Defining animal language When we speak of animal language, we are referring to a coarse way of interpreting and understanding the inter-species communication around us. All higher animals/mammals communicate and depend upon messages and cues from each other for their survival. They do so in order to communicate where food is located, where danger is present, to find a mate, to “talk” to their young, to ward off competition, and for many other reasons. A dog’s bark, a squirrel’s chirp, a frog’s croak, a deer’s tail up in the air, a rattlesnake’s rattle, a puma laying its ears back, and a beaver’s castoreum are all forms of animal language (auditory, visual, olfactory, et al.). For human beings, birds are simply the easiest species to pick up on in terms of both sight and sound. Hence, when we talk about bird language, we are simply referring to a subset of animal language.