Displaying items by tag: Empathy

Stress and compassion fatigue have long been recognized as real and ever-present threats for animal protection workers and volunteers. If not tackled effectively, these can ruin the animal protection missions of committed, altruistic individuals (and sometimes also their personal lives).

Several years ago, while working on my undergraduate degree in biology, I took a course in vertebrate zoology. This course required the rote memorization of hundreds of traits about both extinct and extant (still living today) families of vertebrates, from the solemnly repulsive hagfish to our familiar and celebrated mammals. One of the traits that was listed for our memorization was that birds do not possess facial expressions.

We are all familiar with the feeling of empathy. We feel sad when our friends and family are sad, and we share their happiness when they are happy. But is empathy a trait unique to humans?