"The domestication of wild animals - an evolutionary jackpot": an interview with naturalist Evgenia Timonova

Evgenia Timonova - naturalist-communicator and host of the program “Everything is like animals». She travels to the most remote corners of the planet to photograph animals, and talks about why we are like them.

Lifehacker asked Evgenia about how she prepares for filming, what she is afraid of (spoiler: not snakes and spiders) and what interesting facts she can share about domestic and wild animals.

About naturalism

- How does a naturalist differ from a biologist?

- The biologist conducts his own research, is engaged in scientific work, makes publications in scientific journals. A naturalist is a person whose life and work are associated with the study of animals in any form pleasing to him. Let's just say that a biologist is a profession, and a naturalist is a vocation.

A biologist may be afraid of spiders, but a naturalist may not.

There are naturalists who say: “We do not open frogs or collect insects. They are dear to us alive. " It is quite difficult for scientists with such ethical attitudes. Therefore, naturalists are people who are friends with science and take information from there. But science itself is made by biologists - those who can dissect frogs.

- Yes, in many interviews you said that one of the reasons why you left the biology department was the horror that animals need to be dissected. Were there other reasons?

- I think yes. I always saw my task in relaying knowledge about animals, giving meaning to biological information. Because they are two different things. Information is a set of data, but it acquires meaning when it is lined up in a certain sequence and linked to other blocks. This is a thing that is not taught in the biology department.

Literary criticism, psychology, and other humanitarian disciplines are concerned with organizing meanings. And at that moment my focal point was in this area. I wanted to learn how to build communication on the topic of biology.

Although this decision seemed strange and difficult to me, over time I realized that everything was perfect. Sometimes it is very important not to receive formal education. Because any education is not only a system of knowledge that is passed on to you, but also a system of restrictions that format you.

My friend - a candidate of biological sciences - once told me: “What a blessing that you did not graduate from the biology department. You would not be able to tell about everything the way you are telling now. And this is absolutely priceless. "

- Why do you think that it is necessary to talk about animals?

- Because we ourselves are animals. And studying ourselves is important, as it gives additional tools to control our life.

- Why did you choose this format of the story - to compare people and animals? And what parallels do you find most often?

- Because people are not very interested in animals. They can love their cat or their dog. But it is hardly possible to be interested in animals as a general phenomenon.

But people are close to everything that is connected with people. This is a universal technique: when you want to interest a person with something, tell it so that he recognizes himself in it. Then he will become curious about things much less interesting than animals. It's a sin not to take advantage of our human narcissism.

Therefore, I try to look for unexpected, non-obvious parallels that, through an animal metaphor, will tell something about people.

- Yes, you have a video about an asshole lion! Are there any "wacky" animals besides him?

- There are no "crazy" animals. The idea was to show how strange it is to apply animal categories to humans. As strange as human beings are to animals.

After all, a person is called a lion as if it is something good. OK. Let's see how he behaves in nature, and, based on this, we will try on human categories for him. Fathers! It turns out that he is lazy, does not respect females and mates with everyone. It turns out that the lion is an asshole! Quite a strange and ridiculous design.

With a lion, like a grenade, we wanted to break through the wall - a stereotype that animal video can only be boring. We got attention. And after that we were able to tell what we are interested in, and in the ways that we like.

Many people do not understand that this is a single action, and not at all our creative method. So we are often asked to make a million videos in which I will tell who is like whom.

- And how are people fundamentally different from animals?

- We are distinguished by the presence of speech. Our language is vastly superior to all animal communication systems. They also have languages. They can communicate relevant information to each other, talk about their condition here and now.

But human language is able to describe what was, what will be, or what has never happened. He can even describe himself, that is, he has metafunctions. And this is not the case with other animals.

Remember at least that in childhood we can learn a language any complexity without realizing it. This sets us apart from all other animals. This is our specialization.

- What mission do you set for yourself, doing naturalism?

- The only task that stands before me is to live my life interestingly and with pleasure. Telling people about animals is something that gives me pleasure from early childhood.

But I also try to pay attention to some things. Because while people do not see animals as such, they do not notice our similarities. This means that they do not notice that we are all relatives of each other, participants in one great system.

