“Our History, and Theirs” by Alrich Rovananda Brata

We as humans require nutrition, throughout the history of mankind, we eat various

food for nutrition. Without food we have no nutrition, without nutrition, we cannot live, thus
the end of mankind, fortunately for us, our ancestor succeed of finding food or nutrition. In
the beginning we are hunters, we hunt animals sometimes with the help of wolves, then we
cook their meat using fire, and then we eat that cooked meat. Later we start gathering, we,
being humans and full of innovation, figured out that gathering is inefficient, the agricultural
revolution began, slowly we began to farm, farming requires hard work, ploughing, planting,
etc. to fulfil those needs, ancient men start to domesticate animals, they use them for
ploughing, their digestive waste for fertilizing, transporting logistics, and also for hunting
they use wolf companions. Through domestication, we, humans, create bonds with our
animals, then calling them our pets. Unfortunately some animals are used for betting, they
fight each other, because of our greed, and insensitivity. Now in the modern age animals is
alien to ancient animals, throughout human history, animals constantly breeded to fits our
needs, some to become stronger, some faster, some have more endurance and some are just
cuter.

As we can see, human history is also, animal’s. Actually, it’s the reverse, although we
are the one who write and document the history, we are the philosophical beings, our reign is
shorter than the animals. Approximately 3,5 billion years ago life began to appear in the face
of the earth, 600 million years ago complex life or animal start to form, while the age of
humanity approximately just 6 million years ago. Only about 0.2 per cent of the history of life
on Earth have humans existed, and only about 1 per cent of the history of animals have
humans existed. Yet here we are exploiting animals for food, and resources.

Let’s talk about the animal themselves. By definition animals are living organism that
feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and
able to respond rapidly to stimuli. They form the kingdom of animalia, of biological
classification. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described, of which around 1
million are insects, but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total.
But here I am going to focus more on vertebrate, which consist of mammals, amphibians,
reptiles, birds and fishes, although it only make up less than five per cent of all described
animal species; the rest are invertebrates.
 We eat food for nutrients, food can be from vegetation or plants, or from animals. We
in the modern era mostly eat herded or farm animals meat, unlike our ancient counterpart that
eat non-farm animals too, such as bear, deer, rats etc. This is because non-farm animals are
not suitable with our lifestyle and cannot be sufficiently kept in herd or farm. We love meat,
we eat the almost everyday. We eat burgers, steak, chicken wings, nuggets, sausage, and
don’t forget about fishes too. Eating meat have become trivial, this is weird because not long
ago in the past having meat was a luxury, we often prefer meat than vegetables, eating meat
or animal is essential to human culture, diet, religion and lifestyle.. For our human diet, we
make about 30% of earth landmass for farm animals, we currently keeping about
20.000.000.000 (20 billions) chickens, 1.500.000.000 (1.5 billions) cattle, and 1.000.000.000
(1 billions) each sheep and pigs. We use 20% of our water supply to support farming animals.
We killed 200.000.000 (200 millions) animals every day, 74.000.000.000 (74 billions) every
year, to put it into perspective, every one and a half year, we have killed more animals than
human have lived in the entire history of mankind.

Farming and herding may have been an environmental profession, where the farmer is
bonded with animals and care for them, this is true in the past, but nowadays, since the
industrial revolution everything change. After industrial innovation boomed, and everything
is now mechanized and demanded to be fast and instant, farming is becoming more and more
instant, farms are now huge slaughtering factory. The condition of farms are concerning,
animals are kept close in tight spaces, this is because they are engineered to be as efficient
and instant as possible, they have little to no concern to the health and wellbeing of the
animals. Pigs for example, are raised in windowless sheds, without the exposure of sun, they
are kept in little pens, where it’s hard to move around. Dairy cows are forced to continually
give milk supply. Chickens are kept in large numbers and so close to each other, that they
hardly can do anything, to make things even worse, their beaks and claws are cut. Male
chicks are gassed minutes after birth then shredded, and grinders into little pieces, this all
because they’re considered worthless. Yes, organic farm does exist, they’re well regulated,
but organic is a loose term. There are a lot of scandals and fake organics out there, and it’s
more expensive to maintain a organic farm. Eating meat doesn’t make you bad person, and
not eating meat doesn’t make you a good person. And don’t forget fishes, we hunt them
cruelly, we use chemical and explosion that potentially harm the environment. The
conclusion is that we are cruel caretakers.
 Anthropology has traditionally studied the roles of animals in human culture in two
opposed ways: as physical resources that humans used; and as symbols or concepts through
animism. Animals are also useful at our agricultural system, transporting resources and
running the logistic in rural areas where modern equipment cannot pass. Our ancient history
is full of the use of animal in transportation, where modern equipment yet invented, In 2004
they still provided some 80% of the power for the mainly small farms in the third world, and
some 20% of the world's transport. Animals are also used as clothing. Textiles are made
from animal fibres such as wool, camel hair, angora, cashmere, and mohair. Hunter-gatherers
in the past history of humanity, have used animal sinews as lashings and bindings. Leather
from cattle, pigs and other species is widely used to make shoes, handbags, belts and many
other items. Animals have been hunted and farmed for their fur, to make items such as coats
and hats, again ranging from simply warm and practical to the most elegant and expensive.
Symbolically animals are also significant in our culture, science, and religion (mythologies),
animals are used to represent things in astrology and astronomy, they are present in the
zodiacs, animals are useful in our scientific advancements, to cure many disease and famine ,
Vaccines have been made using animals since their discovery by Edward Jenner in the 18th
century. He noted that inoculation with live cowpox afforded protection against the more
dangerous smallpox. In the 19th century, Louis Pasteur developed an attenuated (weakened)
vaccine for rabies. In the 20th century, vaccines for the viral diseases mumps and polio were
developed using animal cells grown in vitro, religiously animals have been seen as the
personification of a person's soul, both while they were alive and after their death. Animals
are also subject of worship in mythology. Many people work with animals: in 2010 there
were more than 1.5 billion cattle and buffaloes, 2 billion sheepand goats, and 20 billion
poultry birds managed worldwide; in the UK in 2012 more than 3.6 million animals were
used in laboratories in non-toxicology tests .

