A new relationship with animals, nature and each other.

Posts by Michael Mountain

  • Introducing the Whale Sanctuary Project

    This blog is taking a break for the next few months so that I can devote my energies to the Whale Sanctuary Project. Here's why.

  • Is the Sloth Sanctuary a Zoo?

    The Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica was the first of its kind for these wonderfully engaging animals, and it was a model for others that followed. But questions have arisen. And…

  • Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary

    Tafi Atome looks like a typical forest in Ghana. The monkeys have been revered in this village for two centuries. But being “sacred” is no guarantee of survival.

  • The Great Irony of Animal “Rights”

    The great irony of the animal rights movement is there is still only one species that has any rights at all: humans. But the Nonhuman Rights Project is setting out to change that.

  • Why Mass Extinction Is Part of Human Nature

    Why would a supposedly “intelligent” species behave in a way that’s bringing about a mass extinction – one that will likely take us down along with so many other animals?

    Is the Stock Market a Global Ponzi Scheme?
    Sacred Activism in the Service of Animals
    Of Humans and Persons

    The Post-Human Future

    Part Six in the series “I Am Not an Animal.” In previous posts, we looked at how our anxiety over our mortal, animal nature drives us to distance ourselves, psychologically and literally, from our fellow animals; at how ancient mythologies told of a “fall” from a time when we were in harmony with the other animals; and at how our belief in “human exceptionalism” has led us to treat them.

    Now we ask: Where do we go from here, and is there any way out of our situation?

    Ringling Caves!

    The elephants are packing their trunks. By any standard, today’s decision by the Ringling Circus to phase out its elephant acts represents a seismic shift in…

    Killing Them Softly

    A headline last week in a trade publication called The Poultry Site proudly proclaimed: “Animal Welfare at Slaughter Improves in UK.” Welcome to the Orwellian world…

    The Psychology of "I Am Not an Animal"

    lori-marino-cat-021015(Fifth in a series about how and why our relationship to our fellow animals has deteriorated to the point of an unfolding mass extinction.)

    By Dr. Lori Marino

    However much we like to think of ourselves as different from and superior to the other animals, we can’t escape the fact that we are, just like them, mortal, physical creatures, equally subject to the laws of nature.

    The existential terror that’s caused by this ever-present knowledge has been studied at length by psychologists in the field of Terror Management Theory (TMT).

    How Our Immortality Projects Impact the Other Animals

    In previous posts we’ve talked about how our relationship to our fellow animals and the way we treat them is driven by our anxiety over the fact that we’re animals, too, and our denial of our own animal nature.

    In his book Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How it Drives Civilization, Stephen Cave discusses the chief ways in which we persuade ourselves that we’re not really animals, that we can avoid death altogether, or at least that some part of us will live on in some way after we’re dead. Here’s the trailer to the book:

    In the first of two posts, Cave explains how, once we decide that we are fundamentally different in kind from other animals, we can then view them as having a lower moral status. And that, in turn, opens up "a whole world of possibilities for how we treat them."