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ILA FRANCE PORCHER
Ethologist, author, and wildlife artist
Shark Behaviour Specialist Advisor
SHARKS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE
As a wildlife artist I have observed a range of wild animals and made copious notes about them. Cognition, or thinking in animals, is shown when an individual must have thought about a situation and come to a conclusion, or decision, instead of using trial and error.
And every species, including sharks, has not only shown evidence of cognition, but was able to hold an idea in mind for long periods while working towards a goal. Such intentional behaviour by an animal, that assumes
a future in the making and demonstrates learning from the past, suggests the presence of an over-seeing, self-serving awareness, or consciousness, that manipulates the mental concepts (thoughts), makes moment-to-moment decisions, and keeps its purposes in mind as it pursues its life.
After all, for an animal to survive in this world, it must be able to comprehend reality accurately enough to respond to it appropriately, or it will go straight into evolution’s garbage can. And no brain is simple, as anyone who has observed the actions of a spider will appreciate. My books reflect my approach of watching the actions and interactions of individuals, and showing how these actions reveal animals to be sentient, intelligent beings, pursuing lives that very much matter to them.
Ila has a rare talent. It is, I suspect, an artist's eye applied to writing:
the acuteness of detail; the consciousness of context and proportion. Her clarity of intent is stunning, and beautiful. Each word is a brush stroke consciously applied. As a wordsmith, I recognise and acknowledge rare mastery. And three chapters into a subject I am not especially interested in, I am waiting with a low, gnawing hunger for more. That alone tells me I have found something special. I have been lured to the doorstep of a Tolkeinesque world and primed, ready to meet an array of inhabitants I have barely imagined
yet know I will come to love.
--Allan Baddock, film maker, New Zealand
The Latest:
YES, FiSH FEEL PAIN
The Scientific Evidence of Fishes' Suffering
For centuries people have told themselves a convenient story: fish do not feel pain.
But science has revealed something very different.
This clear and compelling book examines one of the most persistent myths in the natural world. Drawing on modern neuroscience, animal behaviour research, and first-hand observation of fishes in the wild, it explains what pain is, how scientists detect it in animals, and why the evidence that fish feel pain is now overwhelming.
Fish possess the same basic pain systems found in other vertebrates. They learn to avoid harmful events, remember injuries, change their behaviour when hurt for long periods, and respond to pain-relieving drugs. Their brains become active in ways strikingly similar to our own.
So why does the myth persist?
This book explores the historical misunderstandings and the powerful industries that benefit from the belief that fishes are insensible. Along the way, it introduces readers to the surprising intelligence and awareness of fishes—animals capable of learning, cooperation, strategy, and complex decision-making.
The conclusion is difficult to ignore: If fishes can suffer, the way humans treat them must be reconsidered.
Written in an accessible and engaging style, Yes, Fish Feel Pain brings together science, field experience, and clear reasoning to illuminate a question that affects trillions of animals every year. Once you understand the evidence, you will never think about fish in the same way again.
My Other Books:
The Five Star Bears
A TRUE STORY
That Will Show you the Darkness of Canada's Crimes Against Earth
When wildfires drive fifteen bears out of the mountains to seek refuge near the author's home in a remote valley, the mere sight of them ignites suspicion in the nearby community, that for decades has labelled the author a ‘witch.’ Seizing upon the bears' presence as a concrete reason to attack her, the community unleashes a reign of terror on her and her husband. Driven by an orgy of self-righteousness and blame, they rally around a hunting lobbyist, accuse her of feeding the bears, and demand that they be killed.
What follows is a chilling example of how quickly and lethally gossip can turn a community against someone. Despite repeated visits and investigations by conservation officers who state they found no evidence that the couple were feeding bears, and a police investigation confirming that damage to the property had been caused by people—not bears—the accusations continued unchecked. Facts didn't matter. The gossipers were determined there would be no justice for the witch.
In The Five Star Bears, the author—known internationally for her shark research and writings on wildlife behaviour—presents each bear as an individual with a painted portrait. Supported by detailed accounts of actual bear behaviour, this book offers an intimate look at the daunting cost of misunderstanding both nature, and those who defend it, as the couple try desperately to save the bears in the face of overwhelming opposition.
In the end it is clear that the real danger is not the bears, but the humans who were able to ignore all the facts about their arrival in the valley in their desire to get them killed. So, besides revealing the danger of the hunting lobby to all wildlife, it shows how gossipers, in the form of authoritarian followers, work their evil in ordinary societies. Typically, they display compartmentalised beliefs, impaired thinking, sloppy reasoning, double standards, hypocrisy, self righteousness, viciousness, and extreme prejudice
The Five Star Bears is both a gripping true story and a call to rethink our relationship with wildlife, the power of the hunting lobby, and the true value of Nature.
