{"id":3830,"date":"2019-10-31T23:07:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T23:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animalhealthfoundation.net\/blog\/?p=3830"},"modified":"2019-10-31T23:07:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T23:07:45","slug":"when-animals-mourn-seeing-that-grief-is-not-uniquely-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animalhealthfoundation.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/when-animals-mourn-seeing-that-grief-is-not-uniquely-human\/","title":{"rendered":"When Animals Mourn: Seeing That Grief Is Not Uniquely Human"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NPR.ORG – April 11, 2013<\/span>9:15 AM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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BARBARA J. KING<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"Olaf Kraak\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n
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An elephant at the Emmen, Netherlands, zoo stands at the edge of a ditch in 2009, a day after another elephant fell into the ditch and died.<\/div>\n
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Eleanor was the matriarch of an elephant family called the First Ladies. One day, elephant researchers in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve saw that Eleanor was bruised and dragging her trunk on the ground. Soon, she collapsed.<\/p>\n

Within minutes, Grace, the matriarch of another elephant family, came near. Using her trunk, she pushed Eleanor back up to a standing position. When Eleanor, greatly weakened now, thudded once again to the ground, Grace became visibly distressed: she vocalized, pushed at the body and refused to leave Eleanor’s side.<\/p>\n

How Animals Grieve\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>by Barbara J. King\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>Hardcover, 193 pages<\/p>\n

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When Eleanor died, a female called Maui, from a third elephant family, hovered over her body, pulling on and rocking over it. During the next week, elephants from five different families came to the body. Some individuals seemed motivated only by curiosity. But the behavior of others, including Grace and Maui, clearly involved grief.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The breadth and depth of animal grief is the topic of my book\u00a0How Animals Grieve<\/a><\/em>, just published. Writing this book often moved me profoundly; through reading the science literature and conducting interviews with experienced animal caretakers, I came to understand at a new, visceral level just how extensively animals feel their lives. Elephants grieve. Great apes (think chimpanzees, bonobos) and cetaceans (such as dolphins) grieve. So do horses and rabbits, cats and dogs, even some birds.<\/p>\n

Here at\u00a013.7<\/em>, I often write about science books. So it’s gratifying to write now about my own, especially this week when it’s the focal point of a story in\u00a0Time Magazine<\/em>\u00a0called\u00a0“The Mystery of Animal Grief.”<\/a><\/p>\n