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While reading the papers this morning my eye was caught by the striking images of Gana, an 11 year old gorilla living at Munster zoo, Germany, holding her dead baby aloft.
According to all the news stories I've read, this photo demonstrates that she is grieving feeling the same emotions as we would in these circumstances. Really? Or is this just rampant anthropomorphism?
There are many reports of animal behaviour that is said to constitute mourning. For example, biologist Marc Bekoff argues that magpies, elephants, and even llamas experience grief, with some animals even holding wakes to bid farewell to their dead.
But others have argued that foisting human emotions onto animals is unscientific. Just because animals sometimes behave like us does not mean that the same complex cognitive reasoning underlies these behaviours.
It could be grief, but it could equally be a morbid fascination with death. Or it could just be confusion.
Now, call me heartless, but the first thing that jumped into my head when I saw the picture of Gana with her dead infant was that, rather than mourning, she looked thoroughly flummoxed.
It seems to me that the question here is not do animals experience grief, so much as do they understand death? And, while Ra'Shede Hageman Jersey I'm on that subject, do humans even understand death?
Science tells us that death is pretty much the end of the story in terms of human experience. But there are plenty of examples of human behaviour that seem to fly in the face of this.
One example is famadihana the turning of the bones a traditional ritual carried out by the Malagasy people of Madagascar. Every seven years, the dead relatives are exhumed from the family tomb, re wrapped, and danced around the tomb.
This ancient tradition is a form on ancestral worship; a way of showing respect for the dead. But it is also an opportunity to reunite the dead and the living, based on the belief that the dead will benefit from this experience.
Perhaps the origins of practices like these stem from an inherent inability to understand death that we share with other primates, which might explain why Gana looked so flummoxed. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please let us know, quoting Jake Matthews Falcons Jersey the comment in question.
You seem to suggest that a gorilla experiencing grief is "rampant anthropomorphism", and propose that it is actually confusion. Wouldn't that also be an example of "rampant anthropmorphism?".
By poo on August 19, 2008 6:11 PM
Poo (if that's your real name!) : )But, I have to ask if we commonly consider 'confusion' to be assigned exclusively to the human domain? Anthropomorphism is assigning exclusively human traits to animals. Obviously, there are many traits we acknowledge sharing that are not suspected of falling under the error: anthropomorphism. Personally, observing the two dog's I've had, I was surprised to see such a full range of responses. As others have pointed out, the simple ability to play (pretend for a period that a tennis ball is something important and then leave it like any object on the floor) is proof of self awareness. You need a self in order to pretend (apparently, they say). I see. But isn't being flummoxed a part of grief? We can't help but anthropomorphize. We can't look at ANYTHING without trying to "understand" it in terms we can personally relate to. Humans do NOT have a monopoly on emotional response. We're not special except for the extra conceit that our big, clever and endlessly inventive brains furnish. Brain size isn't the issue. It's just about whether an organism can feel empathy, period. When one of our dogs died, the family grieved, and our surviving dogs grieved with us. They knew what happened. Animals aren't stupid. Many of the remaining minority will simply admit it's just not possible to understand a state of mind where no understanding can take place: one cannot mind anything without a mind. Do we have an understanding? I think not. We don't even understand what understanding is. Nobody does. We just like to think we do, as a matter of convenient conceptual model making, in order to retain some measure of sanity. But saying so never actually makes it so. It's just saying so.
By Anonymous on August 19, 2008 7:35 PM
You write, "Most people know that their dead relatives are not going to come back to life" but this is not true. Most people actually believe in some sort of bizarre fairy tale about life after death.
By Karl on August 19, 2008 7:59 PM
I see what you you are getting at, and would be interested to know which emotional traits have been identified in animals that are also shared by humans. I suspect that the numbers would be far lower than would be anticipated but imagine this to be more a result of the testing methods than anything else. As to whether confusion is a predominantly human trait, I think that a suitable definition of confusion would be "a lack of understanding", so unless we first imbue animals with "understanding", their natural state is confusion so appearing confused or flumoxed would be unlikely. Its all semantics anyhow as our language has evolved to describe human qualities perfectly but when it comes to the animal kingdom we're not really past the "beef" and "sausage" stages.
By poo on August 19, 2008 8:30 PM
Do animals understand death?Personal experience with both wild and domestic animals persuades me that they understand that there is an alternative to life (or the normal), perhaps some kind of end (or escape). I say that because I have seen sick or wounded animals clearly pass a point where they "give up". That resignation is clearly visible. Both will search for the absent animal, dogs may whine, and cats call out. A single case in my experience with cats does suggest something like grief. One of our Burmese cats, Ted, was very old and clearly approaching his end. During that time, the alpha male cat (a big Siamese tabby cross named Cougar) used to keep Ted company and groom him (not Cougar's normal behavior). Cougar was present when the old Burmese finally died. For some days afterwards, Cougar would repeatedly visit the now vacant spot where Ted had spent his last days. Finally, Cougar let out a long, terrible, Jake Matthews Authentic Jersey wail at that location in the house, while I happened to be present. From then on, his behavior returned to normal. That moment suggests to me that Cougar had reached some kind of realization. Was it conscious understanding of death? I don't know. For me, death is my end, followed by nothing. Judge for yourself.