If animals grieve, what does it mean for their welfare and conservation?
Deep in a Tanzanian rainforest in 1972, a famous aging chimpanzee matriarch called Flo breathed her last breath. For her son, Flint, it seemed to be an unbearable loss. The chimp, who was unusually bonded to his mother, suddenly grew listless, losing his appetite and becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the troop.
Increasingly, this field includes research on behaviors that extend beyond the human realm — such as the case of a female chimp in Zambia that was observed carefully using a piece of grass to clean the teeth of her recently deceased adopted son, in an almost funereal ritual, according to a 2017 study in the journal Scientific Reports . Or, the account of a Kenyan giraffe that stood vigil over the body of her dead calf even after it had been ravaged by hyenas.
Asian elephants show behaviors that seem similarly mournful. In 2013, elephant biologist Sanjeeta Pokharel found a dead Asian elephant on a riverbank in India, in a spot that was devoid of vegetation. Despite this, the body was mysteriously surrounded by"lots of branches, trees, leaves and everything.
Deciphering"grief"Trying to define these behaviors opens up a can of worms. One school of thought is that in order to grieve, an individual must first be able to understand the concept of death and their relationship with this inevitable force — something that's difficult to prove in animals. that animals do conceptualize death.)
Meanwhile, elephants have been observed burying their dead in mud, or covering them with branches and leaves, Sharma said — which, rather than a symbol of mourning, could be a practical attempt to stop a corpse from attracting predators.
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