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Many of the nonhuman animals (animals) with whom we share our homes and other landscapes are often mistakenly written off as being unimportant and disposable “pests” or “trash” animals.1 However, they deserve more respect, we kill them far too often, and writing them off says more about us than them. These sentient animals have sophisticated cognitive and emotional lives and also are very important neighbors with important ecological roles.
I recently posted an interview with Dr. Marlene Zuk about these amazing marginalized beings and was thrilled to learn of a new highly acclaimed book by Dr. Jo Wimpenny titled Beauty of the Beasts: Rethinking Nature’s Least Loved Animals that once again expands our knowledge about these scary repulsive underdogs, whose losses can devastate diverse ecosystems. Wimpenny encourages all of us to appreciate and respect these animals for who they are and the vital roles they fulfill for all life on Earth.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Beauty of the Beasts?
Jo Wimpenny: There are several reasons. I was becoming increasingly infuriated by the same, sensationalist, headlines popping up every year demonizing wasps, spiders, gulls and more for ‘invading’ our homes, or ‘terrorizing’ people by simply performing their natural behaviours. This kind of populist, tabloid rhetoric is only bolstering humanity’s disconnection from the natural world and in an age of catastrophic biodiversity loss, every part of nature needs our help.
At present, our views towards diverse species are inconsistent: a tiny proportion of animal life is celebrated and supported, thanks to their perceived usefulness, interesting behaviours or the fact that they are cute or charismatic, while many other creatures are feared or hated. I wanted to explore what drives our negative perceptions of these species whilst also urging people to look past the labels of ‘villain’ or ‘pest’—many of these creatures are both complex, sentient beings and ecological superstars, and they deserve so much more appreciation.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
JW: I’ve always been passionate about wildlife conservation and what’s going on in animal minds. I’ve also always been a keen writer and storyteller and my first popular science book, Aesop’s Animals, used the hook of Aesop’s fables to bring to life scientific research about animal minds, asking how our preconceived notions of animal characters, shaped by popular stories, match up against reality. Beauty of the Beasts advances some of these arguments, investigating the biology as well as cultural factors that shape fear, disgust and annoyance towards certain animal groups.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
JW: Well, I dedicate the book to my brothers, who both think that the world would be better off without wasps, and go to creative means to remove them from their gardens! As well as them, I’m really hoping that his book will create a little friction in the minds of anybody else who experiences similar knee-jerk reactions towards spiders, cockroaches, rats, even mosquitoes.
This is also a book for animal lovers, because as well as broadening the diversity of animals that are celebrated, I also want to highlight the inconsistencies at play when we positively anthropomorphise certain cute, cuddly or charismatic species – many of these widely beloved animals show far from saintly natural behaviours!
MB: What are some of the topics you consider and what are some of your major messages?
JW: I focus on the ‘usual suspects’ when it comes to sensationalist headlines and public surveys of unloved animals: sharks, crocodiles, snakes, spiders, cockroaches, maggots, mosquitoes, vultures, rats, wasps and more. I ask what shapes our views about these animals, and then share the latest research on some traits that people may not be aware of, for example that sharks can be remarkably sociable, snake mothers care for their infants, wasps provide billions of dollars’ worth of free pest control, mosquitoes may be pollinators, rats love being tickled and much more.
Running through this are couple of key arguments. First, that labelling other animals as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by applying our own morality code to them makes no evolutionary or ecological sense. Far from being out to ‘get us’, most of these creatures have little to no awareness of our presence as they go about their daily business.
What’s more, there’s no evidence that they possess the complex cognitive abilities necessary for such intentional malevolence, like theory of mind and future planning. Yes, harm can happen when our paths cross, but that’s not the same thing as them setting out to mean us harm—I think that’s a really important distinction.
Another key theme is the importance of ecological interconnectedness. Nature has spun a phenomenally tangled web of life, and just because the role of a particular species or animal group isn’t immediately obvious to us, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have one. That means we can’t just pick and choose which species we’re comfortable living around, and we also can’t expect there to be no consequences when we eliminate them. In the Indian subcontinent, for example, the loss of tens of millions of vultures due to diclofenac poisoning has caused an additional 100,000 human deaths each year, because without the birds, carcasses are being left to rot and spread disease.
MB: How does your work differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?
JW: When I started forming this proposal, the most comparable books investigating our relationships with unloved animals were Fuzz (Mary Roach) and Pests (Bethany Brookshire), both of which I loved. But I felt like there was a gap to be filled by a book that shone a light on all the ways that these creatures are also remarkable and valuable. I was apparently not the only one!
As sometimes happens in publishing, a few books on a similar theme have come out at the same time, which is fantastic because it shows there is a growing recognition of the need to care for a much greater diversity of animals. People cannot care about other creatures unless they, 1) know that they exist, and 2) have access to good, credible information. The more that people read about the fascinating aspects of cockroach behaviour or the sentience of snakes the better.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about these marginalized animals they will come to treat them with more respect, dignity, and compassion?
JM: Yes, I am hopeful that if we can understand more about both why we react as we do to certain creatures, and why those creatures do what they do, we may become more tolerant of them. I’m not looking for universal adoration, but a move towards a greater willingness to coexist with more of nature.
