Unexplainable Is animal grief real?
8 snips
Nov 17, 2025 
Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist and author focused on animal emotions, joins to discuss whether animals experience grief. She highlights poignant examples like dogs mourning their owners and orcas carrying dead calves. The conversation explores the debate around defining grief in animals and the implications of labeling their emotions. Pierce argues that recognizing grief can enhance empathy and spark crucial ethical conversations. Meanwhile, other experts caution against oversimplifying animal behaviors, suggesting alternative ways to understand their emotional responses.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Orca Carrying Dead Calf
- A killer whale carried her dead calf for 17 days and hundreds of kilometers, prompting widespread media calls of grief.
- Reporters described the behavior as maternal mourning and compared it to human grief.
Animals At Graves And Corpses
- Videos show dogs refusing to leave owners' graves for days and elephants inspecting corpses with trunks extended.
- These vivid examples fuel public instinct to label animal behaviors as grief.
Grief Requires Understanding Finality
- Jennifer Vonk argues grief requires understanding death's finality, and we lack evidence animals hold that abstract concept.
- Similar outward behavior can mask very different internal representations across species.
