Can other animals understand death? - Barbara J. King 

Who's cutting onions in here 🥺

When one of my cats unexpectedly passed, my other cat was running around the room meowing and he’s usually a calm cat. When he finally calmed down, his body was trembling. The next few days he would look around the house for his friend, and then eventually stopped.

When Dixie went missing. I go out and call her name - Whisky is also going out with me to look for her. And whisky is sad. He never sunbathe anymore since Dixie is gone.

Ouch

​@@TEDEdraise my hands : sorry, that was me.

not arrogance as much as wariness. Humans are very very good at spotting patterns, even ones that don't exist. We need to be very careful if what we are seeing is what they are actually feeling, or if we are projecting our own feelings onto them.

Mammals im pretty sure can feel grief since my cat was sad when my dig, basically his friend for 11 years died. Insects and Reptiles, idk maybe

Some animals can feel grief, others don't. To assume all animals share the same emotions as us is just our tendency to project human characteristics onto animals. A lot of animals may share some our emotions but not all of our emotions. For example, dogs can feel grief but they can't feel guilt.

​@@dork7546There's plenty of videos of dog behavior that I (and many others) think parallels what humans consider to be guilt. We won't fully know the truth unless we can fully empathize with dogs and/or invent or discover some way to fully understand their emotions and intent. But we are all animals and can notice universal patterns in body language, eye contact, tone of voice etc. It's instinctual and humans still have it even if we've been taught otherwise. Not ignoring the differences among the species either, but I don't think it's fair to assume we truly know anything. Nothing can truly be proven with science anyway, it's based on what evidence is the most concrete and consistent....until new evidence comes along that supports something else all together!

I agree. Came here to say the same. How presumptuous of us to claim we are the only ones having feelings and labelling the other animals as automata. If an alien looked at grieving humans, wouldn't they see exactly the same behaviour as across the other species? Vocalising, being unable to let go of the body, grooming the body after death...

and how do you know that? are you an animal expert? are you a scientist?

​@@meyr1992have you ever seen a crow before?

@@exotic1405 you haven’t answered my question

yeah but lion king 2019 does it all wrong tying to remake the emotion but with no proof of emotions if they wanna show it they can at least do some expressions like in thejyunhle book 2016

@@meyr1992 I had personally noticed that when a crow dies a number of crows gather around its body. They caw for sometime and fell into silence for a while. Some moments later they flew away.

I saw the same when one of my dogs died; his sister had tearful eyes for weeks, wouldn't go to the door and bark, didn't want to play and after a couple weeks, and looked way older than she was; I can see her sad even now and it's barely been a year

​@@alethehero5571Well my uncles dog basically killed himself because of grief. He didn't eat for days and eventually strangled himself to death using his collar.

When my grandma golden retriever died her dachshund didn’t give a sh*t

Omg same happened with my dogs! The brother passed away a week back and the sister is so sad😢 I dont know how to get her back. She is severally depressed

@@ar.kaninikadeysarkar5104 yeah, the difference between your dog and my grandparents dog is my grandparents dog wasn’t sad

or that he died from a disease…

@@meyr1992 it took six months and we called the vet multiple times. We even did a necropsy. He was disease free and while not young, not old enough to die of nothing in particular

@@scriptorpaulina So did the horse lose a friend? Were there other horses to keep him company?

@@helenhighwater5313 yeah… his best friend, of god only knows how many years… 10? 20? They’d met when they were maybe 4, or even earlier, and even though his bestie was an AH, Hershey stuck to him like glue. But when he died, it was like Hershey just… gave up. Nothing we could do could bring back his sweet, friendly personality. Not time in the pasture with the other 20-30 horses, not extra grooming and food (which he didn’t eat), not free rein of the entire paddock so he could drink as much water as he wanted, (previously his favorite activity). He just… stopped wanting to live. And it was sad and terrifying all at once, because I felt like all I could do was try to ease his passing

@@scriptorpaulina That's so sad, the loss of a close one can be very depressing even for animals. But please what is an "AH"?

This could very well be a classic example of our own bias for anthropocentrism. Humans are great at projection.

@@shortyrags Or narcissism. Are we humans really that special? It makes much more sense for a lot of animals feeling emotions like grief instead of just one. Plus, I've been to vet school. Animals feel more than they let on. In the wild, if you show a sign of weakness, you die. So a lot of animals don't outwardly show things like pain. A real pain if you're a vet and animal's sick but you don't really know what kind of sickness it has. It's not like you can just ask them, and they probably won't tell you if they're wild or something, even if they can talk.

