" And do most of us really need a scientific document to inform us that the animals we live with are conscious beings?

I believe that the human sense of connection with the more-than-human world is innate and joyous. It is our truest way of being, of dwelling, of relating. It is not new; it is very old. It surfaces in the art and culture of every civilization across place and time - in stories of human-animal relationships that are based on respect, awareness, knowledge, and love.

I have no desire to confer on any animal a capacity that it doesn't have. There is no need. Animals have capacities enough - those we do understand, those we do not yet know, those we can never know because they reside in the unique minds of other-than-human beings. "

― Lyanda Lynn Haupt , Mozart's Starling