So Much In Common: Nonhuman Minds And A Historic Chance For Animals Now

Victoria Anderson, PhD

Learn how animals across the evolutionary tree -- from insects to fish to birds to mammals -- communicate in ways we're only now starting to detect and understand. As our tools for perceiving their world expand, so does the case that these are not primitive minds, but sophisticated, sentient ones we've long underestimated.

Learn, too, about two elephants named Mari and Vaigai who have lived out their tiny enclosures on noisy zoo grounds in Honolulu and the historic case underway which has the Hawai'i Supreme Court -- a case that could give these elephants back a measure of agency peace, and reshape how the law treats captive animals elsewhere, as well!

Victoria Anderson is a former Linguistics professor at UH Mānoa, where she also taught courses in animal communication.

An in-person presentation: Tuesday September 22, 2026, 5:30p
McCoy Pavilion Auditorium
Ala Moana Regional Park
1201 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu

From Ala Moana Blvd., turn into Ala Moana Park Drive.
Enter McCoy Pavilion just Diamond Head (east) of the tennis courts.
Street parking.

FREE Admission & Refreshments
Refreshments made possible by Down to Earth and member donations.

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