Patricia Manahan - Reaction Paper

Patricia Manahan

2012-78642
Sir Juned Sonido STS X2

Reaction Paper on Life of Mammals

Knowing how monkeys and apes interact with one another and their environment is one of the most fascinating things to witness. It is amazing to see how similar their way of living is to humans. The speed that they learn from their experiences to survive and their ability to learn from one another is comparable to those of our abilities. Just like humans, these social climbers have their own culture that they live by.

While watching the sandpeople hunt the animal I kept thinking that their way of hunting was naïve. I kept thinking how a human could out run or even catch up with an animal that is definitely larger and faster than he is. I did not expect him to catch up to that animal and even kill it. However, it took him hours to achieve that feat; it was still impressive and even unbelievable.

While evaluating why I even doubted their capability, I realized that humans are indeed capable of those things. It has been done thousands of time during the old days when there was no technology to rely upon. I doubted it was even possible because in the modern day that we live in, these kinds of hunting techniques are so unnecessary. The science, technology and society that we are living in today allow us to have a very easy life. Today, there is no need to run for hours and hours, no need to exhaust our energy to the limit, and no need to worry about losing sight of the prey and having no food to eat. For most humans, acquiring food has become one of the most mundane things in our every day.

Watching the culture of our fellow mammals particularly monkeys and apes let me evaluate our science, technology and society in a different point of view. On both episodes, it showed how similar their practices are to our practices. It may still be a far comparison but through their experiences, we can more or less reflect on our situation. Since the number and variety of food found in their habitat does not meet their needs anymore, they adapted and hunted for flamingoes. Though it is for survival, it still slightly tipped the balance since they have just learned how to do this.

Humans also adapt to their growing needs and we do this by mass-producing our crops. We achieve this by distorting the natural landscape of our world. This changes has been so drastic for that I fear that eventually it would have an even more massive and irreversible effect to our planet. David Attenborough’s ending statements will make anyone ponder on how we treat our environment. I think that life could potentially be more peaceful if we would be the ones to adjust to our environment instead of the other way around. I think the human population should seek for a balance between having an easy life and respecting nature’s boundaries.