Dr. Michael Fox: Animal Rights

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Strangely enough, I believe that I also owe a lot to a small pond that was one of my first playgrounds . . . because by studying that body of water — by watching it change, through the seasons and through the life cycles of its residents — I formed a crude concept of ecology, and began to glimpse the fact that all things are somehow marvelously interconnected.

PLOWBOY: Still, you certainly didn't leap right into an adulthood devoted to the cause of animal rights.

FOX: No, I first took a vet's degree from the Royal Veterinary College of London . . . that was in 1961. As much as I wanted to care for other creatures, though, that training left me unsatisfied. I felt I hadn't learned enough about animal psychology and emotions. In order to fill that gap, I continued my education and eventually earned a Ph.D. — this time from the University of London — in 1967. That degree led me to a ten-year stint as a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

PLOWBOY: And was it during that period that you began to pursue your interest in wild canine species?

FOX: Yes, and my research into the behavior of wolves and other feral canids helped bring focus to my long-held interest in conservation . . . and led me to the realization that I was actively studying animals but — despite my childhood goals — still wasn't actually doing a thing to help them. In the latter part of the 1960's, then, I began trying to use my training, by writing magazine articles and such, to help people come to a better comprehension of animal behavior and psychology . . . an understanding which, I was convinced, would increase my readers' concern for the welfare of other creatures.

However, my direct involvement in the struggle for animal rights dates back only to the early 1970's, when I was forced to face the fact that the wolves I'd been studying — animals that were really quite scarce already — were being shot, trapped, and poisoned as part of a benighted "predator control program" . . . often by people who seemed to lack any respect for (or understanding of) the animals they destroyed . . . or, in some cases, even for life itself.

PLOWBOY: Wasn't that about the time that L. David Mech's classic study of lupine behavior, Wolf, was published?

FOX: Yes, and — by making people much more aware of the fact that wolves were facing extinction — that volume certainly helped create a social climate that was increasingly open to all animal welfare issues.

Of course, I was still concerned with the well-being of pets as well as of wild creatures . . . and that portion of my work resulted in two books: Understanding Your Dog, published in 1971, and Understanding Your Cat, which appeared in 1974. Both of the volumes, which are now available from Bantam Press, attempt to improve the treatment of animals . . . by helping people who are responsible for pets better comprehend animal behavior.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print