But, there are negativity of animals existence, they bring disease. Diseases that can be
transmitted between animals and humans, such as bird flu and tuberculosis, can wreak havoc
on the health of both organisms. Now researchers have found 13 so-called zoonoses are
responsible for 2.2 million human deaths every year. The study, in the report "Mapping of
Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots," shows the vast majority of these illnesses and deaths
occur in low- and middle-income countries. For instance, Africa's Ethiopia, Nigeria and
Tanzania, along with India, had the highest rates of associated illness and death."From cyst-
causing tapeworms to avian flu, zoonoses present a major threat to human and animal
health," lead study author Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert
with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya, said in a statement.
"Targeting the diseases in the hardest-hit countries is crucial to protecting global health as
well as to reducing severe levels of poverty and illness among the world's 1 billion poor
livestock keepers." About 60 percent of all human diseases and 75 percent of all emerging
infectious diseases are zoonotic, according to the researchers. Most human infections with
zoonoses come from livestock, including pigs, chickens, cattle, goats, sheep and camels. But
in my opinion, and fact, negative effect of animal existence are lesser than the massive and
horrendous act of humanity.

Animals although have been more of a resources and object, we as humans have pets.
Pets are mere resources, they are not object, pets are livelong companions, they’re our family,
we as humans have created strong bonds with our pets. Humans began to domesticate
animals for work, hunting, and farming. But, over time, human-animal bond got stronger,
wolves that once domesticated for hunting are now become dogs, and not for hunting but
family functions. For most dogs, the attachment they feel towards their owner is fundamental
to their well-being. Thousands of years of selection and breeding has ensured that while dogs
enjoy one another’s company, they crave human attention. We encounter animals in daily
basis, everyone, every time, see and have contact with animals. From a research, some
people share their homes with animals: an estimated 342 million dogs in 93 countries
and 281 million cats in 81 countries surveyed by the World Society for the
Protection of Animals. And people visit animals: over 700 million visits are made to
accredited zoos every year, and even 20 years ago there were an estimated 106-211
million wildlife-related tourists worldwide. There are, consequently, many
opportunities for people to interact with animals. Nevertheless, although people have
speculated on the nature of relationships between people and animals for many
centuries, the empirical study of these interactions is a relatively recent development.
Nevertheless, it is widely believed that people have an emotional need to connect with
animals, which manifests itself in, for example, caring for the environment, and visiting zoo.
Perhaps the most explicit formulation of this idea is the “biophilia” hypothesis of Edward
Wilson where biophilia summarizes our “innate tendency to focus on life and life-like
processes”. In this hypothesis, human dependence on nature goes beyond a physical
dependence, and also includes aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and spiritual satisfaction .
This hypothesis has been widely applied, for example in interpreting the health benefits
that come from connecting with nature, children’s responses to pets and the natural
world ,and the enjoyment people gain from visits to the zoo. In my opinion, there is a
philosophical basis of our relationship with animals. There’s a need in ourselves to feel and
receive love and compassion, when we work and strive together with our animals, we create
bonds, those bonds become actual compassionate bonds, like what we felt with our family, as
research above said, we have dependence on nature, it goes beyond physical, it’s in fact
metaphysical, it’s a loving satisfaction

Animals are our resources, food, work-slave, transportation, but more importantly,
our companions. We have bad history with them, we have been the worst caretaker. God gave
us a job, it’s to take care his earth, and all his beings. Without animals, our ancestor wont
survives, although by definition we are also animals. Without them we are lifeless, and
foodless. This shows that humans, although full of innovation, creativity, and logic, and
although we are the philosophical beings, we are nothing without our animals and nature with
us. Because of that we need to start caring about our friends, animals. And as Charles Darwin
said, “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”