How Animals Grieve

by Barbara J. King

  I have fond memories of sitting around a table in the Levine-Greenberg literary agency in Manhattan years ago, brainstorming about this book (as yet only an idea) with Jim Levine and Lindsay Edgecombe. Lindsay and Jim believed in the ideas behind the words “how animals grieve” and helped tremendously in shaping the book as it came to fruition.

  As the book went to press, Jill Kneerim of the Kneerim-Williams Agency provided superb guidance and support, and turned me firmly toward my future of writing about animal emotion.

  All along, the experience of working with people at the University of Chicago Press has been an intellectual treat and a personal delight. Christie Henry always says the best thing at the best time and, through her editorial insights, has made this a better book in at least ten different ways. Also at the Press, Levi Stahl, Joel Score, and Amy Krynak have been so good to me, and to the book too, that I send them a sincere thank you.

  To Stuart Shanker, how adequately to acknowledge many years of shared work projects, mutual support, and exchanged tales of children, chickens, and cats? Please know your friendship matters so much, every day.

  I’ve succumbed to convention in mentioning those closest to my heart last. In one sense, it’s a small family, consisting of my husband Charles Hogg, my daughter Sarah Hogg, and my mother Elizabeth King. To my mother, thank you for everything you have given me, including a ton of books from the earliest years onward, and a love of reading. To my daughter, I will always cherish our serious and silly talks about animals (including Sir Lancelot!), about writing, and about standing up for what (and who) we care about. To my husband, I can only say, you’re amazing to me. I’ve loved you since that first fateful fall of 1989, but I love you more by the day as I see with new eyes the depth of your commitment to animals.

  And yet, those are just the Homo sapiens! Our family circle is larger. To all the animals who have loved me back over the years (cats, dogs, rabbits) and to all the others who have regarded me with a mild friendliness or outright indifference but who are still gorgeous and still loved (monkeys, apes, bison, frogs, birds, and more), trying to enter your emotional worlds is a joy and a responsibility and I hope I’ve gotten some important parts right.

  READINGS AND VISUAL RESOURCES

  PROLOGUE

  Bekoff, Marc. “Animal Love: Hot-Blooded Elephants, Guppy Love, and Love Dogs.” Psychology Today blog, November 2009. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/200911/animal-love-hot-blooded-elephants-guppy-love-and-love-dogs.

  Kessler, Brad. Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, a Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese. New York: Scribner, 2009. Quoted material, p. 154.

  Krulwich, Robert. “‘Hey I’m Dead!’ The Story of the Very Lively Ant.” National Public Radio, April 1, 2009. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102601823.

  Potts, Annie. Chicken. London: Reaktion Books, 2012.

  Rosenblatt, Roger. Kayak Morning. New York: Ecco, 2012. Quoted material, p. 49.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Coren, Stanley. “How Dogs Respond to Death.” With a sidebar by Colleen Safford. Modern Dog, Winter 2010/2011, 60–65. Quoted material, p. 62.

  Harlow, Harry F., and Stephen J. Suomi. “Social Recovery by Isolation-Reared Monkeys.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 68 (1971): 1534–38. Quoted material, p. 1534. http://www.pnas.org/content/68/7/1534.full.pdf.

  King, Barbara J. “Do Animals Grieve?” http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/10/20/141452847/do-animals-grieve.

  Renard, Jules. Nature Stories. Translated by Douglas Parmee. Illustrated by Pierre Bonnard. New York: New York Review of Books, 2011. Quoted material, p. 39.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Coren, Stanley. “How Dogs Respond to Death.” With a sidebar by Colleen Safford. Modern Dog, Winter 2010/2011, pp. 60–65.

  Dosa, David. Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat. New York: Hyperion, 2010.

  Hare, Brian, and Michael Tomasello. “Human-Like Social Skills in Dogs?” Trends in Cognitive Science, 2005. http://email.eva.mpg.de/÷tomas/pdf/Hare_Tomasello05.pdf.

  King, Barbara J. Being with Animals. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

  Zimmer, Carl. “Friends with Benefits.” Time, February 20, 2012, 34–39. Quoted material, p. 39. (For responses by Patricia McConnell, see http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/tag/carl-zimmer.)

  VIDEO Ceremony to honor the dog Hachiko, Tokyo, April 8, 2009. One can see the statue of Hachi in the opening frames. (In Japanese.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffB6IEFsD9A.

  VIDEO Heroic dog rescue on the highway in Chile. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28148352/ns/today-today_pets_and_animals/t/little-hope-chiles-highway-hero-dog/.

