Sometimes we may feel as though our humanity makes us superior to our non-human animal brethren. But there is a lot we can learn from them to help us improve our lives and strengthen our social bonds.
There are many cases of famous human-animal relationships throughout history. In recent history we can look to Siegfried and Roy, the famous Las Vegas animal trainers who use many different types of animals in their shows. Before his injuries, Roy bonded with the big cats from birth by co-sleeping with them. Their shows revolutionized big entertainment events, as they were the first Las Vegas act to use live animals.
Another example of a strong bond is Christian the lion and his former owners Ace and John. The originally bought him at a department store and raised him from a cub. When he became too big they took great care to build a pride for him and release him back into the wild. When they went to visit him in the wild a year later, the beautiful moment when he ran to them and hugged them was caught on film. It has now been viewed 100 million times on YouTube.
Knowing that you can form lasting bonds with animals is only one of the many ways in which we can improve our humanity through the study of animals.
Check out the infographic below to learn more about what we can learn from animals.
