• Question: I can tell you have a passion for animals so my question is why animals ?

    Asked by lambe97 to Andrew, Aggelos, Eileen, Naomi, Shane on 11 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by chantal24.
    • Photo: Andrew Jackson

      Andrew Jackson answered on 11 Nov 2012:

      hi

      Im actually just interested in living things. Athough i hated them in school and when I did my science degree, I have come to really love plants. Plants sit at the very bottom of the pyramid of life. They pull the nutrients and energy out of the sun, soil and air and convert them into a form that animals can use by consuming the plants. The ecosystem of animals in any place depends on the different plants available to them. Changes in the plant populations can have massive effects on the animals that depend upon them.

      All that said, i still find animals completely fascinating. I am most interested in animal behavior, particularly how animals live in social groups and how they resolve fights and come together to solve problems such as finding food as a cooperative group. So from this point of view, animals win!

      this video sums up why i love animals that live in groups http://vimeo.com/31158841 . The patterns these flocks of starlings can produce are one of the most beautiful things in the world and you can see them here in ireland. I could go on talking about these flocks for ages but will leave that for another question!

      cheers
      andrew

    • Photo: Eileen Diskin

      Eileen Diskin answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      You’re right! I do love animals. I have since I was a kid, I think originally because we had a dog when I was growing up. When I was a bit older, like 13 or 14 years old, I volunteered in the summers at the zoo in the city where i grew up. This convinced me that when I was older I wanted to do something with zoology.

      I guess I prefer animals to plants because to me, there is SO much variety in animals (though I know there is tons of variation with plants too haha). I like that there things are polar bears living in cold places, and things like giraffes and elephants living in hot places. And they all look so different from each other, and act totally different too! I guess its the diversity (the differences) between all the animals that I like the most.

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