Halifax

Beastly Passions and Compassionate Conservation:

Redecorating Nature, Expanding Our Compassion Footprint, and Rewilding Our Hearts

7:30pm
- 9:00pm
Friday July 12 2013

The Animal Studies Group, in collaboration with the Royal Society of Canada, the Evolution Studies Group, and the Situating Science Strategic Knowledge Cluster, is pleased to announce two upcoming public events that will take place at and near Dalhousie University the evenings of Friday July 12 and Saturday July 13, featuring renowned coyote scientist, Marc Bekoff. These events are part of an invitational workshop on Human Animal Relations, detailed below.

Beastly Passions and Compassionate Conservation: Redecorating Nature, Expanding Our Compassion Footprint, and Rewilding Our Hearts
Friday, July 12 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Scotiabank Auditorium
Marion McCain Building
Dalhousie University
Public Lecture (free admission)

In his presentation Dr. Bekoff will talk about the emotional and moral lives of nonhuman animals (animals) and how they very much care about how we treat them. We "redecorate nature" unrelentingly with little concern about what we're doing to whom, and two ways to stop this unprecedented anthropocentric war on nature is to expand our compassion footprint and to rewild our hearts. We need to be much more proactive because the "putting out the fire" mentality doesn't work very well now and in the future will be much less effective. When people say they're "mad about wildlife" it has two rather different meanings that result in very different ways of choosing to live with the other animals with whom we share our homes. Peaceful coexistence and compassionate conservation should be the goals of how we head into the future. We are basically "good animals" as are other animals, and we need to tap into this innate goodness to help make the lives of all animals - nonhuman and human - better. We live in a magnificent world and need to appreciate that when we harm other animals and their homes we harm ourselves. We suffer the indignities to which we subject other animals. We can always do better and it's easy to do so. 

Introduction by Dr. Simon Gadbois, Canid Behaviour Research Team; Psychology & Neuroscience; Neuroscience Institute, Dalhousie University
 

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