How Do Animals Cope With Death?
We have discussed the grieving process involved when we loose a pet or companion animal and some of the methods we, as humans, use to cope with this loss.
What about the animals?
A recent article in the New York Times by Natalie Angier, recently discussed some reaction so animals to death.
Ms. Angier wrote about the observations of zoo workers of a mother gorilla and her deceased baby:
Yes, we’re a lot like other primates, particularly the great apes, with whom we have more than 98 percent of our genes in common. Yet elaborate displays of apparent maternal grief like Gana’s may reveal less about our shared awareness of death than our shared impulse to act as though it didn’t exist. Dr. Hrdy, author of “Mother Nature” and the coming “Mothers and Others,” said it made adaptive sense for a primate mother to hang onto her motionless baby and keep her hopes high for a while. “If the baby wasn’t dead, but temporarily comatose, because it was sick or fallen from the tree, well, it might come back to life,” Dr. Hrdy said. “We’re talking about primates who have singleton births after long periods of gestation. Each baby represents an enormous investment for the mother.”
Go to the site and read the entire article. It contains interesting thoughts about animals, their feelings and their mortality.
http://www.pettrustlawblog.com/admin/trackback/85726
