what animals can teach us about grieving and loss

for years, simply assessing whether animals have a conscience has been a matter of debate. certainly, we humans have a tendency to project our own habits and emotions onto animals as they cannot verbalize what they might be feeling. but in his 1872 book the expression of emotions in man and animals ,  charles darwin studied patterns of love, joy and grief in birds, domestic animals and primates as compared to humans, and felt all of our mental capacities weren’t all that different. research in recent years has suggested he may have been right all along.

or in other, far more traumatic ways. in the summer of 2018, a female killer whale known as j-35 carried the body of her dead newborn calf for 17 days in the waters off the west coast, which scientists labelled “a tour of grief.” as it turns out, in cetaceans (aquatic mammals) and many primates, females whose infant has died often continue to transport and care for the infant’s corpse, sometimes for prolonged periods of time, and might even travel with little more than a piece of dried skin or part of a skeleton while in mourning.

there is also the infamous story of eleanor , the elderly matriarch of an elephant family living on samburu national reserve in kenya. in her 2013 book how animals grieve , anthropologist barbara j. king reported how, in eleanor’s last hours, she collapsed. after several minutes, the matriarch of another family used her trunk to get eleanor back up, but she collapsed again out of weakness. king wrote that the other matriarch grew “visibly distressed” by eleanor’s condition, stayed by her side while pushing at her body. once eleanor eventually died, elephants from five other families visited her body, rocking it and touching, whilst “clearly involved grief.”

we see this in a 2020 study where a group of chimpanzees were seen exhibiting “heightened expressions of species-typical reassurance behaviours”  towards a chimpanzee mother following the loss of her presumed stillborn infant. other grieving animals are known more commonly to eat the corpse, abandon it or even try to interact with it through poking, sniffing, grooming or aggression. according to anderson, the variation occurs in relation to factors such as age of the deceased, the context of the death, the species involved, and pre-death social relationships.

according to dr. erin katribe, medical director of the utah-based animal sanctuary best friends animal society , pet owners report signs of mourning most commonly when either a human or other companion animal is lost through death or other means.

for sure, it’s heartbreaking to watch animals mourn. take the story of baby dog , for example, who laid on his dead owner’s chest for days in freezing conditions after his car got stuck in snow. a neighbour who knew the dog had to visit the scene to convince him to leave his owner so rescue crews could move the body. but as difficult — and heartbreaking — as these stories are, there is an important message here about resilience and recovery.

“we had a pair of ducks and, when the male died, the female called and looked for him for about two weeks,” says carl safina, professor of nature and humanity at stony brook university, and president of the safina center , a non-profit nature conservation and environmental organization based in setauket, new york. “eventually she just had to get back to living and joined up with our chickens. even in humans, it varies. some people never get over a shattering loss — others go to a wake and cry for a minute and go to work the next day.”