I have always found myself drawn to deep sea documentaries. The hypnotic and wonder-full displays of these underwater dwellers turn me into a child all over again. I imagine my excitement as something akin to what British readers would have felt as they scanned the pages about the hummingbirds of North America in William Bullock’s Six Months’ Residence and Travels in Mexico (1824). He writes: [T]he sides of the laminae, or fibres of each feather, being of a different colour f

I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around our troubled relationship with nonhuman animals for quite some time now. On the one hand, this relationship appears crystal clear: when it comes down to brass tacks, nonhuman animals are a commodity, a tool, an object to admire or fear, but hardly ever a subject with comparable “rights” as human animals. Sure we can drum up a few exceptions to this like our beloved and ever-faithful canines, our lackadaisical and snarky felines, or any