Yolaine de la Bigne

Yolaine de la Bigne, journalist and creator of the Animal and Human media, author of numerous books, will inaugurate our “Animal, My friend” section. Among other things, we will discuss the place of animals in our societies and she will tell us about the incredible and unsuspected faculties which animals demonstrate.

Hello Madame de la Bigne,

Thank you for agreeing to answer our questions. We are going to inaugurate together our new section devoted to animals that we have called: “Animal, my friend. », And I know that this is a subject that is particularly close to your heart. You are a convinced environmentalist and this, long before this theme became fashionable and it is, very often, awkwardly recovered. This naturally brings me to my first question:

• What definition do you give to ecology?

The respect. Ecology is attention, the desire to know and respect everything that surrounds us, humans, plants and animals. This is why there is a very important social and humanist dimension in this school of thought that we often forget. Ecology is for me an art of living, healthier, more respectful, more modest.

• What have all these intense years taught you to study, observe and tell about the earth; sometimes alongside people like Nicolas Hulot who are just as concerned about protecting the environment as you are?

That life is extremely complex, we always want to simplify things because that reassures us but it is impossible concerning the ecology hence the errors, the controversies, the debates. Are we inventing a technology like wind turbines that seems promising? A few years later we realize its flaws. This is why you have to listen to the experts to get a pretty good idea of things and they too are often wrong. Ecology is the school of doubt. We learn the subtlety, changes and evolutions, contradictions, in short everything that makes the richness of life on earth. This should make us more humble and make us understand that we still have a lot to learn about our planet.

• I feel like the present day is more dramatic than epic. 15 or 20 years ago, many actors in society, including you, were already raising awareness of the fragility of our ecosystems. How did we manage to get to a situation today where an emergency is knocking on our doors? Or have we failed in your opinion?

Our capitalist system is headlong, obsessed with growth. In addition, industrialization, progress and now the Internet have given us formidably effective means to plunder nature. She is so rich that she seemed inexhaustible. But we have come to a point of no return. Our society must absolutely obey a more ethical approach. Earning money, having a comfortable life is great. As long as you make sense of it all. Why ? What will I leave for my children? Does my wealth benefit others? Our societies have made incredible social progress concerning women, children, injustices etc but there is still a lot to be done. And the collapse of nature puts us in a terrible emergency.

• To be interested in the environment is to be interested in living things. In 2016, you created "L'Animal et l'Homme". Could you explain to us what it is?

By focusing on the 6th extinction, this drama that takes place before our eyes without eliciting much reaction, I interviewed animal specialists and discovered the incredible discoveries that have been made in recent decades on animal intelligences. I started to meet researchers and specialists and I wanted to speak up because they are often loners who work in their area. So I created events for them to give lectures, books that brought together their texts, a website and a youtube channel. The goal is very militant: to protect animals not, as many associations do admirably, by talking about their sensitivity, by defending them from a legal point of view etc. I chose the angle of their intelligence, by arousing the admiration for all their talents. In order to demonstrate that not only can we not live without them but that if we stopped waging war on them, killing them, eating them, martyring them, we would be very successful. Animals have a lot to teach us.

• How do you explain this shift towards animals? Was it a natural path after having looked around environmental themes or the desire to rehabilitate it in our societies?

Yes the theme will gain momentum for several reasons. The Anglo-Saxon influence, first of all, our neighbors have a greater cultural curiosity about nature. The fashion for vegetarians in the United States, for example, has made the French more tolerant on this subject. I have been a vegetarian for 32 years, it was very difficult at first, people attacked me a lot. Ecological anxiety, then. This makes us more attentive because we can see that something is not right and that the animals bring us a lot. For example in the cities, people sometimes have existence above ground so their cat or their dog takes an important role, it becomes a friend, a consolation, a member of the family. Knowledge also explains this shift, for several decades we have been discovering thanks to new technologies (videos, miniaturization, drones, etc.), to biological discoveries, to ethological work that nature is incredible, animals and plants on which there are discoveries. breathtaking right now. Some animal films fascinate people, the books on animal intelligences follow one another, all of that is very exciting. And it will continue. The more we move away from nature, the more the animal will take a capital place to help us to support it. Because let's not forget that we are also animals.

• You talk about animal intelligence. There are several of them ? Besides, what definition do you give to animal intelligence? How do we quantify it?

Darwin had already said: as soon as there is life there is intelligence, the earthworm that knows how to create humus and knows the land better than our farmers to the dogs who guess us so well. and can discern certain cancers, our seizures or trauma. Very logically, each animal has the intelligence necessary to live, a chick knows how to count to 5 from birth, baby crocodiles announce their birth to their mother still in the egg so that she is ready to welcome them , the bees dance to indicate where the flowers are and give the exact position of the sun, the direction of the wind etc depending on the time of day… it's breathtaking! We are only at the beginning of our discoveries, but we already know that many animals know very well how to adapt to new situations, communicate in many ways and manage.

• At some conferences, scholars have been heard claiming that in some cases animals may be smarter than humans. Affirmations that would make many jump. And you, do you agree with that?

Of course, man is amazing, he went to the moon and invented the internet, but he doesn't know how to do many things that animals can do. We touch on a typically human point: our obsession to compare, always with the idea of being the best. However that does not mean anything, each living being has the intelligence which it uses. A pigeon is much more gifted than us at orienting itself, photographing space and remembering it, guessing magnetic fields, etc., but it does not know how to take the train. We are forced to look at our GPS to orient ourselves, GPS which were designed by imitating the ants, queens of orientation. It is the interest of these discoveries: to teach us to be more tolerant. Everyone is smart, but everyone has their own way. Besides, we see it in humans, so you have people who are intellectually very bright but not incapable of playing football who require real spatial intelligence. And Mozart, who was a musical genius, would probably not have been in the best position to synthesize a large legal file. That's why intelligence doesn't mean anything. And let's talk about intelligences. There are many.