To convey the understanding that all life is priceless and amazing is probably what I am talking about animals for. People are not evil and not bad, they just often do not think about it. But if you pay attention to them, the behavior will change automatically.

- Have you ever been scared when you approached an animal? How close can you possibly be to them while filming?

- If you approach a dangerous animal (like crocodile), it's very good if you feel scared at the same time. Because if you are not afraid, then you misjudge the situation and take great risks.

Every time you need to observe, can the animal attack? If it attacks, what is the threat to you? And if the level of danger is too high, it is better not to do it. And if it is tolerable, then you can try.

Of course, close contact with animals is a huge source of information about them. Sometimes they ask me: “Why are you touching the box jellyfish? You can leave it alone, just watch. " The fact is that for our knowledge it is not enough what we can see with our eyes - it would be good to connect other sensory systems.

Touch is a good source of information. And when you are very interested in something, you try to collect as much knowledge about it as possible - especially when your prevailing system of perception is kinesthetic. The kinesthetic system of perception relies on the olfactory-tactile channel of information. .

There are visual researchers who just look and they feel good. There are audial researchers who don't have to look for a bird in the bushes - they hear it, and that's absolutely enough. I was less fortunate: to complete the picture, you need to touch the animal. But this is not worth doing with everyone. And I don't always do that. However, it can be funny sometimes.

- You said that a naturalist is not afraid of snakes and spiders. That is, you yourself are not afraid of any animals?

- These are different things. There are phobias in which people are afraid of snakes and spiders - and all and always, regardless of the conditions of collision with them. And there is a healthy fear of dangerous animals.

These animals include, for example, elephants. Yes, yes, dear elephants! Which kill about 10 people every year. And not just someone, but the keepers who work with them.

The chief elephant breeder of the Moscow Zoo once told me: "Every morning I go to work and I understand that I may not come back from it."

Therefore, elephants must be feared. They usually kill with their trunk, their most powerful weapon. Being next to them, I always watch how they dispose of them.

Most of all, by the way, I am afraid of horses: as often happens, the most dangerous animals are not at all those that everyone is afraid of. From time to time I have to ride them, because some places can only be reached by horse. And at these moments I always remember that this is a huge strong animal, to which we actually trust our life, and it does not always justify this trust. Among my acquaintances, zoologists and naturalists, there are many people who were injured not from bears and snakes, but from horses.

And as long as I have this fear, I will be more or less safe. And if I lose it, then my chances of living to a ripe old age will drastically decrease. You don't have to be fearless.

- Have you been injured by animals?

- They bite sometimes! And because of this, there is a risk of infection rabies. Therefore, it is more likely a moral trauma: you need to spend nerves and energy to drag yourself to the first-aid post and give yourself vaccinations.

The most unpleasant story with an animal is the bite of a Balinese macaque. In the woods, during the shooting, she tried to steal the recorder from me. And she was very angry that she was not succeeding. It was unpleasant.

- In what place was it more scary, risky, most dangerous of all to shoot the material?

- Our most action-packed expedition took place in Kamchatka. It was late spring - the seasons had shifted, the rivers had risen. At some point, we got into a river loop, from which we could get out only with the help of the Ministry of Emergencies. Kamchatka was cool! And all the other trips were hardly distinguished by some extreme.

- How do you prepare for the trip and how do you come up with ideas for plots?

- There are two ways. Or I look at animals and recognize them as people. Or I look at people and recognize them as animals. And then, starting from this rhyme, I create a plot.

And we are going on a trip like this. We think: “Something we have never been to South America. Let's go there! " Having chosen the direction, we study the local flora and fauna. That is, the place is primary. We do not go to Uzbekistan to shoot saxaul jays. We go to Uzbekistan and at the same time shoot everything that lives there.

And the plots are already taking shape by themselves. There is a feeling that I am some kind of tool for their implementation. It is as if I find myself in front of a certain book, which I read and write at the same time.

- It seems that you have already told about many things in the animal-human world. Where do you plan to move next?

- I, frankly, do not plan anything especially. Everything goes by itself somehow. All my life I have been doing the same thing, it just has different forms.

But our brand “Everything is like animals” is growing into an ecosystem. In the last couple of years, we have had a lot of other activities besides short funny videos about animals.

