Sometimes people who include people-hating as a prerequisite for true animal-lover status can’t understand why I don’t share their beliefs. The best explanation I can offer is that I’m a biologist as well as a veterinarian. And in biology, H. sapiens are just another species of animals. And like animals of other species, I may like some of them more than others.
As a biologist I also recognize that the bulk of the human population occupies niches in ecosystems populated by multiple other species on a daily basis. To paraphrase the title of a favorite book, some of those we love, some we hate, and some we deliberately or accidentally eat and even kill, sometimes even just because we can.
Not only is this week’s podcast about zoologist Pan Wenshi’s approach to saving the highly endangered white-headed langurs, it’s also a celebration of the complexities of the human-animal bond and the potential of the One Health movement few appreciate. In addition to this article describing Pan’s work, I was thrilled to find the YouTube video of the area and its human and langur inhabitants to share too.
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