Do animals know they're going to eventually die?

College Confidential Community
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<p>I was watching Home Improvement on Nick@Nite last night, and there was an episode about the parents’ will and what not.</p>

<p>So Wilson, the beloved neighbor, states that humans from a very early point in their life know they will one day die. </p>

<p>Tim later on expresses that animals don’t know they’re going to die.</p>

<p>So does that mean that animals don’t know they’re going to die? They’re born with the survival instinct: eat, sleep, shelter, reproduce, but do they understand death with the same context as humans do? (I know it won’t be emotional, but still…)</p>

<p>Ehhhhhhh? I need answers.</p>

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<p>No, because they do not have the cognitive ability and cerebral complexity that humans do. Some higher mammals might though.</p>

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<p>Why reproduce then?</p>

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<p>Because the baby-making process is fun:).</p>

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<p>lol /<em>hjkhklhk</em>/</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Exactly. Instincts aren’t thoughts. Animals do what they need to do, but I don’t think they understand why their behaviours are necessary.</p>

<p>This also depends on the animal. As GoldShadow said, higher mammals might be able to understand the concept of death. I watched something on TV about elephants a while ago. Apparently, if a herd of elephants (is there such thing as a herd of elephants, or is there a better word for it?) comes across an elephant skeleton, all the members of the herd will feel it with their trunks, and they seem to be attempting to recognize the skeleton, to see if the deceased elephant was a member of their herd. I don’t know if you can assume that this means that they understand death, but it’s definitely something in that area.</p>

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<p>Wow I was just about to comment on that. Haha, us discovery channel nerds…</p>

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<p>yeah because they wander off to die in bushes so like animals dont rip them apart</p>

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<p>^that might just be instinctive, not necesarily cognitive…</p>

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<p>That’s not true… animals don’t wander off to die somewhere, they just die. Not sure where or why this myth propagated.</p>

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<p>it is true
thats what my cat did</p>

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<p>My dog used to walk around in a circle before he would lie down. That was before he died. I can’t say for sure if animals wander into bushes to die, because my dog had a heart attack while I was taking him for a walk, and he collapsed outside. Heart attacks don’t leave enough time for wandering into bushes.</p>

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<p>

No doubt some die in bushes, but what your cat did does not prove anything.</p>

<p>Animals just die… they don’t necessarily intentionally go off somewhere to do it.</p>

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<p>rockermcr: That is really really upsetting…</p>

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<p>but my rabbit did too</p>

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<p>Sheesh, fine, believe what you want to believe. It’s apparent I’m not going to convince you.</p>

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<p>yeahallie: I know, it really is. It happened two years ago. My dog has a hip problem so my parents thought he might have collapsed because of that, but then his breathing didn’t sound normal, and he couldn’t get up anymore, so we took him to the vet. It was really sad, you can’t even imagine it. In the short time before we took him to the vet, my dog would try to sit up every now and then, and he had this strange, disoriented look on his face. (Dogs don’t have facial expressions, I know. But his eyes looked dull and confused. I can’t really explain it.) He’d fall back down maybe 10 seconds after he’d try to sit up. It was a really really depressing thing to see.</p>

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<p>That really sucks rocker… how old was he?</p>

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<p>11./*********/</p>