1. Travels. We realized that not everything can be told in the video. Sometimes it's easier to take people with you and bring them to the same Africa or Costa Rica, showing everything on the spot. And this, of course, is also very interesting. In some ways even more interesting than the video. When you have been shooting stories for eight years, you already know what needs to be done and what will turn out in the end. And travel is always impromptu and unpredictable. And unpredictability is a whole other level. dopamine and other neurotransmitter support. Therefore, I really like it when communication with people happens live.

2. Zoo tours. We hold them almost every weekend when I am in Moscow. It seems to be the same place, the same route, but people are different every time, and animals do new things all the time. Each tour is different from the previous one. And what can we say about travel!

3. Children's courses "Everything is like animals." They appeared in 2020, when my friends were in lockdown and were a little swollen from the number of their own children. They asked me to tell them something interesting about animals. And somehow it went, it went!

We made a course on biology, brought up other teachers there: Drobyshevsky, Dubynina. Added couples for art history and painting. In general, a young naturalist should be comprehensively educated!

Then I noticed again that children are very interesting interlocutors. In general, we have always had a large children's audience, but for some reason some people still think that the program "Everything is like the animals" is for adults. But this is not the case! "Everything is like animals" - for everyone. I am not making any age difference.

Children love it when they do not do something especially childish for them.

I remember my own feelings - when in the 80s I had only two programs about animals: "In the world of animals" and "Children about animals."

“To Children About Animals” is a special children's program that infuriated me with its approach: “What is it! My God, why are you talking so boringly? " And I really liked In the Animal World. Drozdov did not address the audience as children, but spoke to everyone as equal. And, perhaps, this is precisely what he got through to my childish heart.

Children are not fools or feeble-minded. And when you communicate with them on an equal footing, they appreciate it very much.

4. The film "Russian character" Is one of our recent activities. Last year we won the main grant from the Russian Geographical Society for filming. Some part is already ready: Chukotka, the Caucasus, Altai. It will be necessary to complete a couple more episodes and edit a great movie from this. It will be some kind of new experience for us.

Through five different animals of the Russian fauna, we are trying to reveal the strange concept of "Russian character". We are trying to find out whether it exists at all and why it is so common for a person to assign character to everything that he sees. These will not be the most obvious animals such as a fox, hare, wolf, bear. We have chosen the species less familiar to Russians. For example, walrus, bison or pika. We want to approach this from an unexpected angle - to think about what unites us living in the same territory.

We want this to be a new kind of movie. Because big animal films are a tricky genre, unless, of course, the BBC makes them with a budget of millions of dollars. Coverage is ensured there thanks to entertainment filming.

But as a genre and narrative, tapes about animals are not very interesting for most people. And we want to overcome this barrier. Make such a mosaic film, where one plot is made up of five separate ones.

About pets

- Is it worth having pets at all? In the film "Earthlings" the author says that it is, in a sense, exploitation.

- Yes, it's worth it. The best way to provide an animal with a biological future is to domesticate it. Man changes nature so much for himself that wild animals are deprived of their natural habitat. And those of them who are fortunate enough to enter into a symbiotic relationship with humans have won the evolutionary jackpot.

There is an idea that symbiosis is only a mutually beneficial existence. In fact, this is any existence of two different species in a closed system. For example, parasitism is also a form of symbiosis that is beneficial to one side, but disadvantageous to the other. Or commensalism - when it is beneficial for one side, but the other does not care.

Take wolves. Man did not domesticate them. They themselves came and for a while just finished eating for him. And at the first stage, our symbiosis with the future dogs was commensalism: such cooperation was beneficial for them, but we did not care. And then this relationship gradually evolved into mutualism - a mutually beneficial symbiosis, when both dogs feel good and people feel bad without them.

In domestication, there is a contradiction between the fate of each particular animal with which it is in a symbiotic relationship, and the life of the species. Because you can feel sorry for chickens as much as you want, the life of each of which may not be the happiest. But, nevertheless, this is the most widespread bird on the planet only due to its domestic status.

- Will not some species die out and be replaced by others in this case? Will there be a decline in biodiversity?

- Yes, the decline in biodiversity is happening right now. And anthropogenic pressure is one of the reasons for the mass extinction. Therefore, of course, in this situation, species that are transferred to human maintenance are in a more advantageous position.

