What science has documented about animal responses to death of companions and what this reveals about emotional life in non-human species.
Animal grief responses, whether they constitute subjective grief in the human sense or represent analogous emotional states, have direct welfare implications. Animals that show prolonged behavioural changes following companion loss are clearly experiencing something that influences their wellbeing and daily function. The welfare of social animals depends partly on the stability of their social bonds, meaning that the deaths of companions are welfare events with consequences that extend beyond the moment of loss. Understanding and acknowledging animal grief responses should inform how we manage social animals — minimising unnecessary separations, maintaining companion bonds where possible, and attending to the welfare of surviving animals after companion loss.