How Animals Grieve (17 page)

TARRA AND BELLA AT THE ELEPHANT SANCTUARY.
© THE ELEPHANT SANCTUARY IN TENNESSEE.

And then those fears were realized: Bella’s body was found near the barn. There was no sign of coyotes or any other wild animals, or of any altercation, visible near the body. How she got there is a puzzle. Bella might have wanted to make her way from the site of the attack back toward the barn, a place of comfort for her, yet her injuries were probably too severe for her to have traveled that distance on her own. When the sanctuary staff discovered blood on the underside of Tarra’s trunk, they concluded that Tarra had carried Bella back to the barn. Or perhaps Tarra discovered Bella making her way to the barn, or found her there, at the spot where she would die, and offered her help or comfort with her trunk.

In any case, Tarra showed no interest in lingering with Bella’s body once caretakers brought her to it. Later that day, when the little dog was buried, Tarra did not approach the ceremony. On its website, the sanctuary later reported the events of that and the following day:

Tarra
chose not to participate in her burial. She was close, less than 100 yards away, on the other side of some trees but she would not come over. She had already said goodbye. This was for the humans. . . . The following day, caregivers made the heartbreaking discovery that Tarra had gone to visit Bella’s grave sometime during the night or early morning. They found fresh dung nearby and an elephant footprint directly on Bella’s grave.

At first, my response to this last claim was a skeptical one. How could the identity of the elephant visitor to Bella’s resting place be known? From sanctuary caretakers, I learned some key details. While Tarra had not been observed directly at the grave, she had been seen in its vicinity—and no other elephants had. Further, skilled observers can discern an elephant’s identity from footprints and dung alone. It was these factors taken together that led sanctuary staff to conclude that it was Tarra who had visited Bella’s grave.

What is beyond question is how much joy Tarra and Bella had each taken in their long-term friendship. Here is a situation in which a response of grief would be highly predictable for the surviving partner. Yet one final detail of the sanctuary’s report deserves attention. After Bella went missing and before her body was found, Tarra’s caretakers already judged her to be depressed and grieving. The elephant ate less and behaved in atypical ways. Because of the timing, Tarra was at that point upset about an
absence
, not a known death. We have grappled with this distinction before: How to distinguish an animal’s emotional response when she cannot locate a friend from a state of outright mourning?

It’s common enough for a zoo elephant, gorilla, or chimpanzee to discover one day that a close friend of many years is simply . . . gone. The friend may have been crated up and transported to another zoo, with no way for caretakers to explain that fact. And this isn’t so different a situation from what may unfold in our own homes, when a pet dies at the vet’s office and a friend is left back home. Even in a sanctuary setting, it takes an insightful observer to distinguish between an elephant who pines for playful companionship in the immediate moment and an elephant who feels grief. In Tarra’s case, what started out as in-the-moment sadness seems to have blossomed into full-on mourning. Her
caretakers
reported that Tarra continued to visit Bella’s grave on and off for weeks after the dog’s death.

The depth of feeling between Tarra and Bella helps explain why, in the last few years, cross-species animal friendship has become a wildly popular topic. Tarra and Bella played a role in this phenomenon when video clips of their friendly interactions went viral on the Internet. Then in 2011, Jennifer Holland of the National Geographic Society published
Unlikely Friendships
, and it hit the best-seller lists. Friendships between a sled dog and a polar bear, a snake and a hamster, and forty-five other pairs—including Tarra and Bella—are explored in her book. Holland describes Tarra’s earlier vigil when Bella was ill; in seeming distress, Tarra waited for many days outside the house where Bella was being nursed back to health. When the two were finally reunited, each expressed joy according to its species: Bella wiggled her whole body and rolled on the ground; Tarra trumpeted and stroked Bella with her trunk.