On the other hand, we are living in the sixth mass extinction period. And after the previous five, there was a surge in biodiversity, the emergence of the biosphere to a new level of complexity and organization.

It is a pity that we will not catch the fruits of this extinction, but will only observe the process itself. And this is not the most pleasant sight.

But this is how evolution goes. The growth of biospheric complexity occurs through crises. We are now in one of them.

- Is it worth continuing with artificial selection? After all, pedigree cats and dogs, due to closely related crossbreeding, most often have health problems. Is it better to take animals from shelters?

- There is no consensus here, they say, take animals only from shelters. The problems of pedigree animals are not so much due to closely related crossbreeding. The fact is that in the process of selection, traits are artificially maintained that are poorly compatible with health.

This applies, for example, to brachycephalic breeds of dogs and cats - with short snouts. Or Scottish Folds. Why do you think cats have such ears? Because they have a defect in the development of cartilage tissue. And this defect affects the entire body as a whole, therefore, heart defects are often found in such animals. Now in Europe, the Scottish Fold is prohibited from breeding under the motto: "Stop condemning animals to a knowingly short and painful life!"

When you aim at the maximum severity of a sign, it may not obviously affect your health. This is the dark side of selection.

But there is also a light one. A thoroughbred cat or a well-bred dog is a very interesting animal with new valuable traits. Choosing a companion for himself, a person can determine in advance his future qualities, which will make their life together more pleasant. And to refuse this, saying that it is necessary to take only mongrel cats from shelters - Luddism.

- You travel a lot. What is the attitude towards homeless animals in different countries? Is Russia different in this respect?

- They are well treated in Russia: feed, try to take it for themselves. Yes, sometimes the media write about cases of improper treatment of stray animals, and it can give the impression that everything is terrible. But in fact, the wave of disturbances and the fact that these are isolated resonant cases indicate that this is a very important topic for us. In those days, when it was not so relevant, they simply did not talk about it.

What about other countries? India is home to a huge number of stray dogs. But these are dogs that have never had owners. The Indian Dingo is a self-formed aboriginal breed. They live the way wolves lived when they came to man: they use him as a source of resources, but do not try to become his dogs. By the way, they are mainly fed by Europeans. Because for us a stray dog ​​is an animal that has problems. And we, as people, must solve them.

An unexpectedly hard impression on me was made by stray dogs in Georgia. There are many abandoned animals. Moreover, thoroughbred or half-breeds - half-spaniels, half-Bermans, half-labradors. In Russia, most often stray dogs are those that have always been homeless. And in Georgia, they look like they've known better times.

When I asked the locals why this happened, it turned out that this was due to the non-prevalence of sterilization. A purebred dog can feed a litter with a stray one. And she will have puppies that will be thrown away. The number of such lost animals that do not feel at home on the street amazed me unpleasantly.

- What should be done with stray animals?

- By creating cities, people adapt animals to their own needs. And as long as they do not come into conflict with him, everyone lives fine. No one is embarrassed that titmouses are flying around. They fly - and great.

It is more difficult with dogs, because this is a modernized wolf. Predator. But a real wolf will never attack. And the dog can. The main thing that makes her dangerous is that she has ceased to be afraid of a person.

And it is understandable that with an increasing understanding of the value of their own lives, people are trying to exterminate stray dogs as a class. For example, they no longer exist in Europe and the United States. I think this practice will be implemented all over the world.

- Do you think people understand their pets? Will we be able to learn to talk to animals in the future? There was an experiment with the gorilla Koko.

- Depends on people. Of course life with pets (especially if it is a more or less contact animal) implies the need to understand each other.

The ring of King Solomon, which allows you to speak with an animal in its language, is a long-standing dream of humanity. Maybe someday this will happen, but it is unlikely to be the same as in fairy tales and science fiction films.

Most likely there will be some kind of intermediary interface that allows you to read what the pet is thinking and feeling. Perhaps through the success of neuroscience: people will be able to follow how the behavior of animals looks at the level of brain activity, and draw conclusions from this.

- What advice can you give to pet owners?

- The main problem of pets is boredom and monotony. Cats and dogs have very powerful brain, with the help of which they used to solve all the problems posed to them by the environment. Now we do it for them. As a result, the pet becomes bored.

