact, recent DNA analysis of the remains of baboons buried in ancient Egypt has located the formerly mysterious Land of Punt as being in or near modern-day Eritrea.) It might not be a step too far to make a connection between the Ice Age paintings of large animals on cave walls to their burial with powerful humans thousands of years later; they might be comparable gestures of respect, awe, and control. We don''t really know, but of those three, control soon took over. In ancient Assyria and Babylon, a mix of conquest, wealth, the need to promote and celebrate a leader''s power, and the ability to do that by seizing foreign territory, animals, and human labor conspired to make possible jaw-dropping exhibitions of wild animals. It wasn''t enough just to display the animals. Yes, bringing back a variety of species of deer implied the king''s dominance over foreign lands, but it would be even better if he dominated the animals themselves. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II once bragged that, at the behest of the gods, he killed 30 elephants, 257 wild oxen, and 370 lions.

These likely weren''t what you''d call free-range lions, though. A series of carved reliefs found in the excavated ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh detailed the hunting prowess of the last king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal. Lions were released from cages in the game park, where he was positioned nearby to thrust a sword into them, or fire arrows from close range. If an arrow missed, he was immediately protected by guardsmen who were standing by. The killing was the point, and the drama associated with it, not necessarily the skill deployed in doing so. However--and this hints at a deeper relationship between humans and animals--bloodshed wasn''t always wrapped into the spectacular display of foreign beasts. A perfect example was the extravagant all-day, mile-long (1.6 kilometer) procession in Alexandria, Egypt, in the middle of February, 278 BCE, a few hundred years after the fall of Assyria.

It was a tribute to the god Dionysus, but equally a celebration of the reign of King Ptolemy II. There was a seemingly endless series of chariots pulled first by teams of four elephants apiece, then by antelopes and eight pairs of ostriches (!); buffalo followed, then zebras, spice-bearing camels, hundreds of sheep, cages of parrots, pheasants, peacocks and guinea fowl, Ethiopian oxen, a gigantic white bear, leopards, panthers, lynx, innumerable horses, twenty-four large lions, and a rhinoceros. No word on their final fate.5 Somehow, as time passed and Rome became ascendant, violence took center stage again as animals became objects of slaughter in front of huge, approving crowds. While there had been mass killings of animals for joyful Roman crowds before the reign of Emperor Augustus (63 BCE-14 CE), he really kick-started the idea, claiming that he had been responsible, over a total of twenty-six public shows, for the killing of 3,500 animals, including such exotics spectacles as the execution of thirty-six Egyptian crocodiles. Augustus''s alleged kill of 3,5.