What science reveals about grief and bereavement responses in elephants, primates, corvids, dolphins, and other animals, and what these findings mean for how we understand and protect emotional lives.
The evidence for grief-like responses across a wide range of species challenges simplistic assumptions about the uniqueness of human emotional life and has important welfare implications. Animals capable of forming attachments strong enough to produce grief responses after loss are animals with rich social and emotional lives. This understanding argues for careful management of social separations, the provision of opportunity to attend to deceased companions where possible, and recognition that animal bereavement is a welfare concern that deserves consideration in management decisions. The welfare cost of abrupt social separations — common in livestock operations, shelter practices, and zoo management — extends to the psychological impact on surviving animals.