natural pet


Nature’s Remedies How Animals Self-Medicate


by Sandra Murphy


Every species embodies a solution to some environmental challenge, and some of these solutions are breathtaking in their elegance.


~Linda Bender, Animal Wisdom: Learning from the Spiritual Lives of Animals


F


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20 Greater Oklahoma/OKC Edition


rom birds and elephants to dolphins, animals, whether by instinct or learned behavior, have discovered


ways to cope with parasites, pests, aches and pains. Tis science of self-medication is called zoopharmacognosy (zoo for animal, pharma for drug and cognosy for knowing). At home, a dog or cat that eats grass is prac- ticing it to eliminate parasites or hairballs. Donald Brightsmith, Ph.D., of Texas


A&M University, directs the Tambopata Ma- caw Project in the lowlands of southeastern Peru, studying the many macaws and other parrots that gather clay to eat as a supple- ment. First thought to help remove toxins from their bodies, clay adds needed sodium to their diet, researchers now believe. A pregnant elephant in Kenya’s Tsavo Park was observed by ecologist Holly


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Dublin, Ph.D., to travel miles to find a tree not normally eaten. Four days later, the elephant gave birth. Dublin discovered that Kenyan women make a drink from the same leaves and bark to induce labor. While studying Bornean orangutans


(Pongo pygmaeus) in the Sabangau peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, primatologist Helen Morrogh- Bernard, Ph.D., of the University of Exeter, UK, observed an orangutan chew the leaves of a plant that were not part of its usual diet until it formed a lather. Te orangutan spit out the leaves and used the lather much like humans apply a topical pain reliever. While animals have been known to


eat certain plants when ill, hers may be the first sighting of an animal creating a salve.


…continued on page 22


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