Opinion: Shift your perspective on animal webcams: Watch the hawks
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Ever since reading about animal webcams in Marlene Zuk’s Sunday Op-Ed, I’ve been hooked. The offerings run the gamut from Shiba Inu puppies and baby chipmunks to flamingoes and opossums, and all can be tracked online. And just as Zuk says in her article, viewers come to these sites and leave comments brimming with human interpretations of what they’ve actually just seen the animal do. Zuk asks: How do we know how animals feel?
Believe it or not, the Shiba Inu puppy live stream has more than 33,570,000 views and 205 pages ofcomments. Lately these have centered on Saki, one of the six pups who recently moved to her permanent home. Her departure provoked remorse among viewers and proved Zuk’s point.
daphnemoss:I was undone by sweet confusion on her face...trying not to show tears at work and feeling silly. Thanks for sharing the bittersweet joy of seeing them grow from grunting tiny potatoes to beautiful little dogs.
How can we know the puppy felt “sweet confusion”? Maybe she just had a muscle spasm. Perhaps she had no idea what was happening.
Personally, I was surprised by how animal voyeurism extends even to birds. Their lack of warmth and fuzziness makes it hard for me to relate to them, but the NYU hawk webcam is extremely popular. Viewers have latched on to their activities, posting about the birds’ eating habits and checking in to make sure they haven’t “missed anything.” Although the baby just hatched on May 6, the followers already discuss weekend chick growth and jokingly refer to each other as “hawkfreaks.”
But all I could think of while watching them was the clarity and simplicity of hawk life. Granted, their search for food is always life-threatening. Maybe the mother leaves for worms and never makes it back to the nest. This made me feel both relieved -- my thoughts extend beyond my next meal! A falcon won’t swoop out of the sky and devour me! -- and humbled. We make our relationship with animals more complicated by attributing human emotions to them, while they’re focused on one thing: survival. We’re the ones projecting value on objects -- cars, jobs, vacations -- that in the grand scheme of things don’t amount to much at all. A basic lesson, but in the middle of our complicated, high-tech lives, still one worth remembering.
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-- Julia Gabrick