July 13, 2024, 10:17 am | Read time: 5 minutes
The death of a loved one is a devastating experience for friends and relatives. But it’s not only humans who can feel grief. PETBOOK explains how animals also grieve for others.
For us humans, grief is as much a part of life as happiness, relaxation, or joy. It is a core feeling that even small children can feel and express. For a long time, it was believed that only humans were able to grieve for relatives or other members of their race. But animals also mourn, and they can show similar behavior when a family member or pack animal dies.
Overview
Animals mourn the loss of their conspecifics
For us humans, crying is a clear sign of grief. However, because animals do not shed tears in the same way, this emotion has long been denied to them. Today, we know that many animals feel genuine grief but express it differently to humans.
Specifically, animals that live in close social and family groups mourn the death of conspecifics. In this article, we present the animal species in which this behavior has already been well studied. However, this does not mean that other species do not also feel grief for conspecifics – we may just not have recognized it yet.
Gorillas and chimpanzees
It is hardly surprising that great apes show behaviors that express their grief. After all, gorillas and chimpanzees are among the closest relatives of humans in the animal kingdom. It has been observed that great apes often sit close to deceased family members and groom their fur.
Koko, a female gorilla who lived in a research facility in the U.S., had a cat of her own and communicated with it using sign language. After the cat’s death, Koko used the sign language signs to express mourning and crying to its caregivers for many weeks.1
Chimpanzees, on the other hand, cover the deceased with twigs and leaves. It has also been reported that the apes repeatedly touch and stroke the dead members of their species lovingly and try to wake them up. Once they have accepted the death of the family member, the apes can fall into a deep lethargy.
Female macaques also find it difficult to let go of their deceased offspring. Sometimes the babies are mummified when their mothers lovingly carry them around and prevent flies from laying eggs in the carcasses.
Elephants
Elephants are considered to be very social animals with a high degree of cohesion. They live in herds and family groups. If another elephant from their group dies, specific behaviors are triggered. For example, the elephants continue to visit their deceased herd members even after their deaths. In addition, family members try to wake up recently deceased elephants.
Orcas
It has been observed that female orcas look after their offspring very intensively. The baby whales are often supported above water to ensure they receive sufficient oxygen. The female orcas continue this nurturing behavior even when their offspring have died at birth or shortly thereafter. For up to a week, the female orcas gently push their deceased calves to the surface with their mouths or backs, until they come to terms with the loss and let go. Gentle touching with the fins and snuggling up to the deceased orca have also been observed.
Dogs
Domestic animals, including dogs, can also experience grief. This is especially evident in dogs that have been raised alongside other canine companions. If one dog dies, the others often show a change in behavior that can manifest as lethargy, reluctance to eat, and a reduced play instinct. Dogs that have lost their owners often show similar behavior. While this behavior can be partly attributed to the sudden change of environment, as the dogs may no longer reside in their familiar home, it can also reflect their longing for their beloved owners.
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Can animals really grieve for their companions?
Whether animals are really able to grieve for deceased family members or other conspecifics like humans is controversial. However, it has now been chemically proven that humans and animals release the same hormones when they are grieving. Adrenaline and noradrenaline play a role here, triggering stress. Both humans and animals show this reaction in the event of a death in close surroundings. This stress is also due to the feeling of loss of a conspecific. For example, elephant herds in which the leader dies can have their dynamics disrupted to such an extent that the whole herd breaks up.2
Humans and animals feel similarly
Many people tend to classify the feelings of animals as inferior, incomparable, or less strong. However, witnessing a pet in mourning can be a profound experience that may alter one’s perspective. Animals and humans have some differences, of course, but ultimately, many animal species are made up of social beings just like us, capable of forming deep bonds. The loss of this bond is always a devastating experience – whether for humans, elephants, orcas, or even pets.