Sometimes, what gets labeled as a cross-species friendship is more accurately described as a short-term positive association. Think of it this way: You are a guest at a friend’s house for several days, and enjoy backyard romps with your friend’s dog. You initiate the first bout by throwing a Frisbee, but later, the dog invites you to play by bringing you a throw toy; from his body language, you know he’s having fun. Each of you is a willing partner in a series of positive interactions, a kind of temporary alliance that fits the circumstances of the moment. But did you and the dog forge a friendship? Only if the criteria for defining a friendship are satisfied by fairly fleeting interactions.

But
should
lengthy association be a requirement for friendship? In
Unlikely Friendships
, Holland tells of a sled dog and a polar bear in the northern Canadian town of Churchill. One day a large bear approached an open corral where sled dogs were chained. Common in the area, wild bears sometimes kill sled dogs. Although most of the dogs responded anxiously, one did not. Photographer Norbert Rosing watched as the bear rolled over and stretched out a paw toward that dog. Cautious at first, the dog began to relax, and respond to the bear’s play invitation. At one point, the dog cried out in pain when the bear bit hard, but from that point forward the bear checked his strength in deference to his smaller
partner.
The play bout lasted about twenty minutes, and the bear returned over the next several days to play with the dog.

In Churchill, this kind of play is not unique to a single bear-dog pair. Multiple bears may romp with multiple dogs in a sort of cross-species playfest. A video clip captures the massive bears, dirty-white against the whiter snow, using slow-motion movements that engage but don’t frighten the dogs. One bear nudges a dog with his big blunt snout; another folds a dog in a literal bear hug, causing the dog to squirm. Once, a bear opens his jaws right around a dog’s head. Yet the dogs are relaxed around the bears and come back for more.

The bear-dog play behavior cries out for more study. Are the play pairings random, that is, will any bear play with any dog? Or do specific partners choose each other time and again? What happens when the bears and dogs are apart for some time? Is there any indication that one partner misses the other? Has a bear ever encountered the carcass of his dog play partner, or a dog come upon the body of his bear play partner? Is there anything approaching a Tarra-Bella relationship among the dogs and bears of Churchill, such that cross-species grief might follow when a play partner dies?

Not all cross-species friendships are as ripe for questions about mourning. Take, for instance, the bond supposedly shared by a snake and a hamster. The hamster was introduced to a zoo snake in winter, when the reptile’s metabolism was low, and the snake cradled the hamster in its coils. Holland admits that had the meeting come about in summer, the outcome might have been a rodent-shaped lump in the snake’s body. What happened to the hamster as time went on? Holland doesn’t say, and I wouldn’t anticipate any evidence of animal grief emerging from this scenario.

The friendship between the hippo Owen and the tortoise Mzee is, on the other hand, remarkable for its constancy. Orphaned during the terrible Christmas 2004 tsunami, Owen was brought to the Kenyan animal park where 130-year-old Mzee lived. Although no dramatic spark flared up between the two, the pair, led by the younger, rambunctious Owen, gradually developed a shared affection. Before long, each followed the other around and an idiosyncratic communication system emerged. Mzee nips Owen’s tail to propel Owen along on a walk. Owen nudges
Mzee’s
feet when it’s his turn to initiate: he pushes on Mzee’s back right foot when he wants Mzee to steer right and does the opposite for going left. What will happen when Owen loses Mzee, or Mzee loses Owen? The price of an enduring friendship is often survivor’s grief, and we know that grief does not respect species’ boundaries.

Cross-species friendships, and the grief that may follow, may be found in our homes as well. Melissa Kohout was moved by her cat Madison’s response to the death of her dog, a Doberman called Lucie. Madison had joined the family as a kitten when Lucie was four years old. Because Madison arrived with ringworm, she required a bath every evening for weeks, and Lucie took it upon herself to lick the kitten dry. For years, the two animals groomed each other each night. Seven years along in this relationship, Lucie the dog fell ill with cancer. During this difficult time, a funny incident occurred. As cats will do when “gifting” favored humans, Madison brought a rat into the bedroom late one night and dropped it on Kohout’s chest. “Covers went flying,” Kohout told me, “and cat and rat ran into the kitchen. The rat bit Madison on the front paw, and she screamed. Lucie, as sick as she was, came running, bit the rat in half, and went back to bed.”