  PHOTO Hawkeye the dog at Jon Tumilson’s casket. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44271018/ns/today-today_pets_and_animals/t/dog-mourns-casket-fallen-navy-seal/.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Farm Sanctuary, “Someone, Not Something: Farm Animal Behavior, Emotion, and Intelligence.” http://farmsanctuary.wpengine.com/learn/someone-not-something/.

  Hatkoff, Amy. The Inner World of Farm Animals. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2009. Quoted material, p. 84.

  Marcella, Kenneth L. “Do Horses Grieve?” Thoroughbred Times, October 2, 2006. http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/horse-health/2006/october/02/do-horses-grieve.aspx.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Archer, John. The Nature of Grief: The Evolution and Psychology of Reactions to Loss. New York: Routledge, 1999.

  House Rabbit Society. “Pet Loss Support for Your Rabbit.” http://www.rabbit.org/journal/2-1/loss-support.html.

  Wager-Smith, Karen, and Athina Markou. “Depression: A Repair Response to Stress-Induced Neuronal Microdamage That Can Grade into a Chronic Neuroinflammatory Condition.” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 35 (2011): 742–64.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bibi, Faysal, Brian Kraatz, Nathan Craig, Mark Beech, Mathieu Schuster, and Andrew Hill. “Early Evidence for Complex Social Structure in Proboscidea from a Late Miocene Trackway Site in the United Arab Emirates.” Biology Letters (2012). doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.1185.

  Douglas-Hamilton, Iain, Shivani Bhalla, George Wittemyer, and Fritz Vollrath. “Behavioural Reactions of Elephants towards a Dying and Deceased Matriarch.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 100 (2006):87–102.

  Elephant Sanctuary. “Tina.” http://www.elephants.com/tina/Tina_inMemory.php.

  Gill, Victoria. “Ancient Tracks Are Elephant Herd.” BBC, February 25, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17102135.

  McComb, Karen, Lucy Baker, and Cynthia Moss. “African Elephants Show High Levels of Interest in the Skulls and Ivory of Their Own Species.” Biology Letters 2 (2005): 2–26.

  Moss, Cynthia. Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family. New York: William Morrow, 1988. Quoted material, p. 270.

  VIDEO Amboseli elephants’ response to a matriarch’s bones: http://www.andrews-elephants.com/elephant-emotions-grieving.html.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bosch, Oliver J., Hemanth P. Nair, Todd H. Ahern, Inga D. Neumann, and Larry J. Young. “The CRF System Mediates Increased Passive Stress-Coping Behavior Following the Loss of a Bonded Partner in a Monogamous Rodent.” Neuropsycho-pharmacology 34(2009): 1406–15.

  Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth. Baboon Metaphysics: The Evoution of a Social Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Quoted material, pp. 193, 195.

  Engh, Anne L., Jacinta C. Beehner, Thore J. Bergman, Patricia L Whitten, Rebekah R Hoffmeier, Robert M. Seyfarth, and Dorothy L. Cheney. “Behavioural and Hormonal Responses to Predation in Female Chacma Baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus).” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 273 (2006): 707–12. Quoted material, p. 709.

  Fashing, Peter J., Nga Nguyen, Tyler S. Barry, C. Barret Goodale, Ryan J. Burke, Sorrel C. Z. Jones, Jeffrey T. Kerby, Laura M. Lee, Niina O. Nurmi, and Vivek V. Venkataraman. “Death among Geladas (Theropithecus gelada): A Broader Perspective on Mummified Infants and Primate Th
anatology.” American Journal of Primatology 73 (2011): 405–9. Quoted material, p. 408.

  Mendoza, Sally, and William Mason. “Contrasting Responses to Intruders and to Involuntary Separation by Monogamous and Polygynous New World Monkeys.” Physiology and Behavior 38 (1986): 795–801.

  Sugiyama, Yukimaru, Hiroyuki Kurita, Takeshi Matsu, Satoshi Kimoto, and Tadatoshi Shimomura. “Carrying of Dead Infants by Japanese Macaque (Macaca fuscata) Mothers.” Anthropological Science 117 (2009): 113–19.

  VIDEO Clever Monkeys, narrated by David Attenborough (segment on toque monkeys starts at 1:15): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaiFfSui4oc.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Anderson, James R. “A Primatological Perspective on Death.” American Journal of Primatology 71 (2011): 1–5. Quoted material, p. 2.

  Biro, Dora, Tatyana Humle, Kathelijne Koops, Claudia Sousa, Misato Hayashi, and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. “Chimpanzee Mothers at Bossou, Guinea Carry the Mummified Remains of Their Dead Infants.” Current Biology 20 (2010): R351–R352. Quoted material, p. R351.

