When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (13 page)

In a captive baboon colony, experimenters removed female baboons as soon as they began to have menstrual cycles after the birth of an infant. The babies were usually about six months old and were left behind. Other females in the colony took over their care. Seven or eight months later, the original mothers were returned to the colony, often anesthetized. Each time an unconscious baboon was carried in, her baby began to utter "lost baby" calls. When she was returned to the enclosure the baby went to her and the mother-child relationship resumed. Despite the excellent care they were receiving, these young apes recognized and yearned for their mothers. Baboons are individuals, however, and one baby chose to remain with its foster mother.

Jane Goodall describes the reaction of a male chimpanzee called Flint, who was eight years old when his mother, Flo, died. FHnt sat over Flo's body for many hours, occasionally tugging at her hand. As the days passed, he grew increasingly apathetic and lethargic. In one remarkable instance, three days after his mother's death, Flint was seen to climb a tree and stare at the sleeping nest he had shared with his mother a few days before. He became more and more listless, and died within the month, probably of gastroenteritis. Goodall's scientific conclusion was: "It seems likely that psychological and physiological disturbances associated with loss made him more vulnerable to disease." Sy Montgomery quotes Goodall's poignant commonsense rendering of the same idea: "Flint died of grief."

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP Aaoption

The jOlexibility of parental love is seen in those animals who adopt unrelated babies. Black bear researchers regularly persuade wild females to adopt orphaned cubs. Researchers in Africa kidnapped infant and juvenile hamadryas baboons and released them near unrelated troops. Invariably these young monkeys were promptly adopted by young adult male baboons, who cared for them tenderly. In general, the younger a baby animal is, the more apt it is to be adopted.

Even greater flexibility in parental love is demonstrated by instances of animals adopting the young of other species. The experimenters who gave the mother rat the opportunity to adopt fifty-eight babies went on to offer mother rats odder babies. The rats readily adopted baby mice and baby rabbits. They also retrieved young kittens and tried to keep experimenters from taking them out of the nest again. But since kittens nurse from a mother who is lying down, and mother rats nurse from a standing position, the rats could not suckle the kittens despite their vigorous attempts to shove them into position. Curious to know how far this would go, the experimenters procured two bantam chicks, and the rats "eagerly and repeatedly" tried to tuck these into their nests. This was an even worse match, however, as the chicks "became very loud and flapped" when the rats tried to grab them by the neck and drag them home.

There are, of course, innumerable cases of dogs or cats who have adopted orphaned skunks or piglets, and pictures of such odd families are frequently seen in the newspapers. There is an old story of an unusual adoption, not initiated by humans:

At Northrepps Hall, near Cromer, the seat of the late Sir Fowell Buxton, a large colony of parrots and macaws had been estabhshed, for whom a home had been provided near the house in a large open aviary, with hutches for them to lay in. But the birds as a rule preferred the woods . . . only coming home at feeding-time, when, on the well-known tinkling of the spoon on the tin containing their food, a large covey of

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gayly plumaged birds came fluttering down to the feed-place, presenting a sight not often to be seen in England. The hutches being then practically deserted, a cat found one of them a convenient place to kitten in. While the mother-cat was away foraging, one of the female parrots paid a chance visit to the place, and finding the young kittens in her nest, at once adopted them as her own, and was found by Lady Buxton's man covering her strange adopted children with her wings.

Other species seem not to adopt. According to researchers, a wildebeest calf who loses its mother among the vast herds will not be adopted and will perish. This raises the question of how selectivity' in love is esteemed. Humans are not likely to be favorably impressed when parents cannot tell whether or not a baby is their own, but they also do not like to see parents discriminating too harshly against the babies of others. There seems to be no reason why either response should be considered incompatible with parental love, though we esteem one more than the other.

Imprinting

Ducklings and gosling will grow attached to and follow whatever creature they see during a short period after they hatch. They become "imprinted" on that creature. In this sense, a mallard is not born to love only a mallard, and a teal is not born to love only a teal. They come to love whomever seems to be their primary caretaker. For a mallard this is usually a mallard, and for a teal a teal, but mallards raised by humans, and who become attached to their human foster parents are common. It is often said of animals raised by humans, "He thinks he is a human." Or maybe he thinks the human is a mallard. Either illustrates the flexibility built into filial love.

Besides parents and children, love can extend to other family members. One young wild elephant seemed to be as fond of his grandmother, Teresia, as he was of his mother. Often he would

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suckle from his mother and then go to Teresia, who was more than fifty years old, and stand with her or follow her. In many species, from beavers to gibbons, young animals may remain with their parents and help raise the younger offspring. Young coyotes often remain with their parents and help raise subsequent new pups. These older siblings may feed, wash, protect, and simply baby-sit the pups. The arrangement, referred to as allomothering, clearly benefits the parents, who need all the help they can get with raising the pups; and it benefits the pups, who have more adults looking after their welfare. In some instances the helpers are siblings of the parents, not of the young. If the parents are killed, the older sib-hngs or aunts and uncles can raise the pups if they are not too young. In one pack of wild dogs in the African savanna, the mother of nine pups died when they were five weeks old. Apparently they were old enough to switch to solid food, for the rest of the pack, consisting of five males, reared them successfully.

Avoiding any mention of fondness, evolutionary biologists have identified a number of ways this benefits siblings and aunts and uncles. Possibly they have more time to learn hunting skills. If there are no good coyote territories available, they are spared the necessity of going out and fighting for one. They also increase the chances of their genes being passed on, since they share many genes with their young siblings, nieces and nephews. But possibly, also, they love their families.

