Research increasingly documents grief-like responses in social animals following the death of companions, challenging simplistic views of animal emotion and raising welfare implications for how we manage animal social groups.
The documented grief responses of social animals have profound welfare implications. Animals form genuine social bonds whose disruption causes measurable suffering. This has direct implications for how we manage animal social groups: separating bonded individuals, removing animals from established groups, or preventing animals from being present with dying companions may all cause welfare harms we have systematically undervalued. Grief-conscious management respects the social bonds that are integral to animal wellbeing.