@@senny- I don’t disagree with you that animals most certainly feel pain and definitely feel some sort of affect which I would generally describe along a spectrum of pleasant feeling to unpleasant feeling, as well as a spectrum of stimulated and unstimulated. So you as a vet have certainly seen animals within certain states of affect within these spectrums. Calling those states emotion is something I’m agnostic about, because we humans name, construct, and categorize our states of affect into ways that animals do not seem able to. I believe it’s that categorization we call emotion. I’m a fan of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work here, and I think it’s telling that we have yet to this point been able to find emotional fingerprints in the brain. An animal such as a giraffe is certainly feeling something when an animal close to them passes away. Whether that’s what we call “grief”, I’m less certain about.

​@@shortyrags I assume you are confusing categorization with experience. I am a fellow linguistic student and just recently went through the categorization field. To experience something is whether to know about, whether you retain an information about it or not, it is up to you. But experience is always an experience: it is present in any living being system. I'd say even not-living ones (like virus) like if they interact with something they aren't 'designed' to interact, they may not interact or evade it. It is an experience for a non-living being. It is not an emotion, it is a response. The human specie is able to develop any sort of pattern control, hierarchs, and even build systems capable of self-organizing (like self-learning AI or equations that turns our lives easier) and that doesn't translate that any kind of emotion is better or less. Only shows we have been developed at organization/categorization skills, at a species point of view. Now, from the point of experience, we may indeed have been granted extremely nice skills about how we communicate and how we can use them, self developing our skills based on experiences is a good example, it can be related to emotion but it is not an emotion. But from the point of emotions, it is almost like a 'recipe' in DNA we all (should be all, but lets presume) have. The sequences that are likely responsible to that, be it synapses, hormons (chemicals releases) or even both of them, are experiences but they don't translate as something exclusive. It is almost a trait for a being to be a being. There were several examples in the video and we could, through them, say they grieve and feel emotion. They may have not the same standards or pattern skills to deal with their experiences and solve problems like we do but they definitely have feelings. I find this topic very important and debatable because we often overlook animals and their feelings because of the "nature savagery paradox", I'd say it is very unpleasant to accept that our skills to name, construct, categorize and summarize things are equivalent to being superior in emotional levels. "Some dictator not a long ago was capable of uniting a country and laying terror, he had some extreme respectable skills on strategy and communication, yet his emotions is worldwide known as bad" Skills doesn't translate as "better feelings". I'd say it is empathy towards someone possibly harmful or non-harmful that brings the idea of emotion, but that is another profound and long topic that walks within psychology area, which I doesn't not study profoundly.

@@senny- truly

Do you ever feel grief for humans that have been attacked by dogs? Dogs are responsible for 30-50 deaths every year in the u.s. There is a person bitten by a dog almost every ten seconds.

@@vasectomyfail442 WTF does that have to do with non-human animals experiencing grief?!

​@@vasectomyfail442seems like they didn't watch Cesar Millan 👀

Knowing of the deceased makes one grief.

@@charliegordon-qh2ll his vasectomy probably failed because of a dog attack. username checks out.

I agree

But that would be a logical fallacy there. Just because something can do something like us, it doesn't automatically mean it is capable of another thing we can do as well. But even if other animals wouldn't be able to grief we should always treat them in a good way 😃. We're all animals. Since humans have the power to treat other animals in a good way, I think, we're able to decide for the option which causes the least harm.

⁠@@christianbergmann8114Fallacy? Bro humans are just as animalistic and can act just as crazy as a feral monkey. Humans aren’t the smartest forms of life. We get mad if the food we order isn’t right, we kill our own cause we’re mad, we bully each other for the sake of ego. Animals can be just as intelligent as people as people can be just as primitive as animals. Humans are literally animals. Our brains just evolved differently than the animals you see out in the wilderness.

​@@OmniNeon900It is still a fallacy to assume, but we *should* err on the assumption that they have the subjective experience of grief. It is important to understand fallacious/faulty reasoning. Think about plants as a simultaneously more and less ambiguous example: they undergo chemical reactions that mirror our own for stuff like pain. Do they have the ***experience*** of pain? Is it painful? How can we investigate that? Also think of Theory of Mind. You never know what anyone else's experience is like because you will only ever have your own experience. Far harder when you have different neurology entirely.