When Lucie died, it happened at home. Madison climbed into the bed and burrowed under the covers, something she had never before done. For about the next month, she emerged from that self-made cave only to eat and use the litter box. After that “time of mourning,” as Kohout puts it, Madison never again sheltered herself in the bed in that way.

Karen Schomburg describes an instance of cross-species grief that occurred on her small farm in the state of Washington. At thirty-two years of age, her Shetland pony Peaches fell ill with shortness of breath and congestion. Jezebel, a goat who had been friends with Peaches for years, showed great concern, refusing the company of other goats in preference to time spent with Peaches. Worried enough herself to make frequent checks on the pony, Schomburg saw something surprising late one night: Peaches had backed up against the manger to steady herself as she grew weaker, and Jezebel was pressed up close to her, leaning into her chest. Only with the extra strength from her friend could Peaches stay on her feet. In the morning, however, Peaches was on the ground, dead. To Schomburg, Jezebel looked forlorn.

The
story of Peaches and Jezebel shows that, even when animals have their own kind around them (unlike Owen and Mzee), they may opt for a cross-species friendship. With other goats available, why did Jezebel seek the company of a horse? Why did Tarra, surrounded by other elephants at the Tennessee sanctuary, desire Bella’s canine company? How did these cross-species friendships come to matter so much that the survivor became emotionally involved when the friend was dying (as with Jezebel) or after she had died (as with Tarra)? Many animals are curious, sociable, and open to new experiences. They may seek out more of the “positive vibes” that come from an initial interaction with another creature, and a friendship may be the result.

In a way, cross-species mourning is woven through many of the stories in this book. Animals may grieve for a human companion who dies, and we may mourn the animals we love and lose. Berlin, Germany, underwent a citywide outpouring of grief for the polar bear Knut, who died in 2011. Knut became a “national obsession,” as the
New York Times
put it, when he thrived in the Berlin Zoo even after rejection by his mother. In three places—the neighborhood of Spandau, the National History Museum, and the zoo itself—memorials have been or will be erected in honor of the bear.

An urge to memorialize occurs, too, on a smaller scale. Recently I attended a brief ceremony after the death of a cat named Tinky. For eighteen constant years, Tinky had been the companion of my friend Nuala Galbari, who with her partner David Justis cares for a variety of animals, from cats and rabbits to horses and birds. When Tinky was a kitten, Nuala played the piano with him next to her on the bench; she fell into the habit of moving his paws gently over the keys. Tinky not only responded positively but began to play musical notes to communicate with Nuala. When Nuala developed a debilitating illness, Tinky, attuned to her weakened state, stayed by her bedside. During her long recovery, the bond between the two was cemented. When she was again healthy, Nuala continued to share a love of music with her cat. “On several occasions,” Nuala says, “Tinky played up to six notes in an octave with his right paw. Following applause, he might then decide to play some lower notes with his left paw. No doubt, the little cat had somehow figured out that I played with both hands, and so he used both paws.” When Tinky,
much
older and in a weakened state, took his last breath and died at home, a small group of us felt his loss keenly. We came together where he was buried, in Nuala and David’s backyard, to share photographs and poems that evoked Tinky’s life.

In
The Last Walk: Reflection on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives
, Jessica Pierce writes movingly of the last weeks, and the death, of her dog Ody. Ody was a Viszla breed, fourteen years old. In his extreme old age, his legs were severely atrophied, he had dementia, and he was almost completely blind and deaf. Pierce, a bioethicist, worked to figure out what a “good death” would mean for Ody: what she owed Ody, what time and manner of death was right for
him
and not only for her own fierce attachment to him. Of course, Ody wasn’t always infirm. For many years, he had been Pierce’s running and mountain-biking partner. Even now, with his ill health, she worried that what seemed to her a terribly diminished life didn’t seem so to Ody. But things were getting worse; Ody was falling and, unable to get up, lying in his own poop until someone in the family found him. Eventually, Pierce arranged for a vet to come to her home and euthanize Ody.