*Watching Me, Watching You, Part II

But what does it see and what does it think about what it sees?

Cows have wide-angle vision and can see for 300 degrees around them. But cows only have 3D vision looking directly in front, so this is the only direction in which they can estimate distances well.

And if you want to know what this cow is thinking, this is the book for you, it’s by Temple Grandin she’s an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University and has pioneered how animals are handled when they are taken to slaughter, so as to minimise their distress

Temple Grandin has been interested in these matters for a while. This is a book full of remarkable things, and few within it are more remarkable than that she has written this book at all, as she is autistic; and autists, as she remarks, do not think in language. They are also not meant to write books; and worse: “I remember in college when one of my professors told the class that animals weren’t conscious because they didn’t have words to think in. Since I didn’t think in words myself, I was shocked when he said that. If an animal isn’t conscious, I remember saying to myself, then I’m going to have to assume I’m not conscious, either.”

*This was part I

Edit, having touched on topic of autism, this is breaking news, here in the UK today.

Technorati Tags: Cow’s vision, animal behaviour, livestock handling, Autism, Asperger’s

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