  Boesch, Christophe, and Hedwige Boesch-Achermann. The Chimpanzees of Tai Forest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Quoted material, pp. 248–49.

  Goodall, Jane van Lawick. 1971. In the Shadow of Man. New York: Dell. Quoted material, p. 236.

  . Through a Window. New York: Mariner Books, 1990. Quoted material, pp. 196–97.

  King, Barbara J. “Against Animal Natures: An Anthropologist’s View.” 2012. http://www.beinghuman.org/article/against-animal-natures-anthropologist’s-view.

  Sorenson, John. Ape. London: Reaktion Books, 2009. Quoted material, pp. 70, 85.

  VIDEO Chimpanzee attack on Grapelli, narrated by David Watts (“Gang of Chimps Attack and Kill a Lone Chimp”; attack itself begins around 3 minutes in): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPznMbNcfO8.

  VIDEO Chimpanzee attack, narrated by David Attenborough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM&feature=fvst.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Barash, David. “Deflating the Myth of Monogamy.” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 21, 2001.

  Heinrich, Bernd. Mind of the Raven. New York: Ecco, 1999.

  . The Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010. Quoted material, p. 26.

  Marzluff, John M., and Tony Angell. Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans. New York: Free Press, 2012. Quoted material, pp. 141, 146.

  . In the Company of Crows and Ravens. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Quoted material, pp. 187, 195.

  VIDEO The storks Rodan and Malena (narration in French): http://videos.tf1.fr/infos/2010/love-story-au-pays-des-cigognes-5786575.html.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ABC News. “Whales Mourn If a Family Member Is Taken: Scientists.” August 20, 2008. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-10/whales-mourn-if-a-family-member-is-taken-scientists/470268.

  Bearzi, Giovanni. “A Mother Bottlenose Dolphin Mourning Her Dead Newborn Calf in the Amvrakikos Gulf, Greece.” Tethys Research Institute report (with photo). http://www.wdcs-de.org/docs/Bottlenose_Dolphin_mourning_dead_newborn_calf.pdf.

  Evans, Karen, Margaret Morrice, Mark Hindell, and Deborah Thiele. “Three Mass Whale Strandings of Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Southern Australian Waters.” Marine Mammal Science 18 (2002): 622–43.

  Klinkenborg, Verlyn. Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile. New York: Vintage Books, 2007.

  Ritter, Fabian. “Behavioral Responses of Rough-Toothed Dolphins to a Dead Newborn Calf.” Marine Mammal Science 23(2007): 429–33. Quoted material, pp. 430, 431.

  Rose, Anthony. “On Tortoises Monkeys & Men.” In Kinship with the Animals, edited by Michael Tobias and Kate Solisti-Mattelon. Hillsboro, OR: Beyond Words Publishing, 1998. http://goldray.com/bushmeat/pdf/tortoisemonkeymen.pdf.

  VIDEO Male sea turtle at memorial for Honey Girl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkVXucG1AeA.

  VIDEO Dolphin-whale play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC3AkGSigrA.

  VIDEO Still photographs and video related to whale mourning/whale strandings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaViQ7FHJPI.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Elephant Sanctuary. Account of Bella’s death. http://www.elephants.com/elediary.php (begin at entry for October 24, 2011).

  Holland, Jennifer. Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom. New York: Workman Publishing, 2011.

  Pierce, Jessica. The Last Walk: Reflection on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Quoted material, pp. 220, 199.

  Zimmer, Carl. “Friends with Benefits.” Time, February 20, 2012, 34–39.

  PHOTO Tarra and Bella together: http://www.elephants.com/Bella/Bella.php.

  VIDEO Polar bears and dogs playing: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3ag9o_polar-bears-and-dogs-playing_animal.

  VIDEO CBS Sunday Morning, “The Common Bond of Animal Odd Couples”: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7362308n&tag=contentMain;contentBody.

  PHOTO Tinky the cat at the piano: http://www.barbarajking.com/blog.htm?post=801721.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ABC Science. “Lemmings Suicide Myth.” April 27, 2004. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/04/27/1081903.htm.

  Bekoff, Marc. “Bear Kills Son and Herself on a Chinese Bear Farm.” http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201108/bear-kills-son-and-herself-chinese-bear-farm.

  Birkett, Lucy, and Nicholas E. Newton-Fisher. “How Abnormal Is the Behaviour of Captive, Zoo-Living Chimpanzees?” PLoS ONE 6 (2011): e20101. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0020101.

