theGIST Issue 12

Science in the Spotlight
long been a source of such stories,
including Greyfriars Bobby and
Hachiko as well as books which
delve deeper into the psychology
and science of grieving in dogs.
Marc Berkoff, Professor Emeritus of
Evolutionary Biology at the University
of Colorado Boulder and author
of the book Canine
Confidential: Why Dogs Do What
They Do, stated that dogs don't understand
the concept of loss or
death but do recognize that a companion
is missing. In response, they
show behavioural changes such as
a lack of appetite, sleeping more
than usual, or withdrawing from
people and other pets – a collection
of symptoms that sounds
rather familiar. Even if dogs do not
comprehend the metaphysical implications
of the death, their
change in behaviour implies at
least a minimal understanding of
loss.
All of these examples describe behaviour
that can be interpreted as
grieving or mourning; but what are
the definitions of these terms? The
Cambridge Dictionary defines both
grieving and mourning as "to feel or
express great sadness, especially
because of someone's death". Furthermore,
Barbara J. King, an emeritus
professor of anthropology and
author of How Animals Grieve (a
book I highly recommend for those
interested in this subject), defines
grief and mourning as "significant
deviations from usual routines displayed
by survivors after the death
of a significant companion animal".
In her terms, there's no distinction
between grieving and mourning as
both result in a change of behaviour.
However, it is known that grieving
and feeling grief are intricately related.
Therefore, if we assert that
animals can mourn, can it be stated
that grieving animals actually feel
grief? Since the empirical definition
of mourning limits itself to objective
observations but the act of feeling
grief is impossible to measure. On a
more scientific basis, a study in baboons
observed a large increase in
the concentration of stress hormones
in their blood after losing a
close companion or child. This
proves that baboons feel stress as a
result of these losses [8].
It is difficult to ascertain whether
it's grief or curiosity that drives an
elephant to touch a dead body or if
a dog that "grieves" its companion
does so out of a sense of loss or
because he simply misses the act
of playing with his companion.
Presently, there are few studies that
focus on the feeling of grief in animals
due to the challenge of studying
animal emotions. Several problems
arise when investigating this topic:
the inability of animals to communicate
their feelings, the possibility
of anthropomorphising (attributing
human characteristics to animals)
their behaviour, and the variety of
mourning behaviour found across
the animal kingdom.
Among other reasons, a fear of
anthropomorphising has led scientists
to be reluctant to describe the
behaviour of any animal towards
one of their dead as "grieving". Perhaps
this is because we fear we are
projecting highly complex human
emotions onto animals or perhaps
because animals don't comprehend
the loss of a companion. Nonetheless,
the increasing number of observations
and anecdotal reports
prompt the scientific (and non-scientific)
community to begin to reconsider
grieving as an exclusively
human experience. Although humans
experience grief in a more
visible way (according to ourselves),
it might be that animals also experience
grief, but in a simpler form. As
Barbara King suggests, perhaps the
only thing that differentiates human
and animal grief is "[Homo Sapiens]
unique ability to fully anticipate the
inevitability of death (…) and to express
our losses in a thousand glorious
or ragged ways".
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