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Asked by 784anmh29 to Carrie, Ellen, Rupert on 17 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by JoeMattock11.
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Ellen Williams answered on 17 Mar 2017:
Elephants are very intelligent animals and we know that they do feel empathy so i guess the answer to this question is yes – but there is so much more we need to understand about elephants are their processes.
At one of my study zoos the keepers used to tell me that if they ever have a falling out between themselves then they go to another part of the zoo to sort of chill out and ‘get over it’ before coming back to the elephants because the elephants respond in a completely different way to them when they are stressed out than when they are chilled. Which i think is a really interesting yet relatively unsurprising idea!
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Carrie Ijichi answered on 17 Mar 2017:
Elephants do have emotions just like most animals, but we can’t be sure if they feel the same way our emotions feel. I can’t even be sure that if I feels happy it’s the same as when you feel happy and we can talk about it! So far, we’re think that all vertebrate animals and octopus/cuttlefish can too but we’re learning all the time and new animals might get added to that list. Elephants are one of the species that seems to be able to feel a bigger range of more complex emotions that are more like our own. Grief is an example of one of those emotions
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