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= Animal Mourning =

Introduction
In social groups, bereavement is a natural stress reaction in the event of the loss of a significant loved one through death. Like Humans, social animal species are affected by the loss of one of their own and can undergo psychological stress or trauma.

The behaviour that these social groups expect following bereavement is referred to as mourning: the act of sorrowing during a period of time during which signs of grief are shown.

Ample research in fields of biology, animal behaviour, evolutionary and ecological biology, cognitive ethology, and neuroscience has shown that animals have brains and minds, used, like in Humans, for thinking and feeling. As such they show moods and emotions and therefore grief and empathy. However, our understanding of the putative emotional responses to loss of animals is limited by communication capabilities and possible differences between our psychological responses to death and theirs. Thanatology used to refer to the "academic and often scientific study of death in human beings". It has now been broaden to include the study of the mechanism, body changes, but also the psychological and social consequences of death among other species.

Social emotions shared in mammals
Primitive tendencies to nurturance probably evolved before the divergence of mammalian and avian stock from their common ancestor. For instance, recent paleontological evidence suggests that some dinosaurs may have also exhibited maternal care. However maternal devotion, and complex social feelings in mammals are sure to have emerged with the evolution of the limbic system. One of the greatest advances in the evolution of emotionality was the ability of the young to value social support. Jaak Panksepp says that this is achieved by a separation-distress or PANIC system, which is a sensitive emotional barometer that keeps track of the level of social support they are receiving. When social contact is lost, organisms experience the painful feeling of separation, and the young reacts vigorously in an attempt to reestablish contact and care.

Scientists documenting social animals nurturant behaviour towards dead young explain it by the species gregarious nature. These species strongly rely on cooperation and social bonding, including allomothering, explaining such actions as adults taking care of other parent’s calves and even adoption. Human infants are born with brains that are about 23 percent of their final capacity, characteristic that neuroanatomists explain by the yet need to learn. This case is similar in some species, such as in elephants or odontocetes, and these exhibit long periods of infant dependency and thus substantial nurturant behaviours in mothers. Fred B. Bercovitch states that among female mammals, lifetime reproductive success depends upon rearing, more than on production of offsprings, which is associated with the strong maternal-infant bond. He then proposes that oxytocin's role in this mother-infant bond might have evolved to be implicated in promotion of social bonds as well. This intricate connection between physiology and behaviour may allow the rationale for the care and carrying of deceased newborns found behaviour, in group-living species.

Elephants
Elephants are a highly cognitively and emotionally engaged animal. “Through observational evidence they seem to have a real unusual interest in the dead of their own species either fresh carcasses or skulls. [...] and the interest seems to persist long after death” - says Karen McComb, co-director of the Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group at the University of Sussex. She is a behavioural ecologist and an expert in analyzing vocalizations of mammals to assessing thoughts and emotions. For that, McComb studies 'contact calls', powerful rumbles elephant use to keep in contact for large distances, and plays recordings of these to approaching herds of elephants while observing their reaction to them. These are her clues in her study. When played the call of a missing family member, the elephants were seen running trumpeting towards the speaker, as if they had someone in ‘mind’ they expected to see. She also used the call of a fifteen-year old female elephant who had died, and played it twice to her family, once a few months after her death and then twenty-three month later. Similarly, the herd ran to her rumbling in greeting, walking directly to the speaker. “They hadn’t forgotten her. [...] But I was uneasy doing that test.” - she mentions. Elephants have intensive social natures and retain their memories for many years. They have the adequate neural anatomy for long-term memory: their brains have large and complex frontal lobes, important structures for storing and retrieving memories of scent, touch, smell, and sound. Poachers often target the matriarchs or older females of the group because they have larger tusks. This is an impactful loss for the group because they loose a lifetime of learning and knowledge.

Elephants have a concept of death. For instance, they recognize carcasses and skeletons of their own kind as well as of others. McComb performed experiments in which she placed skulls of elephants killed by poacher to make miniature elephant graveyards in the path of approaching herds. She observed that they took a real interest in skulls and bones of their own kind, touching and investigating the body for hours. The behaviour they adopt when encountering their dead relatives varies, says Cynthia Mos s, ethologist and director of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, and who invited McCom to join her team. “They stop and become quiet and tense in a different way from anything I have seen in other situations”. Responses of elephants to conspecific carcasses at various stages post-mortem has been intensively documented. They display touching behaviours such as smelling and caressing the remaining body with their hind feet or with their trump. Initially, the dead might be treated as if it was still alive, or unable to move as if injured. It gets carried in order to keep up with the group, tried to be lift up and help stand. Such actions reveal the elephant's empathetic and compassionate nature and shows that they do not want to abandon the deceased individual. They often cover bodies with dirt and sticks, as a burial. Out of many others, Sharma described a case of an adult female mother in southern India, standing around her dead calf for weeks. She later watched from a distance a veterinary team conducting an autopsy on-site and remained around 100m away from the fire on which the calf’s body was cremated.

There are tales about elephant’s graveyards. These are believed to be places where dying elephants direct themselves to die with their conspecifics. Today it is believed that these are actually the remainder bones and skeletons of elephants killed by poachers. However, some reports allow the hypothesis that elephants, which are always on the move, may return occasionally to places where a member has been buried.

Cetaceans
Many studies reviewed reports of whales and odontocetes, dolphins in particular, displaying nurturant behaviours towards dead calves and juveniles, either by supporting or carrying the young at the surface for very long distances and for a very long time.

