Is there such a thing as animal suicide?

Dogs that stop eating, whales that come out of the sea? Is animal suicide a reality?

Suicide is one of the most common and traumatic causes of unnatural death, claiming a large number of victims every year. and traumatic causes of unnatural death, claiming a large number of victims every year. It is a type of self-destructive behavior that has concerned human beings since ancient times, generating a deep research on the subject from areas such as psychology or medicine, looking for the causes and ways to prevent human beings from actively seeking their own death. But this type of behavior has not only been seen in humans.

Numerous cases have been documented of animals that have somehow provoked their own death. Are these deaths the product of a will to die? Does suicide exist in animals? In this article we will make a brief reflection on the matter.

Causing one's own death

Suicide is understood as the realization of a conduct or series of conducts that aim to cause one's own death. Generally, those who carry it out have the intention of avoiding suffering in a situation that they do not have enough resources to handle, although the reasons why someone decides to take their own life can be multiple.

Suicide is an action that supposes the will of the being himself to propitiate the end of his existence, having active intention that the emitted conduct leads to death. It is necessary to take into account the concept of death, to know that we can die and that we have the capacity of self-generating it. Therefore, it implies a certain level of abstraction It supposes a certain level of abstraction, and also of planning.. It also assumes the existence of a self that wants to die, i.e. some kind of self-awareness of oneself as a being.

These aspects have often caused experts to doubt whether or not suicide exists in the animal world, as there is no evidence that they possess all of these capacities. It has been observed that multiple species react to the death of their fellows with anguish and grief, but it is not known whether they are aware of their own mortality and that their behavior can lead to it.

Are there cases of suicide in animals?

There are numerous cases of animal suicides throughout history, or at least of phenomena that have been identified as such. Since ancient times, we can see how different writings document the death of dogs by starvation after the death of their owners (something that still happens today).

In more recent times, in 1845 a case was published in the Illustrated London News in which a dog, which had previously shown signs of declining behavior, had jumped into the water in a park without intending to swim, leaving his paws still with the supposed purpose of sinking. The dog was rescued, but then tried again. After several attempts the dog finally sank and died. The same type of behavior has been observed in other animals, such as ducks or penguins that have lost their mates or dolphins that have stopped breathing. have stopped breathing (in these beings breathing is not semiconscious as in us but conscious and voluntary).

Another typical example is that of the lemmings, of which it has been documented that they are not consciously breathing as we are.of which an alleged mass suicide has been documented when there is overpopulation. However, the truth is that this mass suicide is not such but something that could occur accidentally when these animals try to migrate en masse to areas with food availability and encounter different geographical features. They would be trying to find food, moving forward with that purpose and not with the idea of killing themselves. In fact, it is speculated that in reality the image we all have of these rodents plunging off a cliff was a montage, and its reliability is unclear.

Finally, the death of whales stranded on the shore is also considered by many to be suicide, although it may be due to disease.

Self-generated deaths

Regardless of what we consider suicide or what values animals may or may not practice it, the truth is that there is evidence that multiple living beings have practiced different actions that have led them to their own death.

The clearest and best known example is the case of many pets that, after the death of their owner, stop eating until they die of starvation, stop eating until they die of starvation.. This type of behavior has been observed since ancient times, and there are accounts of this reaction in animals.

The same happens sometimes with some animals in the wild, which act in this way because of the death of their partner. Grief at the death of a loved one can also cause serious psychological damage in animals, and the presence of anxious and depressive symptoms has been documented in different species. As a consequence of this fact, they lose their appetite. In the case of pets that are very close to their ownerIn some cases, cases have been reported in which they have remained next to the grave of the animal until its own death.

Other behavior of this type is found in animals in captivity and/or in a situation of high stress. Specifically, many animals commit various self-injurious acts that can end up causing severe damage or even death. One example is the blows that different cetaceans strike against the margins of their enclosure.

Another type of self-generated death in animals is that which is used in order to protect another being, generally the offspring of the creature. For example, the parent may serve as a distraction for its offspring to flee or attack the aggressor to defend them even though this may cause death. However, in this case it is not suicide in the strict sense, since the objective is not to die, but to protect the other, even at the cost of one's own life.

It is also possible to find animals that generate their own death through Biological defense mechanisms. through biological defense mechanisms. For example, there are some types of ants that in the presence of enemies tense up and generate the rupture of certain glands that end up causing the explosion of their body. This type of suicide ends with the death of the enemy or predator, but also of the subject itself.

Finally, some parasites and fungi are known to generate suicidal behavior in different animals. generate suicidal behaviors in different animals. This is what happens with ants when faced with different fungi of the Cordyceps genus, which end up looking for the stem of a leaf to bite it and wait for death while the fungus develops. In this case we would be talking about an induced suicide, in which the animal does not really plan or wish to die. Other bacteria generate behaviors that can lead to suicidal behaviors such as approaching or losing fear of predators.

Arguments of those who defend its existence.

Practically until a few centuries ago, a large part of the population considered that only human beings were self-aware, capable of abstract thought and reflection. Therefore, under this type of thinking we would be the only animal species that would be capable of provoking death voluntarily and consciously.

However, research has shown that this is not the case. Monkeys, dolphins, crows, parrots, rats and other species have shown in different experiments to possess capacities that go beyond mere instinct.

There are multiple species that have shown the ability to identify themselves.They have also shown the capacity to become depressed and feel anxiety (something visible in pets and animals in captivity, but also in animals in the wild). They have also shown signs of intelligence and the ability to sequence actions, as well as to communicate (there are even cases of animals that have learned sign language) and establish plans.

It has also been seen that many animals can reach the understanding that their actions may or may not have an effect on the situations in which they live. A widely known example was given in the experiments that originated the theory of learned helplessness, carried out with dogs that, in the presence of electric shocks from which they could not originally flee, stopped trying to avoid them even when in another situation they only had to move to another side of the cage.

However, it is not known if they have the same capacities in imagination, projection of the future and level of abstraction as human beings, or a sufficient level that would allow them to become capable of procuring their own demise.

Arguments of those who deny their existence

Those who consider that animals do not have the capacity to commit suicide consider that the behaviors associated with self-injury are in fact involuntary, there being in reality no intention to take one's own life as such.

The aforementioned self-injuries, for example, could be explained as self-injuries aimed at changing states of anxiety or stress, or seeking to free themselves from some kind of suffering (which, on the other hand, resembles the main motives that usually lead to suicide). Death by starvation may be caused by grief, but this does not imply that there is a will to die. In this case it is proposed that the suffering and grief experienced occupy the animal's mind, causing it to forget to eat.making it forget to eat. Suicide as a defense mechanism would be an instinctive and emotional reaction that would not really seek death but the defense of the colony or offspring.

Finally, the case of infestation by parasites or fungi is not related to a death wish but to a death provoked by external factors, so it would not be considered suicide.

A realistic conclusion

Many of the documented cases of animals that have caused their own death have a number of characteristics that may cast doubt on the validity of considering such an action a suicide or not.

It is undeniable that some animals actively provoke their own death, but it is much more complicated to determine whether their actions are really motivated by a desire to die. whether their actions are truly motivated by a desire to die.. In this sense, science has not yet been able to determine this fact reliably, and there is still not enough data to affirm or deny that animals have the capacity to commit suicide with full awareness that they are doing so.

Bibliographical references:

• Preti, A. (2007). Suicide among animals: a review of evidence. Psychological Reports, 101 (3): 831-848.