Chimpanzees' grief caught on camera in Cameroon

"More than a dozen chimps stand in silence watching from behind their wire enclosure as Dorothy, a chimp in her late 40s who died of heart failure, is wheeled past them. "

www.telegraph.co.uk...


This is another way primates relate to human beings..

S+F, glad to see officials recognizing emotions in animals. I'm sure they suffer greatly at our hands due to callous thinking they don't feel emotions. At the bottom of that article was a link to "magpies holding funerals", another intriguing loot at non-human emotions...
Magpies 'feel grief and hold funerals'

reply to post by Haydn_17

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I have nothing to add, except thank you for posting this.

My emotions are sometimes hard to locate...especially those not involving anger and embarassment...but this one touched me...

If you look at the top left the second chimpanzee is even holding the other chimpanzee shoulder...
Probaly a sign of emotion aswell.

Very striking. But how could anyone imagine that animals felt no emotions ? They're alive, therefore they feel things.
I mean, even my cat shows me he is sad when I leave my house. And cats are known to feel death : when another cat they know, or even another animal they're used to will die, they sit by him for a little while. I believe it is a form of grief (or cruelty, after all they're cats !:lol

That was very touching, thank you for posting this! Not that i would have actually needed any more proof that animals have emotions, i have been convinced of that all my life.

Speaking of magpies, those are really smart birds. And they do care about each other, i once saved a young magpie that had been cornered by my cat in the garden. What alerted me were two adult magpies circling the house constantly and making hellish noises. And that, for about half an hour, non stop. Luckily i figured it out in time and saved the day (and the magpie).

28 days into October...I give you my thread of the month award. This is a touching story. I will be filing this away with the plethora of other instances of animals showing emotion, inventing/using tools and other higher brain function activities.

S&F and a

Thank you!

reply to post by Jalis

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Agreed,all animals feel emotions to a certain extent. But when it comes to our cousins it's completely different as they are no doubt experiencing alot of the raw emotions we feel. Anyway a lovely picture and there are thousands of other pics and videos that show chimps displaying emotions that we can relate to...that's why i think they should be given rights...call me crazy but i really do.

What I like about that picture is there is no seniority going on within the groups of chimps, they are all just standing there in a muddled line. For me that speaks volumes that they are all sharing in the same emotion and the rules of the pack are for that moment suspended.

If any of you have ever lived on a farm you will never forget the cries of the cow whose calf was taken away.

I experienced the same with my sheep. One ran the fence line -the direction the baby went- and cried all night. And she gave me this sad accusing look. Actually that only happened to the one.- I had taken him to have him dehorned- brought him back - happy ending. The experience however was very memorable.

Also if baby wanders off and gets lost there is much running around and crying from both of them.

When the baby is older they don't seem to care as much.

Touching...

I don't know why some people fight the idea of animals having feelings. Anybody who has a family household pets knows for a fact that Dogs and Cats show affection all the time. We had a dog who used to have dreams and in some cases nightmares. He would growl or wimper in his sleep and move his legs.

My cat always shows me affection when I get home. For example, while I'm lying on the couch watching a movie she will climb up on my chest and give me little pecks on the lips while purring.



[edit on 28-10-2009 by SLAYER69]

Only people who do not live and work with animals could imagine they do not have complex emotions.

I think this is the most important thread on ATS this month. The documentation that animals suffer grief as humans do should go long toward a rethinking of how humanity lives, works, and raises animals.

So what?





we are animals, get over it...it's nothing special.

[edit on 28-10-2009 by LordBaskettIV]

From my experience with animals, they have feelings, emotions, love, hate, aggression, pain, and everything else any of us would feel. Great post.

I've come across people who claim animals are nothing more than machines who don't feel pain the way we do. It's not difficult to explain to them why I believe these things, but it's very hard for them to accept it as anything more than biological programing. Based on that theory we are all biologically programed. We are no different, except that as humans we understand all human emotions and expressions. We speak our language!

Since some animals have very limited facial expressions (or their expressions are too subtle for us to recognize), some people think of them as machines. Simply because we can't understand most of their language doesn't mean they don't have one. Some people will deem animals intelligent only if they start speaking our language, which is ridiculous. They will no sooner speak English or French (excluding parrots and some species of birds), than we will speak Dog or Fish (although we are working on it!). Some body language is universal since we are so closely related,.... even if certain people want to deny it, so at least we have that going for us.

reply to post by Haydn_17

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Thank you very much for posting that.

What a truly touching picture and story.

reply to post by Haydn_17

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I remember a documentary (I think it was produced by the NGC) about bonobos, I believe (OK, not chimpanzees, but close enough).

One of the many things that stand out in my memory is one monkey that apparently was able to relate to the researcher (through sign language) the death of his mother who was killed (by humans, who else?) when s/he was a baby.
The monkey was still traumatised by it (duh!).
But it was the fact that s/he was able to recount that grief what struck the researchers the most.
(I suppose that speaks volumes - and not necessarily positively - about humans and their solipsist perception of other living beings...)




[edit on 28-10-2009 by Vanitas]

As they say, it takes one to know one...




[edit on 28-10-2009 by Vanitas]

Chimps are just like us. They go to war. They are territorial. They have a concept of property and ownership... Pretty much 96% of what makes humans human, is shared with chimps. We're very, very, very similar.

What makes life an interesting experiment is that all creatures eventually have the chance to see and feel all things.

I look forward to the day that a Chimp Einstein is born, and speaks, and lays waste to our concept of how sentient intelligence functions.

I see humans daily.... gah anyone who's worked at one of them discount stores knows... behaving like they might as well be sub-animal. Hell, even amoebas show more cunning, wit, and character than many people.

One day, Christ will return as a Beagle. Just to eff with you.

How do you know he hasn't done so already...?