Animals Just Want to Have Fun

I recently found my way to an article called "Animals Just Want to Have Fun," describing a book called Pleasurable Kingdom by Dr. Jonathan Balcombe. Because his book is not online, I asked him if he could help summarize some of his findings. He responded most generously, as follows:

POINTS OF INTEREST

Pleasure
* Pleasure evolved to reward adaptive behaviours, as pain punishes maladaptive ones.
* Until recently, animals were widely denied thoughts and feelings, let alone pleasure.
* Pleasure is a broad landscape, including: anticipation, excitement, tenderness, exhilaration, comfort, serenity, satisfaction, joy, pride, relief, happiness, and ecstasy.
* There are some twenty academic journals on pain, but none on pleasure.

Play
* Many mammals and birds play; there is also evidence in reptiles, fishes, and octopuses.
* When rats play, their brains release large amounts of the pleasure-compound dopamine.
* Wallabies calibrate the boisterousness of their play to the age of their playing partner.
* Ravens are noted players. Two ravens played 'rodeo' on two wind-whipped power lines, taking turns trying to grasp the second wire in the bill and hang on as long as possible.

Food
* Rat gourmands will venture from a warm nook stocked with processed rat pellets into a deathly cold room to retrieve gourmet tidbits; lizards do the same thing. It's the animal equivalent of shunning the fruit bowl and dashing out for some doughnuts on a rainy night.
* When monkeys found lettuce hidden where they were expecting to find a banana, they behaved just as we would when pleasurable expectations are thwarted: searching the vicinity with an expression of surprise and consternation and occasionally screaming at the human observer.
* Sheep prefer a photo of the face of a just-fed sheep to that of a hungry one, and a smiling human face to an angry-looking one.

Sex
* Widespread non-procreative sexual behaviour in animals includes: copulating outside the breeding season, homosexual couplings, masturbation, and oral stimulation.
* Monkeys exhibit orgasmic responses, including rhythmic vaginal contractions, increased breathing and heart rate, clitoral engorgement, and vaginal expansion.
* The male red-billed buffalo weaver sports a penis-like appendage, which he massages against a female during 15-mins of animated foreplay leading to apparent orgasm.

Touch
* In African springs, hippos spread their legs and toes to allow fishes to nibble, much like pampered clients going for a massage or manicure at a spa.
* Rats accustomed to being tickled ran to the investigator's hand four times as quickly, and made seven times more ultrasonic chirps, than did rats trained to be petted.
* Reef fish line up to receive the attentions of cleaner fish, who advertise their services.
* When researchers experimentally brushed horses' necks, the animals' heart rates dropped, particularly in preferred spots for being groomed by other horses.

Love
* Love is adaptive for species for which close social bonds aid survival and successful procreation, such as primates, dolphins, parrots, and geese. The same applies for species with prolonged offspring dependence, as in many mammal species.

Mischief and Humour
* Dusky dolphins sneak up on gulls resting on the water; they gently grab and briefly dunk the bird before letting go; the bird flutters, kicks, preens frenziedly, then flies off.
* When repeatedly asked to identify the color of a white towel held up by a teacher, Koko the gorilla signed "red." Then, grinning, she plucked off a bit of red lint clinging to the towel, held it up to the trainer's face and signed "red" again.

Esthetics
* Attractive flowers and succulent fruits graced the earth long before humans.
* Birds have musical minds; trained finches can assign newly heard pieces to familiar composers, and pigeons can generalize Baroque from modern genres.

Joy
* When first let out into the fields following a long winter confinement, cattle will tear about a field, kicking their legs in the air like excited toddlers let into a playground.

Comfort
* Pleasure rewards homeostasis. Cold water feels pleasant if we're hot, but not if we're cold. Preference studies reveal the same phenomenon (alliesthesia) in other animals.
* A group of African wild dogs lay in a heap as a cold wind blew across the plains; intermittently, dogs on the windward side would move to a leeward spot, and over several hours, the huddle had 'migrated' to a completely new location.
* Bathing birds are known to lift a wing at the spray of garden sprinklers on hot days.

Euphoria
* Calvin Klein's fragrance Obsession for Men is strongly seductive to female cheetahs.
* Lemurs and capuchins pass around large millipedes like a marijuana joint, rubbing and mouthing them. Powerful defensive chemicals send them into a blissful stupor.

Implications of animal pleasure
* When we acknowledge animals as feeling individuals, species-centric views are inadequate; like us, other animals experience a quality of life.
* Pleasure enhances sentience, which is the basis for moral consideration.
* We may have no moral obligation to provide pleasure to others, but depriving them of opportunities to seek their own pleasures-as we do when we cage, confine, and kill-is a serious moral issue.
* Like us, animals are not just pain-avoiders, but pleasure-seekers; the world is richer for it.