ABC News 5/22/05: Was Your Meat Smarter Than Your Pet? Research Suggests Farm Animals Are Surprisingly Intelligent

[Guest guest]

Was Your Meat Smarter Than Your Pet?

Research Suggests Farm Animals Are Surprisingly Intelligent

 

May. 22, 2005 - If you could talk to the animals,

would they have anything to say? New research

suggests they might.

 

Testing the IQ of a sheep may seem laughable.

But at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge,

England, they know better. One sheep who got a

reward every time she recognized a human face

correctly on a video screen scored a perfect 50

out of 50.

 

" If it was a monkey, no one would have any

problems, possibly even if it was a dog, " said

Keith Kendrick, a neurologist at Babraham. " They

would say, 'Yeah, yeah, that's expected.' But a

sheep, no one really believes. "

 

Pigs, Chickens, Cows

 

And it's not just sheep.

 

Hamlet the pig is a computer wiz. He gets a

reward every time he uses a joystick designed for

a chimp to move a cursor into a blue area on a

computer monitor. A Jack Russell terrier couldn't

achieve such a task after a year of trying.

 

In other words, pigs are smarter than dogs.

 

" They're very curious, and they'll charge off on

their own, " said John Webster, a professor at the

University of Bristol in England. " They will

investigate the world with their noses down and

batter through like a small boy. "

 

New research shows that chickens can be taught

to run the thermostat of the chicken coop, and

that even the lowly cow has a surprising inner

life.

 

Cows have been known to form lifelong

friendships, and one recent study found that they

actually show excitement when they've learned

something new " as if they're saying, 'Eureka, I

found out how to solve the problem,' " said

Donald Broom, a professor at the University of

Cambridge.

 

Wrong to Eat Meat?

 

If farm animals are intelligent creatures, should we all be vegetarians?

 

" We should eat less meat, " said Jane Goodall,

who pioneered research on chimpanzees.

 

Goodall is a vegetarian.

 

" I stopped eating meat as soon as I began to

really think about it, " she said. " People

actually don't think about it. "

 

John Redmore, who runs an organic farm in England, disagrees.

 

" We've been eating meat since we've managed to

stand on hind legs, " he said. " A natural part of

being human is to eat meat. "

 

It's natural to eat animals even if they're smart, he added.

 

" Yeah, they'd eat us, " Redmore said.

 

But, he added, farm animals should be treated

with compassion. After all, the research shows

they may be able to recognize it.

 

ABC News' David Wright originally reported this

story May 14, 2005, on " World News Tonight. "

 

2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

FULL STORY:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Science/story?id=771414 & page=1

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