Chimps 'feel death like humans'

Chimps 'feel death like humans'

news.bbc.co.uk

Chimpanzees deal with death in much the same way as humans, studies suggest.

Scientists in Scotland filmed a group of chimps grooming and caressing an elderly female who died, and remaining subdued for several days afterwards.

Other researchers saw females carrying around the bodies of their dead children. Both studies are reported in the journal Current Biology.

The scientists say this suggests other species, particularly apes, are more like humans than we might think.

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I find stories like these very moving and in many ways profound. People in the West find time to bicker and argue that we have nothing in common with apes. There's an idea that humans are somehow 'distinct' and our sentiments have more value than the other animals.

Here we see chimps enacting the same bereaved behaviours that we do. They feel the same loss without the vocabulary to express the grief. Many other mammals do too.

In some sense, it pisses me off to see their grief compared to ours. It implies humans set a benchmark or standard by which other animals are measured. The death of a loved one goes deep and beyond words. Maybe chimps don't 'feel death like humans?' Their sense of loss could be as legitimate as ours.

As we gain more insight into these processes, the ethical treatment of animals will become a bigger issue in the future.

news.bbc.co.uk
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reply to post by Kandinsky



Kandinsky - very important thread and I completely agree with your comments about the 'legitimate sense of loss' and ethical treatment of animals - I think this photograph just about summed it up for me.

Photo: Chimps mourn at burial of fellow primate


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/471352dcd67b.jpg[/atsimg]

The picture, taken at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Centre in Cameroon, shows more than a dozen apes gazing on as the body of one of their own is wheeled past them.

Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of heart failure, and her death seemed to have left her fellow primates stricken by grief.

Link

Cheers.

That's touching. Those creatures' spirits must be as similar to our own as their bodies are.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I think a lot of people are worried about just how similar to us apes actually are.

This is a very touching story, and I wonder how many other species of animal go through similar grieving processes that mighn't so obviously manifest itself to us ?

Here's an example of magpies apparently mourning:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

reply to post by Kandinsky


This is no surprise to me, we are not the only intelligent beings on this planet all living creatures have intelligence, its just that they cannot communicate with us. Would humans treat an alien that cannot communicate with us the same way as we treat other life here on earth? All you have to do is own a dog or a cat and see that they are smart, they think, they react, they communicate amongst themselves, they remember things and are very observent of their surroundings.

I can't bring something into my house without my animals having to check out what it is. When I bring the cat carrier into my house to take the cat to the vet he hides because last time he got taken to the vet he had his balls nipped off, and that was around 6 months apart so he associates that pain and feelings he had along with that cat carrier, so they are not dumb animals they just have different ways of showing there emotions than us humans.

Kandinsky

I remember watching a documentary many moons ago about Chimps in the wild. This older female Chimp had a male offspring who was recently winged. [If that's the correct term] Anyway, She passed away and the young winged male was so grief stricken he stopped eating and stopped participating in group activities.

A few days later the study group found him dead from malnutrition.

Originally posted by Conspiracy Chicks fan !
reply to post by Kandinsky

 

Here's an example of magpies apparently mourning:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Thats a great story as well, especially the part where the birds would fly off one by one and bring some sort of token next to the body.. Thats gives me chills

Of course they do. Our local zoo had a sick gorilla, which unfortunately died and it was obvious to anyone with 1 eye that the others were grieving, maybe someone should these "intelligent" human scientists that dolphins are the same way (the dolphin exhibit actually had to close because they were too depressed).

Edit to add: How long have we been studying chimps and we just realized this?

[edit on 26-4-2010 by searching4truth]

This doesn't surprise me a bit; what surprises me is that anyone wouldn't realize that most animals have these same emotions. Hell, even cats, whom many people claim exhibit no human-like emotion at all. I know that when our big boy cat, and the Patriarch of the cat clan got run over by a car, the rest all gathered around me as I held him. They were all listless and acted confused for days.

They'd all come in at night about 9:00 for dinner, and we kept them in for the night. The big boy - Sutter - was killed about 8:00 p.m. Do you know that those cats didn't do much more than peck at their food for nearly two weeks?

I've seen firsthand dogs mourn over other dogs and especially over people. I don't believe it's just instinct. I think sometimes we humans want to elevate ourselves above the rest of the animal kingdom, and this empathy is one of the ways in which we project it. We should be trying to communicate and exist in harmony with the rest of the animal world, not subjugating it. Well, that's a rant for another thread.

Good thread.

This was talked about here not to long ago.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by argentus
I've seen firsthand dogs mourn over other dogs and especially over people. I don't believe it's just instinct. I think sometimes we humans want to elevate ourselves above the rest of the animal kingdom, and this empathy is one of the ways in which we project it. We should be trying to communicate and exist in harmony with the rest of the animal world, not subjugating it. Well, that's a rant for another thread.

Good thread.

i agree with that completely. people want to assume that humans are the only creatures on this planet with emotions and personalities and intelligence...thats just not the case. the more you learn to understand the animals and other creatures around you, the easier it is to communicate with them. i've recently learned that with any living creatures, all i need to do is speak to them the same way i speak to anyone else...with respect...and they respond to what i say. they understand so much more than we give them credit for...

Elephants mourn their dead, this is well known and been observed a lot. Also, I've seen dogs mourn when a human member of the family dies. They go into funks, and will act different. Its hard to know if they are reacting to the missing family member or just picking up on everyone else's emotion, but the change is definitely there.

reply to post by Aliensdoexist


I starred your post it was touching to hear something that's been on my mind from someone else

reply to post by Kandinsky


Here is the story of Greyfriars Bobby
www.historic-uk.com...

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh after reportedly spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner, John Gray, until he died himself on 14 January 1872.[1] A year later, Lady Burdett-Coutts had a statue and fountain erected at the southern end of the George IV Bridge to commemorate him.

And this is a dog. I imagine a chimp would experience emotion and loss even more similar to the ways we feel our own.