One example of the many cases Reggente reports in their study describes an adult Risso’s dolphin interacting with a dead calf. Observers related the animal swimming holding on its back the young dead by its dorsal fin, then swimming in circles under the carcass, touching it with several parts of its body (rostrum, and pectoral and dorsal fin), and remaining in vertical position next to the dead calf. Later, the adult pushed the body away from its observers, whom did not attempt to follow them. Another one reports an adult Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin pushing a small dead dolphin across waters. Biologists decided to fix a rope and drag the carcass to the shore to burry it. Observers report having the adult following it, touching it and swimming around until it reached shallow waters. In one study, Kilborn (1994) reported a case in Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium's whale exhibit, in which a captive mother beluga whale, Mauyak, gave birth to a male calf which died right after birth. After delivering the placenta a few hours later, she took it in her mouth and moved out of reach from the staff, carrying it for hours before it was removed from the pool. The day after, she was found carrying a 30-cm diameter pink buoy that had been available to her prior to the birth. Many testimonies also report seeing killer whales carrying dead calves for miles.

Smith and Sleno (1986), and Kilborn (1994) allow the hypothesis that these recurrent nurturant behaviours found in the wild might be due from the incapacity of the mothers to accept their infants' death.

Non-human Primates
Specialist Jane Goodall recognizes that chimpanzees have distinct personalities that impact their success in life. Similarly to the animals discussed previously and still many others, they show sophisticated behaviours: they forge friendship, communicate, have a sense of fairness, occasionally deceive and lie, and grieve for their dead.

Concerning great apes, the best known reports until today probably account Goodall's descriptions of chimpanzee mothers carrying and caring for dead infants, as well as reports from Geza Teleki on a group's response to an accidental adult chimpanzee's fatal fall from a tree. Anderson's report was the first to include video evidences of chimpanzees' precise moment response at the death of an elderly female of their group. They could draw parallels with behaviours seen in humans in such circumstances, such as pre-death care of the female, close inspection and testing for signs of life at the moment of death, male aggression towards the corpse, all-night attendance by the deceased's adult daughter, cleaning the corpse, and later avoidance of the place where the death had occurred.

In humans, expressions of sympathy and moral support may arise towards the family members in the event of a relative's death. Goldsbrough observed captive chimpanzees' affiliative interactions with an adult female before and after the birth of her stillborn baby. She received more affiliation than before, including from previously non-affiliative chimpanzees, and particularly from females who also had stillborn infants in the years before her.

Giraffes
In Giraffes, the mother-infant bond that happens during the neonatal period lasts for a minimum of 12-16 months and there are suggestions that mother and daughters may associate for several years and more. Giraffe's calves have high mortality rate (58-73%) in the first year and literature shows mothers adopt a characteristic nurturant behaviour in the event of their calf's death. Cases have described behaviours of mothers standing guard over their newborn dead calves, while giraffes rarely remain stationary for long , or of mothers quietly watching from distance their infant carcasses being fed on by predators.

Laysan albatrosses
Laysan albatrosses are monogamous. They don’t breed until they are eight or nine years old. John Klavitter is a U.S fish and Wildlife Service biologist at Midway and says that when an albatross loses one of their mate the surviving bird “goes through a year or two of a mourning period” before it starts searching again for a new mate, a process that can take many years.

Other animals
In human management systems, such as in parks, farms and laboratory animals, animals are subject to abrupt separation from their mothers and other conspecifics. McGraph address the abundant scientific findings about grief and separation distress that are found in domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses and chickens. Physiological changes resulting from it include distress vocalizations, increased activity or locomotion, escape attempts, increased heart-rate and increased hypothalamic-pituitary activity. They do not show sign of the bi-phasic protest-despair reaction typical of grief. Nonetheless, this does not mean that they are not capable of grieving as some may present other reactions. This assumption raises issues and debates about ethics and welfare of animals in situations such as with laboratory animal management.

William Russel and Rex Burch published the seminal book, The Principles of Humane Experimental Techniques, and introduced the now referred to "3Rs" principle: reduction, refinement and replacement of animal use. Despite the attention brought to this issue by the authors and since, the number of animals used in research and testing continues to increase drastically.

Marc Bekoff is a former Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals . He supports the thesis that says animals have emotions, empathy and moral intelligence, theory that has been extensively supported by scientific proofs. In his ample work, some of his reports include cases of grieving animals. Among others: magpies standing next to a conspecific's corpse, gently pecking at it, seems to be a ritual that has been observed in ravens and crows as well; baboons; elephants.

Human grief from pet-loss
Some examples of empathy cross the species barrier. One is the infamous dog-human relationship.

The process of grief over the death of a pet among owners is under-explored in research and often devalued, but some studies have tackled on comprehensive analysis of grief responses in dog owners, showing that the more the owner has the tendency to humanize his animal the more intense the grief experienced will be. In consequence, the mourning behaviour will be similar to ones that he would have if he went through the loss of a human companion: burials, cremations, taxidermies. These mourning rituals similarly allow owners to recapture and re-experience intensely lived moments of comradeship and closeness with their fellow companion. When the pet may have played an additional role such as being a working dog, service or therapy animal, owners will not only grieve the loss of a companion but also the loss of a co-worker.

Pet cemeteries exist. One is the Psi Los (“Dog’s fate”) cemetery located in Konik Nowy, on the outskirts of the Polish capital city of Warsaw. There, the place is home to thousands of animal graves and tombstones, including numerous species: dogs, but also cats, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, ferrets, chinchillas, canary birds, turtles, and at least one iguana. In social practices, significant similarities can be observed in ways to commemorate companion animals to those typically found in human cemeteries in Poland: families paying a visit, lighting candles, placing fresh or artificial flowers. Moreover, at Psi Los, the Catholic All Saint’s celebration is mirrored on the same day (November 1st) by the informal Pet Memorial day.