It is ironic that we often believe that empathy and complex emotions only really exist in humans but we then fail to empathise with the animals who suffer at our hands. Primatologist Frans de Waal refers to the denial of these emotions and capabilities in non-human animals as ‘anthropodenial’,3 a term he coined to describe the behaviour of discounting the complexity of other animals. As he states, ‘Anyone who wants to make the case that a tickled ape, who almost chokes on his hoarse giggles, must be in a different state of mind from a tickled child has his work cut out for him.’4
