Marc Bekoff on animal joy, animal sorrow
(Credit: Janet Chin)
Marc Bekoff: I’ve been trying to ask the questions about whether animals feel joy, sorrow, grief, embarrassment or resentment. But the question that I entertain isn’t if they do, it’s why they do.
That’s Marc Bekoff, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado. He’s spent 4,000 hours observing the behavior of wild coyotes and hundreds of hours with captive wolves, coyotes and dogs.
Marc Bekoff: Watching them and then mixing the observational data with the neuroscience, really makes for a pretty tight story about the different emotions animals have and the evolution of these emotions.
Earth & Sky asked Bekoff if he thinks we humans might just be attributing our own emotions to animals.
Marc Bekoff: As a biologist, I say that’s just not so. So if you follow Charles Darwin, you see he said that ‘the differences among species are differences in degree, rather than differences in kind.’ One of the things that I think is that, because animals are just so there in the moment, that perhaps their joy is richer than human joy and their grief is deeper than human grief. And I think that is a possibility. They just don’t perhaps know what’s going to happen to relieve the grief.
Bekoff also said that he believes animals, some of the time, know right from wrong and behave that way. His new book, Wild Justice, will be on bookshelves in 2009.
Hope you enjoy this. Send it to the grad student that says animals can’t communicate.
THANK YOU, Marc, for your work to educate humans. I am looking forward to your book. I am a registered veterinary technician (nurse) and I have known all along by my direct and constant contact with animals that they experience emotions of all kinds daily. They communicate quite clearly via subtle body language and eyes (and sometimes that insistent miaow in the middle of the night!). And I would go to any table and argue that to the win.
I believe that every animales has emotions. I think Mark’s book will prove much about it and educate humans!
Anthropromorphizing animals is dangerous and stupid. The bear will eat you whether or not you think he is happy or loves you. Animals act on instinct. Emotions require sentience. Animals lack sentience.
Animals pick up on and can mirror or own behavior as well as miss the presence of another animal or person they have been around for a long time. Domestic animals tend to “fit in” around their owners/masters. However, they are still animals. When they percieve themselve under threat, they can strike out without rancor.
Never trust a large animal to do what you think it will. You keep getting in a dog’s face, you will get bitten. Even by your own loving pet. A frightened horse will stomp you into the ground. No ill will, no anger, just instinct.
Like it or don’t, humans are unique on this planet.
To Ben Napier (who commented above) I say:
Humans are animals, too, and when we are under threat we too strike out. Most of us never strike out at anyone, but given the right circumstances we will if we have to. Same with most other animals.
And if you think about it for a moment you will realize that all animals are unique on this planet, not just humans. Like it or not, Ben.
-Sarah
Keep getting in my face and see what happens Ben. My happiest times as well as my deepest grief has all happened with my pets.
I thought that was a good article. I believe that a dog has the same feeling as we do, but they are unable to put 2+2 together like us. I read an article that said if you leave you dog for an hour and then again for five hours they will always think that you have been gone for the same amount of time because they really don’t live in time like we do. Dose that make sense to you?
Our only significant distinction from other species is that, at this time in our evolution, the human species is presenting with epidemic neurosis. What other species is engaged in destroying its environment? To the extent they are in pain, humans are unable to act in the present appropriately, i.e. based on the present. Instead they act based on their painful past, out of touch with instincts, and unable to distinguish reality. The establishment medical community refers to the pain as “stress.” Rather than feel pain and heal to whatever extent possible, neurotics recruit various behaviors in the service of analgesia, i.e. temporary pain relief. Such behaviors manifest in forms as diverse as fingerprints: addictions, eating disorders, fetishes, belief systems, sexual dysfunctions, governments, prayer, growing popularity of unnatural child birth and growing failure to breast feed, philosophies and religions, meditation, the idea that human life is sacred, the amusing idea that brain size is correlated with intelligence, the fallacious idea that existence can be understood in terms of good & bad or of right & wrong, etc. Anthropomorphism is an excellent example of neurotic ideation. As a species, we are suffering from high self esteem. Mother Nature is paying a price for our adherence to the myth that the earth is here at our disposal; the environment’s ability to sustain life is being significantly impaired. The US comprising ~5% of human population is consuming ~35% of the world’s raw materials, converting them into water, carbon dioxide, assorted nondegradable and toxic byproducts, and of course, as we know from Thermodynamics 101, all endeavors produce heat. Soon China and India are slated to surpass our conspicuous consumption. These are not criticisms, merely observations. As far as we know, all things are happening…so that…in the grander scheme of things, the coming and going of the planet Earth is unimportant. In the meantime, what do? Not what is “good” to do, not what is “right” to do, but what is appropriate, what is healthy. I am not religious but am reminded of the premise of the movie “Oh God.” The message there was that god has put us here with everything we need to make it work and it is entirely up to us. God has a life and is not waiting around to see how we do. Change comes from within. Find out about yourself and set an example for others. It is one thing to know what is healthy; it’s a whole other ballgame to act on what you know.
Hi, I have worked with people grieving for their pets for many years and have published on the subject. I also get asked on many occasions for advice on how to deal with pets that are ‘grieving’ for their owners or for their dead animal companions. Animals can show all the same symptoms as humans when confronted with loss, such as loss of appetite, social withdrawal and a general disinterest in life. Obviously we cannot attribute exact human emotions to animals but when their behaviour mimics that of humans under similar circumstances, what else can explain their behaviour other than as a reaction to a change in circumstances.