@@e.matthews He was mainly talking about animals, not plants, but I see your point. Imo it is best to make the assumption that animals do indeed feel seeing how they act at times, when it is obvious. How they do it is a whole other arena. We and all others animals are not so different. Using that argument to say that "they don't feel emotions" adds a layer of arrogant disconnect between Humans and animals, despite the fact we are the most vile of all animals. Half the things we do and for those reasons would have most animals wondering if we ourselves feel emotion. Using that argument to say that "they do feel emotion" adds a connection between animals and humans, but there needs to be a way to also state we are different

Cows kind shows the same behaviour in the milk industry when their cald is taking away from them after birth, its a bit concerning thinking about it. I think it makes the thought difficult of drinking the milk myself

cuz most of these ppl are scientists there like executives in a building company or smth they dont have a inside understanding of animals theres nothing rong ith these ppl but still

many animals don't grieve. grieving is something that happens with social creatures.

@@MrChickennugget360 grieving occurs with the value of an object. If an animal values an object to the point of possession or protection it's capable of grief. The real question is how impactful is that grief. Most animals don't grieve in the sense of it changing their whole being like us but do grieve similarly to how we might grieve the loss of a phone or diary.

​@@andreasjonsson5071not sure if someone has said this but yeah definitely stop consuming dairy and please eat less animal products :) It's very feasible to do and vegetarian food does taste good. Animal cruelty is ubiquitous in the animal agriculture industry and many people seem to ignore it because they consume animal products. I get that, it's hard not to especially if you're used to eating one way, and some animal product consumption is beneficial for a balanced diet, but a very small amount. Do you still consume dairy, if so what do you think about stopping and consuming less animal products in general?

@@iridium8341 nah you should be the animal, for you to turn on the one showing humility and empathy lowers your status iridium8341 - why is it funny that they are ashamed that we always assume we are the center of the universe, what has it gotten us? assuming certain diseases don't get to us, assuming some diseases belong to some humans, we all have our personal pride in relation to science info, but to assume we are "better" is where we go wrong. We made atomic bombs. and atomic winter would b out tru destruction but in truth we did that to ourselves, we deserve no column of power or credit right now really

@@NOOBCRASTINATOR69alright sell your house and all your belongings and go live in the forest with all the animals you so love and wish to live with

I'm sorry for cussing

this happened to me with rabbits

​@@meyr1992what did that person say? 💀

Cows kind shows the same behaviour in the milk industry when their calf is taking away from them after birth, its a bit concerning thinking about it. I think it makes the thought difficult of drinking the milk myself

​​@@caramela1309t's really ez for people to forgot about factory farming and such because its so common and we are so disconnected with our food and where they came from i bet most people never seen a cow getting decapitated irl which is horrifying to see

Can you explain why anthropomorphizing animals is dangerous?

​@@samuuu9350if everyone actually felt sorry for animals then we can't exploit them for experiments and make those really tasty meat boohoo 😢

I once saw a pack of wild dogs (street dogs) surround their dead friend in a circle with their heads bowed for an entire day. The dog that died an old dog, and he was my friend (I stopped by regularly to give him treats and say hello… he was a good boy). When he wasn’t there where he usually was (on the corner in a cemetery) I went looking for him. In the distance I saw the circle of dogs. They let me approach just enough to see who their fallen friend was. When I drove by that evening, they were still there as they had been in the morning, still in a circle with their heads bowed. At that moment I knew that we had more in common with animals than is assumed by most. This was probably 25 years ago and I’ve told the story many times, but I don’t think most believed me. I can only say that it truly affected me, and has shaped how I live my life though, with love and compassion for all living things.

I wonder if your cat had belonged to someone who died.

Get him a new friend bro

If birds can grieve, which I'm pretty sure they do, they should also feel miserable inside cages, not being able to fly freely. I know it's not the subject but I can't fathom how is it normal to keep birds in cages and calling them pets, nobody ever talks about this

@@rlsvid While the loss of a loved companion is something very real and tangible even for animals, "freedom" is a very complex concept. Most probably they don't want to be "free", they just want to go out of the cage, at least every now and then, or they want more space where they can move and explore, or they want a more stimulating environment, or they want companionship. Being 'free" usually means being subject to predation and diseases and starving, and that's something no animal (not even humans) wants. A good owner must provide what they need, and not what (S)HE would need if (s)he was in its place.