• On the occasion of World Animal Intelligence Day , of which you are at the origin, specialists present their research and explain the results of their work. Do you think that providing information is a good way to change the way we look at animals and at the same time make us consider them differently?

I mean it and check it out. The wonder, the astonishment aroused by these conferences changes the gaze. That's why I always choose to also talk about unloved animals, spiders, pigeons, snakes etc so that the public sees them from another angle.

• So that amounts to saying that we treat them badly, because we don't know them well? So you approach respect for animals through their scientific knowledge and our more simply on the basis of feelings such as love, sorrow or pity?

Yes that's another way of approaching them but the two complement each other. We like better what we know.

• The theme of "animal welfare" is very topical. In January 2021, the law on animal abuse was adopted in France on first reading. It followed suit with a number of more or less similar laws in other countries of the world. Do you think this is a good law? Do you see any gaps or possible areas for improvement?

Little progress for huge gaps. We have avoided the subjects that annoy breeding, hunting, and we have granted some advances, prohibition of circuses with animals, dolphinariums etc. Do not sulk our pleasure, it is already good! France is very late on most of these subjects, so we welcome each step forward but it is far from being a great victory, we must continue!

• End of animals in circuses, end of dolphinariums, end of the sale of pets in pet shops, among others, were all these measures necessary?

Absolutely, they are all based on appalling excesses and disrespect for the animal which is treated like an object. He doesn't have to put on ridiculous shows, be trained and often abused, sold, in-store through shady networks most of the time. It was necessary but I repeat it is far from satisfactory. It is a very small step.

• We would like to give a universal definition to animal welfare. However, it seems to me that this definition has a highly cultural dimension. In other words, I tend to believe that animal welfare is, at bottom, an arbitrary notion apprehended according to criteria specific to man (cultural, socio-economic, religious) and not according to the animal itself. Do you share this feeling?

No, true animal welfare should not be understood according to our cultures but according to the culture of this animal. A pig must be treated according to the needs of a pig, a dog a dog etc. hence the importance of knowledge. Take the pig, who has always been particularly martyred. They say it's dirty, it's stupid! It is a particularly clean animal, which in nature - therefore its wild squeaker, the boar - lives in places for each function (eating, sleeping, defecating…), washing themselves regularly, etc.) We believe it is stupid? He is smarter than some monkeys, he has a very rich social life, is altruistic with his friends, loves to play, guesses abstract concepts etc. So we treat the pig according to our own culture and without knowing it. With unbearable injustice and cruelty. What we give these animals to live in the stalls to make sausage is a shame for our society.

• All over the world, entire ecosystems are threatened by human activity. The IUCN continues to extend the list of species in great danger, even endangered. How do you see this sad reality?

It is very worrying, the 6th extinction has already taken its toll. And the world is no longer - and will no longer be - as it was 40 or 50 years ago. It is terrible. We can "fix" our mistakes and it starts all over the place, replanting forests, re-saving places where nature and animals are finally allowed to breathe, create reserves (really protected which is rarely the case) etc but the situation is very tense.

• Isn't this above all a situation that requires a strong political response in order to support the admirable work of all the NGOs who fight on a daily basis?

It is not the policies that make the world change, they are completely behind. These are the associations that investigate, inform, open our eyes and fight for things to happen. Politicians are very responsible for the state of the world today. It has been 20 years since serious scientists - not excited ecologists - sounded the alarm. No one is listening, it's unbearable. If people do not go to vote and no longer believe their speeches, how can we be surprised?

• In 2017, you asked the question: is animals the future of man? Did you find the answer?

Yes the animal is the future of man. Respect for animals is respect for what surrounds us, for different and logical beings, for other humans and for ourselves. It must be our future: another look at life, another desire to experience the world. Otherwise I don't know where we're going ...

• Before leaving us, can you tell us about your news? What are your projects ? I understand you are working on an upcoming book. Can we find out a little more?

I have just finished "Les intelligences animales", a collective (edition 1Healthmédia) with 11 texts taken from the conferences of the events that I organize. They have been rewritten in a very general public way and illustrated with photos of bats, turtles, penguins, dogs or birds… it's really fascinating.

I publish on September 14 a personal and very committed book at Leuc "My year 0 animal suffering" with each month a subject (breeding, hunting, etc.). There is the generally overwhelming finding. Then for each subject, “things are moving” and “solutions” which fortunately show that there is much progress. Finally a "what can I do"? »With easy gestures that everyone can do to bring their own contribution and help the animals to suffer less

Finally at the end of August there is the 6th Animal Summer University at La Bourbansais in Brittany where we will talk about monkeys, wild animals in town of medical animals etc. the program will be fascinating. All the information is on the site www.lanimaleetlhomme.com and if you subscribe to the newsletter every Tuesday you will have interviews and information on the incredible talents of our animal friends. It makes life more beautiful!

I have come to the end of our interview, Madame de la Bigne.

It only remains for me to thank you for your time and for giving our readers the opportunity to benefit from your experience. I hope we will have made them want to know more about our animal friends and discover the wide range of your activities. As for me and the team at DV8 World News, we fully support your commitment to the defense of the environment and the recognition of the animal world. We hope to be able to follow you and keep our readers regularly informed of your news, if you agree of course!

Thanks again.