BIRDS ARE IMPOSSIBLE
The Supernatural Ways of the Fliers
The mystery of birds is described through accounts of a variety of individuals of many species. Not only do their remarkable actions and abilities show that they are conscious, but also that birds are a transcendent life-form very different from us. Though we have always considered ourselves to be superior, around the world birds fly beneath our gazes, build houses using local materials, talk, sing, dance, and love, even in regions that humans have been unable to conquer. Though often small, flying is not the only thing they do that defies human abilities. They see more colours, sharper and better than we do; they see light in more frequencies. They can see the magnetic field of the earth. Without training they exceed us in the powers of navigation. Their memories for countless tiny details are better than ours, and they communicate about everything of concern to them. Birds live at a faster rate than we do, as if they inhabit a heightened vibratory space beyond human imagination. . .
Outwitted by Chickens
The Bird Who Killed the Tiger
I have written before of the strange way that the reality we find as adults fails to correspond to what we were taught as we were growing up, and this book brings us face to face with that phenomenon again. Taken from eight years of detailed notes on the behaviour of the birds in the flock of junglefowl living in our garden, and of the birds living in wild flocks on the slopes of the mountain beside us, it presents an in-depth look at the true nature of this living ancestor of the domestic chicken.
One of the rescued birds actually is a domestic chicken and she is just as sensitive and intelligent as the wild race with which she integrates. We find that chickens are super-birds who should have received the media attention currently being given to crows and ravens, for they are just as intelligent if not more so. Indeed, during a life-time of studying wild animals, often as individuals, the one who stands out now, in my mind as the brightest creature, was a chicken.
The SPIRIT OF wILD DUCKS
This book provides a glimpse into the lives of the individuals of a flock of ducks that lived upon the river Yerre in France. Their story is complicated by the hunting season which devastated them, and the pollution of their river which caused them to fall ill every few weeks. Further complications for the hens is the homosexual behaviour of many of the drakes wherein part of the fun is to rape the other's mate, leaving their own mate alone and unprotected.
The accounts of the events in the lives of these bright birds are supplemented by a generous photo-documentation inserted into the text which transports you into their intimate company for a very touching experience.
This is the first such in-depth documentation of duck behaviour, and through the detailed accounts of the actions of the hens, drakes, and their offspring, you will understand much about their difficult lives. In knowing the cognitive abilities, social natures, the sensitivities, and the spirit of these unusual birds, you will never think about ducks in the same way again.
The True Nature of SharkS
This book is based on a seven year study of shark behaviour through underwater observation. When I first met reef sharks, I saw immediately that they are very different from the mammals and birds we are more familiar with, so launched an intensive study of their behaviour, their social structure, and their daily lives. These observations were supplemented with shorter periods watching wild tiger, bull, and lemon sharks, with the result that I was credited with finding a way to study sharks without killing them.
My study also revealed the first evidence of cognition in sharks, which was presented by Arthur A. Myrberg, at the Max Planck Institute in Germany in 2003. I have included the findings of other shark ethologists, to lay out a full-scale study of shark behaviour. Shark science has been very influenced by fisheries science, which has muddied the waters concerning their true natures. So this book is important in that it presents sharks as the ordinary, intelligent animals that they are. Decorated with plenty of illustrations and photographs, it will make the mysterious blue realm of sharks come alive for you.
The Shark sessions
My Sunset Rendezvous
This is the story of my ethological study of reef sharks. Isolated in Tahiti, I recognized immediately that shark behaviour was unlike that of other wild animals, so I launched a full scale study of the sharks using the local lagoon to try to understand them. Soon I could recognize 300 blackfin reef sharks on sight. There were 4 other species of sharks in the lagoon. When I contacted ethologists in the USA, I was able to present the first evidence that they are thinking instead of running on instinct, so a BBC film crew came to film them. But by then they were being massacred for the shark fin trade. I tried to get the news of their plight out of the country, only to learn that TV was not interested in conservation. So I wrote down their story in this dramatic book, so that the world would find out what they were like, and the strange and startling things that happened. For when shark finning came to those innocent islands, they and their community were lost. . .
Merlin: THe Mind
of a Sea Turtle
While the intelligent awareness and consciousness of our pets is increasingly accepted in our society, a strong prejudice lingers against the idea that animals considered "cold" and "low," such as fish, sharks, amphibians, and reptiles could be sentient. This book shows how mistaken this attitude is. The lives of sea turtles in the context of a society that hunts them are revealed in vivid words in this account of what happened to four sea turtles in Tahiti.
Their actions in different situations provide a revealing glimpse into their minds. They could plan ahead, cooperate against their own instincts, and use deceptive strategies. They remembered abuse and tried to avoid more suffering, and their behaviour was flexible according to the circumstances.
This evidence of their conscious approach to life provides another reason to insist on their protection.