Twitter Update

Something that I found interesting on Twitter this week is a statistic which stated that 1.5 billion facemasks will enter the marine environment in 2020. I find this statistic disturbing because “plastic pollution kills an estimated 100,000 marine mammals” each year. Facemasks will only add to the problem and make the environment much harsher for marine animals. On a brighter note though the World Health Organization (WHO) banned the sale of live animals in markets. On top of being unethical for the animals, live markets can lead to the spread of diseases and viruses such as the spread of Covid-19. An account I followed this week @EthologyScience focuses on Animal Behavior, specifically intelligence, cognition, sexual behavior, personality, and learning. I found this useful because I am specifically interested in the intelligence of animals and how they are similar to humans in their unique ways.

This week I responded to Valerie, Rober, and Justin’s blogs. All three classmates shared similar viewpoints as me, for example, Valerie stated that animals have awareness of others and their surroundings. Justin Hui talked about communication, which reminded me of the TIME article that focused on animal’s means of communication and how humans are sometimes unaware. Lastly, I found Rober's personal story to be interesting. He stated how he grew up in Egypt and was not fond of animals at first because they were violent and aggressive. However, as he grew up he started to love animals and the way they communicate to each other and humans.