Morphology with biology

Just had a funny realization. I always wondered what was UP with pet animals, animal rights and their activitists. I mean, its just not Nature's way for animals to look out for other species. And its even more wierd when these fellas start getting all huffy about certain types of rhinos or monkeys or manatees in isolated parts of the world becoming extinct while at the same time, rats, mosquitoes, cockroaches etc are massacred by the billions. Why the double-standards? Or in this case, septuple-standards? If we ARE superior to all other living creatures then so be it. Yeah yeah, we've all heard the our-ecosystem-will-be-affected routine, though its kinda hard for me to understand how the loss of some pandas in the jungles of central Asia will affect me more than the gleeful slaughter of cockroaches in my apartment. Not that i'm complaining.

Somewhere deep in my subconscious its been drilled in by didactic primary school teachers that "Human beings must protect the environment and animals around them." but it never occurred to me then the sheeer hypocricy of hearing this rattled out inside a concrete rainforest. And then teachers would show pictures of cute furry things on the brink of erasure to tug our heart strings, while outside there'd be fogging going on. It just didn make sense.

And THEN it hit me. 15 minutes ago. Anthropomorphism. It's all about anthropomorphism. Innately humans dont really care about other species. I mean come on, who're we kidding? But when we start to see human-like characteristics in animals, particularly dogs or cats or dolphins, we feel some kind of camaraderie. No other reason why theyre common pets. Those wierdos who keep anacondas, armadillos or three-toed sloths as pets only do so coz they can see human qualities in them, albeit qualities not immediately apparent to the next man. And for this same reason, the SPCA does not look after reptiles, insects or sewer rats as no one in their right mind could discern human qualities in them. Possibly because of their ridiculous breeding cycle.

The biggest joke about all of this is that this is all based on perceptions. Too many are oblivious to the obvious; animals do not, by defintion, have human qualities. We just like to look for em. All you need is one single video of a chimpanzee mauling an innocent (human) kid and no one would notice within days that theyre off the food chain. Anyone up for Jaws, anyone?