Therefore, including in zoos, now one of the most important areas is the creation of an enriched environment. How to diversify the daily life of an animal? What tasks should he come up with? How to make the feeding process as similar as possible to feeding in the wild?

To understand what unmet needs an animal may have, read about how it lives in the wild.

Taking care of animals is our responsibility. Often, when starting a cat, people play with it for the first few years. And then the pet becomes less mobile, and they think that he doesn't need anything... No, he needs everything!

We must continue to play with him, create sources of new impressions for him and come up with puzzles. The animal feels better when it solves them. And he does it successfully: if you set him unrealizable conditions, it will frustrate him.

- Two facts about cats and dogs that amazed you the most.

- All small cats (including home) vertical pupils - in the light they shrink into a narrow slit. And all large cats have round pupils - in the light they turn into a point. Why is this happening? The fact is that all cats are ambush predators. Small ones hunt sitting in the grass, and it is very convenient for them to observe prey with the help of this slit pupil. And for large animals, this mechanism is no longer relevant. But there is one and only exception: the Pallas' cat is a small cat without a slit pupil. She lives in rocks, and there is simply no grass.

Dogs have near-anal glands that secrete various pheromones. When a dog is doing well, his pheromones indicate that he wants to be friends and play. Then he starts wagging his tail to spread them as wide as possible.

The same mechanism - and with pheromones, indicating that the dog is scared. But in this case, she plugs the near-anal glands with her tail, as if saying: "Nobody should guess about this."

About wild animals

- Are zoos evil?

- Zoos are like people. There are good ones, and there are those who need to get better. Now more and more zoos are evolving from the medieval concept of menageries, where animals were exhibited on fun to the public, to scientific centers, where they are kept in the most comfortable conditions, multiply and are being studied. And all this knowledge is absolutely invaluable for the conservation of species in the wild.

Some of them still exist exclusively thanks to zoos. For example, David's deer or Przewalski's horse. And there will only be more of them. Because man is very active in stepping on the natural habitat of animals.

And even in those cases when the animals are not hunted, they have the risk of disappearing due to the fact that they have nowhere to live. Zoos are an alternative habitat to replace the natural habitat we have deprived them of.

There is no alternative to the zoos themselves. Until we have learned not only not to reduce, but also to restore the natural habitat of animals, we nothing remains but to take them under your wing and try to preserve their specific genetic diversity.

But not all zoos and aquariums are up to date. There is, for example, dolphinariumsthat absolutely do not make this sense: nothing threatens dolphins and their habitat. Dolphinariums are commercial menageries. And this is a shameful thing that shouldn't be. And you don't need to take your children there. They are not stupid at all and perfectly see the whole context.

Even if now it seems to you that there is nothing wrong with it, believe me, when they grow up, there will be a completely different ethical system, and for them it will become a traumatic memory.

Everyone will understand that dolphinariums are like gladiator fights.

The same goes for the petting zoo. His horror is that animals have no choice - to come into contact with humans or not. Sometimes they are simply grabbed, squeezed, and they cannot influence this situation in any way. This is a lot of stress.

But there are contact zoos in which animals are presented that have been evolving alongside humans for many thousands of years. For example, the department of the Moscow Zoo. You can pet goats there - they love it. But when they get bored, the animals simply leave the fenced-in area.

- What zoos in Russia and in the world do you consider the best?

- The best one that meets the standards of the new alternative zoo is zoo in San Diego. A giant complex, in which many species live in conditions as close to natural as possible, minus all the disadvantages. In general, life in natural conditions is very far from the rosy ideas about them: "It's so good in the wild!" It's difficult in the wild. If animals could tell where they prefer to live, I think the absolute majority would choose a zoo.

In Russia, I can note Moscow Zoo. Despite the fact that it is located in the city (and it is difficult to create adequate conditions in it), the employees managed to make it good.

My favorite Russian zoo is Novosibirsk. There is a huge forest area in which there are aviaries. That is, the animals seem to live in the forest in very good conditions. This is a world-class zoo.

Nizhny Novgorod "Limpopo" also, they say, not bad. I was not there, so it's hard to say. But he is praised by people who know a lot about it.

- What do you think about keeping wild animals at home? People began to produce genetics, fenechs, foxes more often.

