Nursing Reflections on Compassion and Animal-Assisted Care from Tennessee to Tokyo

This paper explores compassion and connection through a biophilic lens, examining how human-animal relationships reflect the moral and cultural foundations of nursing. Drawing on Edward O. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis, it considers examples from animal-assisted care with ducks in Tennessee and urban animal interaction spaces in Japan. Across these diverse settings, engagement with animals fostered emotional well-being, reduced anxiety, and reawakened empathy. The analysis situates biophilia within nursing's ethical commitment to compassionate care, proposing that intentional human-animal connection offers a universal pathway to empathy, healing, and quality of life across cultural contexts.