Scientific evidence for grief-like states in many species has profound welfare implications for how we manage social animals.
Evidence for grief-like states in social animals has important welfare implications. If animals mourn companions, then management practices causing sudden companion loss — group separation, sudden slaughter of pen mates, calf removal — cause additional suffering beyond the acute stress of separation. Grief states represent a category of negative emotional experience that welfare science is only beginning to systematically address. Recognising and accommodating grief-like responses is a frontier of applied animal welfare.