  Bradshaw, G. A., A. N. Schore, J. L. Brown, J. H. Poole, and C. J. Moss. “Elephant Breakdown.” Nature 433 (2005): 807.

  Guardian. “Dolphin Deaths: Expert Suggests ‘Mass Suicide.’” June 11, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/11/wildlife.conservation1.

  Karmelek, Mary. “Was This Gazelle’s Death an Accident or a Suicide?” http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anecdotes-from-the-archive/2011/05/24/was-this-gazelles-death-an-accident-or-a-suicide/.

  King, Barbara J. “When a Daughter Self-Harms.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/07/12/156550195/when-a-daughter-self-harms.

  Poulsen, Else. 2009. Smiling Bears: A Zookeeper Explores the Behavior and Emotional Life of Bears. Vancouver: Greystone Books. Quoted material, pp. 208–9.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Anderson, James R., Alasdair Gillies, and Louse C. Lock. “Pan Thanatology.” Current Biology 20 (2010): R349–R351. Quoted material, p. R350.

  Goodall, Jane van Lawick. In the Shadow of Man. New York: Dell, 1971. Quoted material, p. xi.

  Teleki, G. “Group Response to the Accidental Death of a Chimpanzee in Gombe National Park, Tanzania.” Folia primatologica 20 (1973): 81–94. Quoted material, pp. 84, 85, 89, 92, 93.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Berger, Joel. The Better to Eat You With: Fear in the Animal World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Quoted material, p. 117.

  Bradbury, Ray. Dandelion Wine. New York: Doubleday, 1957.

  Desmond, Jane. “Animal Deaths and the Written Record of History: The Politics of Pet Obituaries.” In Making Animal Meaning, edited by Georgina Montgomery and Linda Kaloff, 99–111. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2012. Quoted material, pp. 99, 100, 103, 104.

  Lott, Dale F. American Bison: A Natural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Quoted material, p. 4.

  Whittlesey, Lee H. Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park. Lanham, MD: Roberts Rinehart, 1995. Quoted material, pp. 4, 30.

  PHOTO Martha Mason in her iron lung: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/us/10mason.html.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Archer, John. The Nature of Grief: The Evolution and Psychology of Reactions to Loss. New York: Routledge, 1999.

  Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: Knopf, 2005. Quoted material, p. 27.

 
; Goldman, Francisco. Say Her Name. New York: Grove Press, 2011. Quoted material, pp. 43–44, 240–41.

  Lewis, C. S. A Grief Observed. New York: HarperOne, 1961. Quoted material, pp. 6, 9–10, 18, 25, 54, 72.

  Oates, Joyce Carol. A Widow’s Story. New York: Ecco, 2011. Quoted material, pp. 105, 275.

  Rosenblatt, Roger. Kayak Morning. New York: Ecco, 2012. Quoted material, p. 143.

  . Making Toast. New York: Ecco, 2010. Quoted material, pp. 32–33.

  Saunders, Frances Stonor. “Too Much Grief.” Guardian, August 19, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/19/grief-memoir-oates-didion-orourke.

  Volk, Tyler. What Is Death? A Scientist Looks at the Life Cycle. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002. Quoted material, pp. 84–85.

  VIDEO Gombe chimpanzees at waterfall, narrated by Jane Goodall: http://www.janegoodall.org/chimp-central-waterfall-displays.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bar-Yosef Mayer, Daniella, Bernard Vandermeersch, and Ofer Bar-Yosef. 2009. “Shells and Ochre in Middle Paleolithic Qafzeh Cave, Israel: Indications for Modern Behavior.” Journal of Human Evolution 56 (2009): 307–14.

  Formicola, V., and A. P. Buzhilova. “Double Child Burial from Sunghir (Russia): Pathology and Inferences for Upper Paleolithic Funerary Practices.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 124 (2004): 189–98. Quoted material, p. 189.

  Goldman, Francisco. Say Her Name. New York: Grove Press, 2011. Quoted material, pp. 306, 313.

  Henshilwood, C. S., F. d’Errico, K. L. van Niekerk, Y. Coquinot, Z. Jacobs, S.-E. Lauritzen, M. Menu, and R. Garcia-Moreno. “A 100,000-Year-Old Ochre-Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa.” Science 334 (2011): 219–22.

  Volk, Tyler. What Is Death? A Scientist Look at the Cycle of Life. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002. Quoted material, p. 83.

  VIDEO/PHOTO Amos, Jonathan. “Ancient ‘Paint Factory’ Unearthed.” BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15257259.

  AFTERWORD

  Archer, John. The Nature of Grief: The Evolution and Psychology of Reactions to Loss. New York: Routledge, 1999. Quoted material, p. 1.