We all know that humans grieve when someone close to them dies, but what about other animals? What about dolphins? This is a difficult question to answer because it's so easy to incorrectly attribute human motivations to animal behavior, but there is some intriguing evidence suggesting that dolphins may be capable of something like the grief humans experience.
Joan Gonzalvo of the Tethys Research Institute based in Milan, Italy, has been observing the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) population in the Amvrakikos gulf since 2006. In July 2007, he and his team of Earthwatch Institute volunteers saw a mother interact with her dead newborn calf. She lifted the corpse above the surface, in an apparent attempt to get it to breathe.
"This was repeated over and over again, sometimes frantically, during two days of observation," says Gonzalvo. "The mother never separated from her calf." The team heard her calling to it while she touched it with her snout and pectoral fins.
The newborn had a large bruise on its lower jaw, suggesting it may have been killed by another dolphin. "Infanticide has been reported in this species," says Gonzalvo. Aware of the dangers of investing animal behaviour with human emotions, he nonetheless suggests the mother may have been mourning the sudden death: "[She] seemed unable to accept the death."
Source: New Scientist, September 3, 2011
This isn't the only observed case of a mother dolphin exhibiting such behavior. Others have seen dolphins and even orcas trying to carry dead infants along with them. Again, this behavior looks a lot like a creature that hasn't come to terms with the death of another.
What may justify such an interpretation of this behavior is the fact that cetaceans have "von Economo" neurons -- the type of neuron which we know to be closely associated with the experience of grief in humans. If cetaceans possess the physical, material building blocks necessary for grief and then behave in ways consistent with grief, it's harder to justify not calling it grief (or at least a form of grief, even if it isn't exactly the same a what a human experiences).
This would be completely consistent with natural evolution of animal species. We should expect that much of what makes us human will have precursors in other animals. They won't always be exactly the same, but they will be similar in many ways. If, however, every species were specially and uniquely created, then there's no particular reason to expect to see any consistencies or similarities.
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