In Andrea Campbell’s book, “Bringing up Ziggy: Lessons from a Helping Hands Monkey,” she writes about a monkey species found in Japan, the Japanese macaque. In order to keep them from raiding farm land they were moved to outlying beach regions of the islands. To better observe and study the monkeys, they were fed sweet potatoes by placing them on the beach. One day a young monkey was seen washing the sand off her potato. She then showed her mother and other young playmates how to wash. In a few years all the juveniles were washing their sweet potatoes, the only adult washers were those who had learned from the youngsters. This is only part of the story. At some point in time, scientist and primatologist Lyall Watson who had been observing the macaques, speculates it was with the 100th monkey who was added in the usual way, something truly facinating happened. Watson says, “…the addition of the 100th monkey apparently carried the number across some sort of threshold, pushing it through a kind of critical mass because by the evening, alomst everyone was doing it. Not only that, but the habit seemes to have jumped natural barriers and to have appeared spontaneously …in colonies on other islands, and on the mainland in a troop in Takasakijama.” Andrea puts it so well in her book: “In other words, the group consciousness of food washing developed in a slow and gradual manner, until a groundswell of universal awareness took place and created a sudden jumping of all natural boundaries.”
What does this story have to do with the soring of Tennessee Walking Horses and other horrible animal abuses? Simply, that we cannot give up in our combined efforts to stop what any of us see as ill treatment of any of God’s creatures. Each of us in our own way must do what we can. In that light I would like to share something sent to me by a friend that has a lot of information about the current problem facing the Tennessee Walking Horse. Please feel free to share also. Final Tipping Pt 2 Saved_web.pdf

Advertisement