What Do Animals Know and Feel About Death and Dying?

Evolutionary and comparative animal thanatology

I've long been interested in the wide variety of ways in which nonhuman animals (animals) grieve and mourn the loss of others. I'm pleased to share that a comparative, comprehensive, and valuable review on the topic has been published in a collection of original essays in a special issue of the journal Primates (available online). The essays are listed below for convenience, along with a few brief summaries, and this information alone shows just how incredibly exciting this field of research has become.^1,2

To begin with, Kyoto University professor of psychology Dr. James Anderson, who organized the collection of essays in Primates, offers a thorough review of the ever-growing field of evolutionary and comparative thanatology—the study of death and dying in nonhuman animals—along with a summary of the original essays in a piece called "Responses to death and dying: primates and other mammals."³ He begins:

"Although some definitions of thanatology—broadly definable as the study of death and dying—exclude nonhumans as subjects, recognition of the scientific value of studying how other species respond to sick, injured, dying, and dead conspecifics appears to be growing. And whereas earlier literature was largely characterized by anecdotal descriptions and sometimes fanciful interpretations, we now see more rigorous and often quantitative analysis of various behaviors displayed towards conspecifics (and sometimes heterospecifics) at various stages of incapacitation, including death."

This collection of essays that center on a common theme is unprecedented, and below are some snippets to whet your appetite for more information about a fascinating field of study. I begin with elephants because an essay in the Washington Post by Jason Bittel titled "An elephant’s story does not end when it dies" covers some of the information that's included about these magnificent, smart, and emotional giants, for whom there are numerous stories about the ways in which surviving individuals grieve and mourn dead companions. His essay is about Victoria, a 55-year-old matriarch who died in June 2013 and included quotes from the authors of the essay on which it was based that appeared in Primates called "Elephant behavior toward the dead: A review and insights from field observations" by elephant experts Shifra Goldenberg and George Wittemyer.

Source: Free stock photo by Jooinn

The discussion of elephants is an excellent place to focus, because similar to other scientists whose work also is covered in the journal, the elephant researchers themselves remain cautious about what we really know about the thoughts and feelings of surviving elephants.

In their research paper, they write: "Elephants show broad interest in their dead regardless of the strength of former relationships with the dead individual. Such behaviors may allow them to update information regarding their social context in this highly fluid fission-fusion society. The apparent emotionality and widely reported inter-individual differences involved in elephant responses to the dead deserve further study."

In Mr. Bittel's piece, he writes: "The scientists do not conclude from these accounts that elephants mourn, an activity that is often attributed to the species. But their response has a common thread, the authors say. When an elephant falls, the loss is acknowledged and investigated by other elephants, even those unrelated to the deceased. Death means something to elephants, in other words—possibly something emotional." (My emphasis.)

The lead author of the research essay, Shifra Goldenberg, notes, “We don’t know what’s going on in their heads." On the other hand, another elephant expert, Joyce Poole, whose observations of elephants were summarized in "Elephant behavior toward the dead: A review and insights from field observations," openly attributes emotion to the grieving elephants to the behavior patterns we observed in survivors.

Details about other essays can be found in James Anderson's piece in a section called "Papers in the special issue." Even if you don't have the time to read the essays themselves, this section is a goldmine of up-to-date information about what we know regarding evolutionary and comparative thanatology and the behavior patterns that various animals show when they interact with dead companions and other individuals. You can read about a variety of nonhuman primates, including wild gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, horses, and an essay on free-ranging Asian elephants that's the first scientific discussion of responses to dead and dying conspecifics (members of the same species).

While some researchers aren't sure what we really know about what's happening in the heads and hearts of surviving animals when they interact with a corpse and still leave the door open to the idea that elephants and other animals don't mourn the dead, I side with Joyce Poole and others who feel comfortable in claiming that something emotional is going on in their minds. The detailed descriptions of the behavior of survivors in the essays in Primates and in the numerous references that are provided and elsewhere leave no doubt in my mind.

Grief Essential Reads

Forever Trying to Rescue You

Beyond Suicide Bereavement: A Postcard From the Other Side

Research clearly shows that other animals say goodbye to family and friends: Where to from here?

The material covered in the essays is very comprehensive, and it doesn't strain credibility to say that surviving individuals know something novel—something very different—has happened to an individual when they interact with their corpse. This is so, even if they may not conceptualize death in the ways that many, or most, humans do. For example, it's possible that the elephants who interacted with elephant matriarch Victoria's corpse didn't know she'd no longer be around, but it also remains possible that they did. At the moment, we really don't know.

The essays also don't focus on what a dying individual might know about themselves. (See, for example, "Do Dogs Know They're Dying?") However, while we don't know what they actually—precisely—know or feel about other individuals no longer around, or what they're thinking and feeling about their own demise, available data and countless stories clearly show they know and feel something.

This isn't surprising given solid evidence that the animals being discussed (and many others) have rich and deep cognitive and emotional lives. Also, the titles, abstracts, and content of the essays in Primates and in many other articles published elsewhere clearly show that something strong and deep is happening to them in response to others' corpses.

The many emails I received in response to "Do Dogs Know They're Dying?" without one exception contained compelling stories that the dogs about whom the people were writing (along with other animals who were brought into the picture) most likely knew they were dying. Some didn't waver one bit. I think it's entirely reasonable to keep the door open to this possibility.

To sum up, here's a personal story about my very first encounter with some of the wild elephants at Samburu National Reserve about whom Shifra Goldenberg and George Wittemyer write. I drove out with a renowned elephant researcher, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, to where some elephants were spending the afternoon, and I could feel something was off, but I didn't know why. The elephants seemed lost. They were moping about, walking here and there with their heads hanging down, and I could literally see and feel their sadness.

I asked Iain what was happening, and he told me their matriarch had recently died. And in stark contrast, just down the road a few kilometers, there was another group of elephants who were clearly feeling OK—just as I had expected them to behave from having seen videos of wild elephants in different locales. The marked differences between the behavior of individuals in the first and second groups were riveting. To this day, I still remember how sad I felt for the grieving elephants when, at first, I had no idea why they were behaving as they were. I've also seen similar behavior in wild coyotes.

The real question at hand is not if other animals grieve the loss of other individuals, but rather, why has grief evolved. We don't have any definitive answers to this question; however, there are a good number of interesting speculations. The why questions surely are difficult to answer.

However, when I talk with people about grieving and mourning in nonhumans, many are shocked that researchers and other academics still claim that we don't know if they miss and mourn the loss of family and friends. I side with them and find available data to be very convincing, I feel certain we're not the only occupants of the grief and mourning club.

Stay tuned for further discussions on the fascinating field of study called evolutionary thanatology. Many bright-minded researchers are keenly interested in responses to death and dying in a wide variety of animals, and there's no shortage of stories from citizen scientists that focus on these topics.

Nothing is lost, and much will be gained by considering different explanations as data and stories pour in. And as we learn more about what other animals are thinking and feeling about death-related issues, we'll likely learn more about ourselves.