Animal Behavior: Bereavement

[rabid1st]

The emotional lives of animals are only now coming to light as science lets go of some of its anthropocentric biases. This article about the grief of a mother dolphin goes well with the story of my friend Audrey's attempt to help her neighbor ducks defeat the neighborhood hawk's attempts to have young duck for dinner.

http://www.examiner.com/node/50162541

My buddy Audrey owns a small business right next to a retention-pond-turned-small-park that is the home to a drake and his harem of six lady ducks. They have two or three batches of ducklings each year, totaling about 18 little morsels for the hawk at each hatching. The hawk made short work of these babies for the last couple of years. It wasn't very sporting at all as it cleaned them all out, no ducklings survived. I generally see predatory behavior as noble and correct, still, I was beginning to root for the ducklings when Audrey and her coworkers started their campaign to bring some baby ducks to adolescence. They put up a scarecrow that didn't even scare the crows. They put up another that looked more like a bear, thinking the hawk might be wary of bears. But the hawk simply dived at the bear-shape until it realized it was harmless. Once that was settled the hawk went back to hunting ducklings.

Finally, I suggested a type of natural cover for the ducklings, because the ducks were hiding the brood under trees and in a drainage pipe. So, Audrey and company built a blind out of fallen tree branches. And the ducks moved right in. I am happy to report that we now have 11 teenage ducklings in the pond. And all of the mother ducks watch out for them and talk to them. Every day I tell Audrey that they DO talk to them, pointing out to her how a mother duck, after herding all of the kids under the blind, noticed some were missing and went down the hill to honk at them. Two of the teens came running but one did not. We couldn't see any sign of him from where we were sitting, Audrey and I, but I said, "There's another duckling missing. See how she's looking around for him?" And sure enough...that was what the lady duck was doing. About 10 minutes later the straggler comes in and gets pecked and scolded for not staying with this family group.

I'm not sure if Audrey thought I was crazy telling her about that mother duck. But, she's a believer in animal communication and complex thought today. It seems one of the ducklings broke his leg and her coworker rescued the poor teenager (I wonder if it was Mr. Straggler). At the time, only the duckling's mother saw a human take the duckling as the other ducks were all sleeping on the far side of the lake. The mother duck fetched the drake and apparently explained what had happened, because the drake walked up to the business and knocked on the door. Audrey peered out and he quacked at her and knocked with his beak and then paced back and forth for an hour or so, scolding the humans and demanding his kid back. Since they had immediately taken the duckling to the vet, it wasn't on site calling for him or anything. He knew where it had gone though and he thought, given how helpful those ladies were that maybe they would give it back if he asked politely. I told Audrey to try explaining that they had taken the duckling to make him better and they would let him go later. In my view, it can't hurt to explain yourself, even if you don't speak the language.

Rae

Comments

[auntiesuze.livejournal.com]

The story about the dolphin is absolutely heartbreaking. :(

So interesting about the ducks! Animals definitely have more complex emotions and communication skills than we often give them credit for.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to hear that dolphins often carry around their deceased. It seems like that would be something that people assessing their intellect should consider carefully. Mourning the dead is surely a sign of very acute awareness of states of being. Dogs apparently mourn as well, but they don't go to the added trouble of burying their loved ones in a specific location. That behavior appears to belong only to dolphins, elephants and people.