- It all depends on where these animals are imported from. Captive-bred lines that already live as human symbionts - what's wrong with that? The only problem is that they are often caught in the wild, and there are not enough of them there.

There is no simple answer here. On the one hand, it is good when you support a human population in captivity. On the other hand, where to find producers who will supply animals not from wildlife?

- What do you think about the use of animals for scientific purposes? Are there any justified cases of experiments on them?

- Difficult topic. Great practical sense in the use of laboratory animals has been and remains. But, fortunately, now the results of many experiments can be extracted from Big Data - based on old laboratory work. When we calculated how many experiments on animals were repeated, we realized that their results could be mathematically deduced from those already available. And many more experiments can be performed on cell cultures. They also make it possible to get answers to some questions without testing animals.

In addition, damaging tests on apes are almost completed. You can study their behavior, you can carry out various cognitive tests. But doing something like vivisection Vivisection - carrying out surgical operations on a live animal. now it is no longer possible. And this is very good.

When you read descriptions of experiments at the end of the 19th century, you think: “Wow! It is not surprising that later these same people started two world wars. "

But some experiments still remain the most informative if they are carried out on animals. This is an ethical compromise. Evolution - this is generally a way of compromises. And laboratory animals are one of them.

In addition, now there are ethical commissions that decide whether it makes sense to conduct this research on animals and what kind of animals it should be.

- What about other forms of exploitation? For example, in the food industry. By the way, are you vegan?

- Not. Man is the most omnivorous animal, and that is what made him so smart and inquisitive. Therefore, I do not give up meat. But I have an aboriginal attitude towards him: “Meat - on holidays. There shouldn't be too many holidays. "

All this is a rather complicated and ambivalent thing. Do I eat meat? Eat. Do I feel sorry for the animals who gave their animal life to ensure that I had such an opportunity? It's a pity. How does it get along in me? It gets along somehow.

This is what Dostoevsky said: "A man is wide, he should be narrower." It's just impossible to narrow it down. We will have dilemmas over and over again. And forcing yourself to choose one thing is not always necessary.

Blitz

- The most sexually active animal is ...

- Person. English naturalist Desmond Morris singled outD. Morris. The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal 10 goals people have sex for, and reproductive is just one of them. It is unlikely that any animal will be able to break the record.

- The most aggressive of all ...

- Meerkats. Spanish scientists conducted a study of the level of lethal aggression among the beasts. Humans have about 2.5 murders per 100 deaths. This level is gradually decreasing, but remains very high. For comparison, the average number of homicides among all mammals is 3 per 1,000. At the same time, we are less aggressive than our closest relatives - chimpanzees, which have 4.5 murders per 100 deaths. But we are all far from meerkats. Their lethal aggression level is 19.5 kills per 100 deaths.

- An animal that does nothing is ...

- Mussels, maybe. They do nothing at all, but only filter what comes to them. But this is rather an unanswered question.

- Eats most of all ...

- Shrew, for example. It is an animal with a very high metabolic rate. It eats about the same amount per day as it weighs itself.

- The smartest animal is ...

- None. Since we have not yet figured out what to count as the mind, there is no answer to this question. We can measure intelligence animals by the degree of similarity to humans. But the tasks that, for example, are facing the octopus, are unsolvable for humans. And from this point of view, the first is smarter.

- The animal with the most developed maternal instinct is ...

- A female stegodifus spider who feeds herself to her own children. Matryphagia is the ultimate manifestation of maternal care: spiders eat their own mother, and only this ensures their survival.

But the closest, understandable for us, understanding of the maternal instinct is that of orangutans. These are the most heroic mothers of all animals. Because up to six years old, an orang-utan mother single-handedly raises her cub. Until the age of four, she feeds him with milk, then for two years he lives with her and learns about life.

To maintain such a relationship for six years, orangutans need very deep emotional connections. A stunning example of inhuman love.

- One of the rarest animals is ...

- Sandpiper-shovel. Now there are several dozen of them left. They nest in Chukotka, and in winter they fly to the southern coasts of China. Their wintering places are actively built up there, and they have nowhere to live. Because of this, they are dying out.

- Your favorite animal.

- The animal that I am currently working on. Whom I study is my favorite.

- The most visually scary animal is ...

- There are no scary animals.