• Question: Why do elephants grieve over other elephants deaths?

    Asked by wewantcedric5 to Carrie, Ellen, Rupert on 16 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 16 Mar 2017:

      Why is a difficult question to answer – it is really hard to look at animals and know exactly why they respond to things in the way they do. Elephants are known to grieve the loss of other elephants and i can only assume it is down to their advanced cognitive abilities and close social bonds – they are very intelligent creatures and they develop extremely strong bonds with one another. I don’t think they grieve in the same way humans do though, they tend to mourn the loss and then move on (but i guess they have to because otherwise the species wouldn’t survive). Great question, thanks!

    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 17 Mar 2017:

      I don’t know as much about elephants as Ellen but they one of a small number of species that have a sense of self. With this comes some sort of understanding of death but we don’t know how much or what they understand about it. I guess it’s enough appreciate that that individual is gone and not coming back and if they were bonded to it, that would be upsetting.

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