Unexplainable

Is animal grief real?

November 17, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • The scientific debate over whether animals grieve hinges on the definition of grief, with skeptics like Jennifer Vonk requiring evidence of an abstract understanding of finality, which is difficult to prove through external behavior alone. 
  • Bioethicist Jessica Pierce argues that using the language of grief for animals is valuable because it fosters empathy and opens doors to important research questions about the adaptive purpose and variations of death-related behaviors across species. 
  • Philosopher Susanna Monsó suggests researchers should focus less on human-like reactions to death (like the killer whale carrying its calf) and more on wildly unfamiliar animal behaviors (like infanticide or dogs eating faces) to gain deeper, less anthropocentric insights into animal cognition regarding death. 

Segments

Defining Grief and Anthropomorphism
Copied to clipboard!
(00:04:23)
  • Key Takeaway: Grief is poorly defined even in humans, and applying it to animals risks missing their unique cognitive processes by relying too heavily on human interpretations.
  • Summary: Jennifer Vonk notes that defining grief is difficult, citing the APA definition which assumes human understanding of death. She argues that grief entails understanding the finality of loss, a concept for which there is no evidence in animals. Relying on similarities between human and animal behavior can be deceiving, as demonstrated by chimp studies showing they beg even when researchers are blindfolded.
Case for Calling Animal Behavior Grief
Copied to clipboard!
(00:15:01)
  • Key Takeaway: Using the term ‘grief’ for animals is ethically valuable as it promotes empathy and prevents prematurely shutting down research into complex animal emotional states.
  • Summary: Jessica Pierce contends that observing emotional pain in animals should be called what it appears to be, similar to observing physical pain. She argues that excessive caution against anthropomorphism limits curiosity and slams doors to further research. Allowing the assumption of grief opens up fascinating questions about its adaptive value and its role in social species.
Focusing Beyond Human-Like Grief
Copied to clipboard!
(00:20:29)
  • Key Takeaway: Studying animal reactions to death that are wildly different from human norms, such as infanticide or post-mortem facial consumption by pets, may yield more fundamental knowledge than focusing only on familiar behaviors.
  • Summary: Susanna Monsó advocates shifting focus from familiar grief narratives to bizarre, unfamiliar reactions to death to better understand animal experience. She speculates that a pet dog eating its owner’s face, unlike wild dogs eating nutrient-rich torsos, might be an emotionally adjacent expression of loss due to the face being the emotional center. Puzzling behaviors are more interesting because they teach us what we do not already know.