Year-old beavers typically remain with their parents and help take care of their younger siblings. Frangoise Patenaude, who observed wild beavers in Quebec, saw the yearlings grooming the babies and fetching food for them. During the winter, the entire family was largely confined to the lodge. On more than one occasion, when an infant beaver fell into the water in the entrance to the lodge, a yearling picked it up and carried it in its arms to the dry floor of the lodge. (Beavers can walk on their hind legs and carry things, including very small beavers, in their forelegs.) The yearlings later played with their younger siblings and helped perform every aspect of parental care except, of course, suckling.

WHEN ELEPH4NTS U^EEP Social Animals

Social animals who live in groups often behave in a friendly way toward other members of the group, even when they are not relatives. Troops of baboons and herds of zebra or elephants are not just crowds of strangers. This can go far beyond toleration to a kind of need: a monkey kept alone will work for the reward of seeing other monkeys, just as a hungry one will work to get food. The animals in a social group have relationships with each other, some of which are affectionate. Lionesses baby-sit for one another just as house cats sometimes do. In baboon troops, many baboons have alliances with other baboons, whom they can count on to take their side in squabbles.

Elephants appear to make allowances for other members of their herd. One African herd always traveled slowly because one of its members had never fully recovered from a broken leg suffered as a calf. A park warden reported coming across a herd with a female carrying a small calf several days dead, which she placed on the ground whenever she ate or drank: she traveled very slowly and the rest of the elephants waited for her. This suggests that animals, like people, act on feelings as such, rather than solely for purposes of survival. It suggests that the evolutionary approach is no more adequate to explain animal feelings than human ones. A single example such as this one, no matter how well documented, may not challenge the entire evolutionary paradigm for feelings, but it raises questions that biologists have yet to face. There appears to be so little survival value in the behavior of this herd, that perhaps one has to believe that they behaved this way just because they Iwed their grieving friend who loved her dead baby, and wanted to support her.

As with humans, sometimes affection among animals combines with admiration, and can flow to other species as well. Wolves display what appears to be admiration for the dominant (or alpha) wolves in their pack. In the wolf's close relative, the dog, this capacity to admire leaders has made domestication a success. The average dog—in its eagerness to please—treats its owners the way a wolf treats an alpha wolf.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

Other social animals are also often willing to accord humans this kind of status. Researcher Jennifer Zeligs, who studies and trains sea lions, appears to be in this position with her experimental subjects. Her success in training them to retrieve objects underwater and to perform other tasks seems to be the result of their desire to please her and receive her praise and attention. She does not reward them with food, working with them only after they have eaten. One could object that this is not love, because the sea hons get pleasure from Zeligs: attention, grooming, and fun. That is why they give her the attention they do. But is human love any different? Must love be unrewarding to be real? The point is that sea lions seem capable of love and affection. That they can, under special conditions, extend these feelings beyond their own kind, to an alien species, merely demonstrates some of the conditions of those feehngs. Two sea lions can feel affection for one another, and Zeligs benefits from the extension of that feeling to a human.

Sometimes the benefit of social behavior appears obvious, but at other times the advantage is less clear. Hans Kruuk's study of spotted hyenas showed that their social behavior was highly advantageous, but was puzzled when he turned his attention to European badgers. Though they live together in communal burrows or setts, badgers do not forage together, patrol territory together, defend each other, or cooperate to raise their young. "Badgers do not have an effective alarm call, so they do not even warn clan members of approaching danger." The only material benefit Kruuk could point to was the practice of sleeping in a huddle to keep warm.

If it is true that social life offers badgers no survival edge, then why do they live together? Perhaps they simply enjoy the companionship.

Friendsnip

In general, animals are friendly only toward animals of their own species. Significant exceptions occur in captive animals, who are often isolated from others of their kind or confined with animals of other species. In these circumstances some animals make

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friends with animals of other species, including humans. John Teal, who experimented with raising endangered musk oxen, was once shut in a pen with them when some dogs came running up. To his alarm, the musk oxen snorted, stamped, and thundered toward him. Before he could move, they formed a defensive ring around him and lowered their horns, pointing at the dogs. This is how musk oxen protect their calves from predators. But friendship with an animal of another species does not guarantee friendship with the entire species: a hand-reared leopard was raised with a dog and loved to play with her, but tried to kill other dogs, even dogs that closely resembled her friend.

Although it is rare, wild animals have been observed in friendly associations. Biologist Michael Ghiglieri, patiently waiting for chimpanzees to come to a fruiting tree in the Tanzanian rain forest, was astonished when the first chimpanzee, a male, arrived in the company of an adult male baboon.

Overtures of friendship are not always received kindly. Wild dogs and hyenas in the Serengeti are competitors who regularly steal kills from one another. A group of wild dogs had had a kill stolen by spotted hyenas and then chased one hyena, biting its rump so fiercely that it sat in a hole and snarled until the dogs left. Yet that evening, when the wild dogs bedded down for the night and the hyenas prowled, a young hyena (still with a fluffy coat) approached the dominant male wild dog, Baskerville, sniffing him enthusiastically. Baskerville twitched and growled, yet every time he tried to go back to sleep, the hyena inched closer. The hyena began to lick and groom Baskerville, who at first seemed to be ignoring this. Observers could tell he was not asleep, however, for his eyes got wider and wider as the young hyena continued these sociable ministrations. Baskerville pulled himself into a tight ball and glared over his shoulder, but the hyena calmly lay down next to him, apparently ready to settle in for the night. This was too much for Baskerville. He leapt to his feet with a loud bark. The pack awoke and moved off—followed by seven spotted hyenas. Eventually the wild dogs were able to elude the hyenas, but when they killed a gazelle the next morning, hyenas stole it from them. Given the relationship between hyenas and wild dogs, it is not hard

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to understand why Baskerville rejected the young hyena's advances. Perhaps many friendly gestures between wild animals receive cold responses for similar reasons.