What's with all the animals Gazpachot?

Somehow in their form and habits and imperviousness to civilization, animals effortlessly bypass our rational outlook to elicit raw emotional responses (primal fear, the unconditional love of a pet, the knowing eye of a whale, etc.). To these I am drawn.

Animals, our alien cousins with whom we share the resources of this planet, because of their otherness, trigger wild flights of fantasy in us - from the Serpent of Eden to Chinese Dragons to Bald Eagles to Bugs Bunny to King Kong, etc. As symbolic objects they draw our attention out of the all-knowing, all-confining cauldron of the human perspective, right into the fire of the mystery of life itself.

Here's a freely associated itemization of the underpinnings of my animal obsessions. Keep in mind it's not the animals themselves, it's what they, by nature of their mute, ambiguous existence, trigger in us - the animal imagined - that keeps me coming back to the watering hole.

Animals and the imagination
Animals and creativity
The nature of Nature
Eccentric Zoologists and Naturalists
Taxidermied Dens and Libraries
Exotic Travel
Film and Photography
Art
Walton Ford
Wisdom
Hierarchies
Food Chain
Perceptions of evil
Existing outside “the system”/Anti-civilization
The instinctive fear and searing impressions that large dangerous animals impart.
Monsters
Dreams and nightmares
Interspecies communication
Heterotrophism
Anthrozoology
Anthropomorphism
Ethology
Pets
Zoos
Fear
Danger
The Chase
Panic
Impulse
Instinct
Kill or be killed
Natural violence
Natural beauty
The way animals move
Fur
Pelt
Markings
Camouflage
Chromatophores
Alternate consciousness
Beautifully uncivilized
Other life
Non-human narrative
Think for yourself
Spirits
Totems
Ghosts
Bestiary
Book of Beasts
Menagerie
Meaning vs illogic
Language vs. Body language
Science vs. Nature
Man vs. Nature
Metamorphosis

and so on...