Original post written by Rakuen Growlithe
There is a lingering misconception, less common in the furry fandom than in broader society, which I would like to dispel. That misconception is the view that non-human animals (hereafter, just animals) are mindless, thoughtless, base creatures rather than fellow persons.
There are countless accounts and videos of animals doing amazing things and demonstrating great intelligence. However, we can never be sure if those are representative examples of animal behaviour or just once-off events. Furthermore, those are interpreted through untrained eyes and may not actually show a behaviour that people think it does. To try to avoid these issues, my goal here is to primarily rely on peer-reviewed scientific literature, ideally that which is publicly-available, but presented in a way that can be understood by all. To distinguish between scientific references and ordinary links, links to scientific sources are presented in the format [Author, year] based on academic referencing conventions.
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