@@rlsvidI used to have a bird named Neo. We never clipped his wings, and we used to go outside with him. One day a flew away, but came back like 5 minutes later. He also could be very serious at times. If he didn’t feel like playing on a certain day, or if he got bored, he would close himself in his cage to not be disturbed. He’s unfortunately dead now, but if he thought me anything is that they have preferences and their own way to communicate. He had a certain type of chirp to signify that he wanted to be left alone in his cage, or if he wanted me to open his cage. I don’t think a bird would feel miserable to kept in a cage, if said cage wasn’t a forced constant, but rather a chosen one.

It’s possible he may be experiencing loneliness, so get him a companion. Parrots are social animals

That s easy, take him with you duh

How about regular visits?

@@thycauldron i love him to death so ill try my best but id be moving to the other side of the state

@@Dantick09 my mom would never let me

Add another dog, preferably one from a rescue. Dogs are social pack animals, like humans, and they need close companions.

Right

:( Thanks. I said I wouldn't be sad today

this one broke me finally, i’m tearing up

It's that same kind of hubris that even makes people question if other animals feel grief. Really no reason to think we're the only animals to feel it.

We aren’t animals

@@neila6340 Yes, we are. We belong to the kingom _Animalia,_ and we are great apes.

@@neila6340 What are we?

@@catpoke9557 people bruh

exactly what I was thinking

But you are plant(potato)

You absolute plant

i think you are from taters class?

Humans are also animal

I'm sure that they had a whale of a time with such a considerate owner!❤

@@sergei2882 Thanks!

that last phrase your daughter says made me cry because it's so true😔

Yet, we can't confidently make that claim. Who knows if insects and marine species express emotions in different ways? As the video says, more research is needed.

Birds may actuallt not feel grief, though. This assumption is mostly based on how ravens tend to surround the body of their recently deceased but the current theory is that they don't actually do this because they're grieving but because they're trying to learn how they died.

@@boringbilal Yeah, but it also says that we may as well project human characteristics onto non human animals. Yes, more research is needed but we do already know that a lot of animals don't experience emotions such as guilt, romantic love or shame, so why does it sound so crazy that some animals out there may not be able to experience grief while others are?

You could identify similar behaviour in early modern humans under bad circumstances. To me it doesn’t seem reasonable to look for emotional behaviour in such cut-throat environments. For all we know cannibalism is rare among modern humans because we largely don’t need it to survive. If we did live under such conditions, would we as a species not have emotions?

@@dork7546That’s a great evolutionary pressure to develop the feeling of grief. We as a society investigate tragic accidents closely precisely because we see them as tragic. Emotions should in themselves offer evolutionary benefits to be plausible in the first place. Evolutionary beneficial behaviour is a prerequisite for developing of emotions, not a mutually exclusive alternative.

I don't want to like it as it's so sad

Same happened with me, a golden puppy, she was beautiful as a gold so we named her golden died after a car ran over her, her mother cried through day and night, We would try to feed her biscuits or eggs or anything we could get but she died within a week of losing her only puppy left, She would carry the puppy in her mouth and reach out to people to help her baby, she did this to my mum she brought the dead baby and started rolling her towards my mum, all she could do was cry! I hope mumma and baby are in doggo heaven and never have to face humanity ever again! RIP 🌷Golden and Bholu🌷.

Yall didn’t have a heater..? Or was she outside or something?.

How to expose yourself as a neglectful owner 101. You do not deserve dogs.

@@b0redom782 man, the spg didn't allowed to even come close, we were ready for a heater or whatever needed to save lives.

@@gehirnundschwanz I’m just gonna assume you mean dog? But WAS it outside??

How they die

But what about represtation ??? .... not a single time was a male human or animal mentioned.

​@@paluxyl.8682 tf does that have to do with the animation quality??

@bryanvillafuerte765 I live in the Himalayas dude. There are no securities here. Not everyone lives in a convenient place like America

wowza

Yes! Absolutely shameful!

Exactly, people seem to forget we're animals. Even day to day plenty of examples of emotions in pets.

You forgot cats

@@kirara2516 Scientifically, you're right. 😽

Yes because they can't create one (yet)

we didn't used too, we would wonder why people feel asleep and never woke up

Crows absolutely 100% understand death though, they hold grudges against any animal/person that they think killed one of their own, and they even pass that grudge down to their offspring via communication, meaning they can hold generational grudges.

Wrong. Humans are the most important animals- nay, the most important species to ever exist on this planet. No other species can survive on Earth without ourselves first existing.

​@@GeniusignotusThe dodo

@@BGI_guy And remind me, what is the status of the dodo?

​@@GeniusignotusExtinct because of humans.

Humans aren’t animals but believe what you wanna believe