subject: People And Dinosaurs - Conflict Management Considerations [print this page] It was not easy being an Iguanodon or any other dinosaur. Dinosaurs always scrimped and scratched for food, especially when lava and fire caused their food to disappear. Do you think plant eating dinosaurs would cooperate to save themselves and their herds? Do you think they would work together? What if one plant eater herd had food but no safety from the meat eaters, and what if another herd far off had little or diminishing food but perfect safety?
If you could close your eyes and dream about what might happen, you could envision two distant herds helping each other to come up with a joint solution. A leader may be born in one herd, taking control of the situation and coming up with a solution that draws from the strengths of both herds. You could think about how the different herds may not want to change their ways or help each other out. But maybe conflict management started with these types of distant animals. How would we ever know?
Conflict management is an essential component of how humans, and in some cases animals, cooperate and work together to arrive at joint solutions, drawing upon strengths of each and minimizing weaknesses. When you look at research on monkeys, dolphins, and other highly developed animals, you see evidence of this level of cooperation and interaction. How much deeper do we have to look to find such behavior in other animals? With dinosaurs, we will never know. But it is interesting and fun for adults, and children, to close their eyes and to dream about how these wonderful animals that graced our Earth actually worked with each other.
