Morten Tønnessen

The Umwelt trajectories of wolves, sheep and people

Abstract for the conference ZOOSEMIOTICS AND ANIMAL REPRESENTATIONS

This paper contributes to developing Umwelt terminology, and simultaneously offers an analysis of
past and current interrelations of wolves, sheep and people, thus providing an application of the
notation suggested.
The starting point for the author’s terminology is the concept of an Umwelt transition, which
is in effect an Uexküllian notion of environmental change. An Umwelt transition can be defined as a
lasting, systematic change within the life cycle of a being, considered from an ontogenetic
(individual), phylogenetic (population-, species-) or cultural perspective, from one typical appearance
of its Umwelt (i.e., organism-specific phenomenal world) to another. An Umwelt trajectory, the
author proposes, can be characterized as the course through evolutionary (and cultural) time taken
by the Umwelt of a creature, as defined by its changing relations with the Umwelten of other
creatures. Thus defined it represents an evolutionary and mass equivalent of Jakob von Uexküll’s
notion of the Umwelt-tunnel of a single individual creature.
As we can see, the Umwelt trajectory of a creature is the historical path of its perceptual and
behavioral dispositions considered from an ecological and phenomenological point of view. As such,
it is intimately tied to this creature’s ontological niche, i.e. the set of contrapuntal relations that a
being takes part in at a given point of natural history. Like the Umwelt tunnel and the ontological
niche, the Umwelt trajectory of a creature can be regarded as a specification of the Umwelt concept
which situates it in terms of temporal perspective.
Taken as a whole the Umwelten of wolves, sheep and people represent an Umwelt triad of
sorts, given that they have been and remain intertwined and codependent. This triple Umwelt is
telling of both ecological and cultural developments. In cultural terms, hardly any animals are as
loaded with symbolic value as the wolf and the sheep. And the shared importance is no coincidence,
as the symbolism of the two animals has developed in explicit opposition to each other. Altogether
the wolf-sheep duet, the human-sheep duet and the human-wolf duet – to speak with Uexküll –
constitute a highly coordinated triple duet in the great symphony of nature.
The most enlivening aspect of this narrative concerns the semiotic and phenomenological
interplay that takes place amid wolves, sheep and people. While the most relevant long-term process
of change varies from creature to creature – evolution for wolves, breeding for sheep and cultural
development for people (all of which represent broad categories of Umwelt transitions) – there are
several common factors at play as well. In this paper, the author will touch upon a) the geographical
range and overlap, (b) the sensory range and overlap, and c) the functional range and overlap of
wolves, sheep and people. The most crucial arena for semiotic interplay (and thus semiotic
causation) is that of functional interrelations, particularly with regard to companionship and enmity.
In our current ecological situation, where the human species has emerged as a global species in
charge of an ecological empire wherein the sheep, among other species, has been given a privileged
position, even the wolf has entered into a dependency relation with our kind. For better or worse,
our Umwelt trajectories have (once again) aligned.