Three books about animals: what we can learn from them, whether we should keep them, why we shouldn’t test on them

Unnatural Companions
by Peter Christie
Island Press

“Belling the cat” assumes new meaning, and urgency, in Unnatural Companions, which underscores the negative impact of our pets on biodiversity. Our feline friends are only one domesticated species killing wildlife, however. Dogs are also implicated, and not just because they, too, are stalkers. Meaty and fishy pet food takes a toll on oceans and available land. Then there is the problem of the diseases our pets can spread.

Canadian science journalist Peter Christie, himself a dog owner, tackles the issues with sensitivity, examining humans’ innate desire to connect with nature and explaining why “biophilia”, a term popularised by Edward O. Wilson, is “contributing to what is arguably the greatest environmental crisis faced by global ecosystems”.

Should the transplanted birds threaten native species (so far, so benign), a “conservation paradox” could see the issue becoming ethically complex because which to choose undermines the tenets of conservation. The last chapter provides mostly common sense advice. Those with roaming cats could make them jingle.

Feline Philosophy
by John Gray
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Animal lovers looking for a way in to philosophy should try this book. Accessible and at times amusing, it seems to say, “Do what comes naturally and the outcome should make you purr.” That’s how cats operate, after all, and rarely are they disappointed by their choices in life.