{"id":20824,"date":"2024-04-25T04:45:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T04:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=20824"},"modified":"2024-04-25T04:45:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T04:45:03","slug":"evidence-that-animals-are-conscious-beings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2024\/04\/25\/evidence-that-animals-are-conscious-beings\/","title":{"rendered":"Evidence that Animals are Conscious Beings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>UNITED STATES, April 19, 2024 (NBC News): Bees play by rolling wooden balls \u2014 apparently for fun. The cleaner wrasse fish appears to recognize its own visage in an underwater mirror. Octopuses seem to react to anesthetic drugs and will avoid settings where they likely experienced past pain. All three of these discoveries came in the last five years \u2014 indications that the more scientists test animals, the more they find that many species may have inner lives and be sentient. A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans. That has prompted a group of top researchers on animal cognition to publish a new pronouncement that they hope will transform how scientists and society view \u2014 and care \u2014 for animals.<br><br>Nearly 40 researchers signed \u201cThe New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness,\u201d which was first presented at a conference at New York University on Friday morning. It marks a pivotal moment, as a flood of research on animal cognition collides with debates over how various species ought to be treated. The declaration says there is \u201cstrong scientific support\u201d that birds and mammals have conscious experience, and a \u201crealistic possibility\u201d of consciousness for all vertebrates \u2014 including reptiles, amphibians and fish. That possibility extends to many creatures without backbones, it adds, such as insects, decapod crustaceans (including crabs and lobsters) and cephalopod mollusks, like squid, octopus and cuttlefish. \u201cWhen there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal,\u201d the declaration says. \u201cWe should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.\u201d<br><br>Much more at source.<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/science\/science-news\/animal-consciousness-scientists-push-new-paradigm-rcna148213\n\">https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/science\/science-news\/animal-consciousness-scientists-push-new-paradigm-rcna148213<br><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UNITED STATES, April 19, 2024 (NBC News): Bees play by rolling wooden balls \u2014 apparently for fun. The cleaner wrasse,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20831,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20824\/revisions\/20831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}