Do/can animals comit suicide ?

[Heretic_Cata]

Do they ?
Or is it just a human thing ? a proof of our "superior" inteligence.

Were there any cases of pets commiting suicide because their masters always beat them ?
But not only about pets ...

(Accidental deaths don't count.)

Note: And please don't spam.

 

[oagersnap]

I've heard that sometimes turkeys will look up with their beak open when it's raining and drown.

 

[carlosMM]

yes, many do: chimps, e.g., gorillas, orang-utans, possibly some parrots, definately dolphins.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I've heard that sometimes turkeys will look up with their beak open when it's raining and drown.

Wow , that sure is wierd ... but why would they do that ?

 

[Heretic_Cata]

yes, many do: chimps, e.g., gorillas, orang-utans, possibly some parrots, definately dolphins.

Do you have any details/links ?

I remember some rumours too about some birds that killed all their youngs because a large earthquake(or was it a tsunami) was coming and they were not able to fly. So they killed their young so that they wouldn't drown (probably).

 

[Sidhe]

Because turkeys are very dumb, of course animals commit suicide. I believe I've seen film of animals carefully positioning themselves on rail tracks long before a train comes and just lying there till the train goes over them. There are numerous examples of this in nature, some animals like to get drunk too, elephants specifically eat fermenting fruit that falls from trees as do other mamals just for the thrill of the altered mental state. People make a huge distinction between animals and man, the truth is we simply are animals, but civilised ones, and frankly none to civilised at that. I don't have links but I have seen documentaries on suicidal animal behaviour and I'm not just talking about lemmings.

 

[carlosMM]

Heretic_Cata: check on great apes held in captivity. I do not have any links handy atm, but they often kill themselves by coprophagia.

 

[The Last Conformist]

There's many reports of dogs refusing to eat after the deaths of their masters, thus starving themselves to death.

 

[Winner]

Do the mass suicides of whales count?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Mass strandings, you mean? I'd think not, since IIUC they're due to misnavigation, ie. accidental, not deliberate termination of life.

 

[tossi]

yes, many do: chimps, e.g., gorillas, orang-utans, possibly some parrots, definately dolphins.

I would like to here more about this!

 

[FriendlyFire]

Lemmings

I do know that Kanagroos are extremely dumb sometimes. Such as eating posionious plants and dying. (The Australia Bush tomateo seeds are posionous, the flesh isnt)

 

[tossi]

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

 

[carlosMM]

Lemmings

this one's wrong - they simply mistake the sea for a river and try to swim it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Heretic_Cata: check on great apes held in captivity. I do not have any links handy atm, but they often kill themselves by coprophagia.

Is this a joke?
Im not even sure that it is possible for them to kill themselves in such a way.

Also i doubt that an animal can commit suicide; it would first have to have an idea that it is still alive, and that it will stop being alive sometime in the future, and i seriously doubt that it has that. Imagine if you were unable to communicate, read, speak etc. You would have in your genes the coded knowledge that death exists, but this would mean that you could just sense that it exists, not that you would be aware of it. For a lesser life-form such as a lower animal it would have been even more impossible to know of death.

 

[Kosez]

I have heard that Elephants, when they grow really old, go away from their families to a place called ˝elephant graveyard˝ and starve themselves to death. This way they do not present a burden to other`s in their herd.

 

[carlosMM]

Is this a joke?

No, sadly, this is no joke.


read up on the last few decades of work by various researchers (Savage-Rumbaugh, Tomasello, etc.) on congition and consiousness (plus, often, language abilities) of great apes. Chimps, it seems, are fairly similar to kids 3 to 4 years of age. They understand the concept of 'death' quite easily.

 

[shortguy]

Don't some pack animals wander off to die when they become old and infirm in order to reduce the stress on the pack?

 

[Heretic_Cata]

check on great apes held in captivity. I do not have any links handy atm, but they often kill themselves by coprophagia.

Coprophagia can't cause death. Animals eat crap all the time (we discussed this in another thread).

There's many reports of dogs refusing to eat after the deaths of their masters, thus starving themselves to death.

Ok, this counts. I forgot about those cases. That is quite sad.
I remember a case when a dog did not want to leave his master and didn't want to leave his grave when he died. So the dog just sat there all day staring at the grave. And ppl noticed him and saw that he was no eating anything and they started bringing food and water to the dog. Eventualy the dog started to eat and thus survived, but he never left his master's grave. He lived like this for several years and died of old age. He was burried next to his master. Such a sad tale. Poor doggie.

Im not even sure that it is possible for them to kill themselves in such a way.
Also i doubt that an animal can commit suicide; it would first have to have an idea that it is still alive, and that it will stop being alive sometime in the future, and i seriously doubt that it has that. Imagine if you were unable to communicate, read, speak etc. You would have in your genes the coded knowledge that death exists, but this would mean that you could just sense that it exists, not that you would be aware of it. For a lesser life-form such as a lower animal it would have been even more impossible to know of death.

I agree with you, i think they are ruled by the survival instincts in any situation.
But domesticated animals think a bit (only a bit) diferently sometimes.
In the dog's case, it is probably that it was a trained dog. And when he is trained to do his master's biddings, and he did so for lots of years ... and then the master dies. The dog, having no reason to hate his master he had no reason to run away. So when he died, the dog could not understand what happened; why is the master not giving any orders, because he guided him all his life... what could he do. He knew where his master was he just did not understand why he did not get up as he was used to everyday.
So the dog did not know what to do, so he just sat there waiting for his master's orders.

(this reminds me of that monkey from MonkeyIsland4 that died because he was trained to pull a lever and did not recive the order anymore)

So this is kinda a suicide case. Because if we look at several humans who comited suicide it was because they could not move on when someone that has been in their life disapeared.

I have heard that Elephants, when they grow really old, go away from their families to a place called ˝elephant graveyard˝ and starve themselves to death. This way they do not present a burden to other`s in their herd.

This reminds me of some eskimo traditions...
I found an explanation for that now on this short article.
It is only a hypotheses though.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I agree with you, i think they are ruled by the survival instincts in any situation

This belief of yours happens to be wrong. Do as Carlos says and read up a bit on ape cognition. There' not instinct-governed automatons anymore than humans are.