Is there suicide in animals?

Suicide is one of the most common causes of unnatural death. and traumatic, claiming a large number of victims each year. It is a type of self-destructive behavior that has concerned human beings since ancient times, generating in-depth research in this regard. from areas such as psychology or medicine, seeking 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 of animals that have somehow caused their own death have been documented. Are these deaths the product of the will to die? Is there suicide in animals? In this article we are going to make a brief reflection about it.

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Cause one's own death

Suicide is understood to be the performance of a behavior or series of behaviors that aim to cause one's own death. Generally, whoever carries it out has the intention of avoiding suffering in a situation in which they do not see themselves. with enough resources to drive, although the reasons why someone decides to take their own life may be multiple.

Suicide is an action that supposes the will of one's own being to bring about the end of its existence, having an active intention that the behavior emitted 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 ability to generate it for ourselves. Therefore involves a certain level of abstraction, and also planning. It also supposes the existence of a self that wants to die, that is, of some kind of self-awareness of oneself as a being.

These aspects have often made experts doubt whether or not suicide exists in the animal world, since there is no evidence that they possess all these capabilities. Yes, it has been observed that multiple species react to the death of their peers with anguish and regret, but it is unknown if they are aware of their own mortality and that their behavior may lead to she.

Are there cases of suicide in animals?

There are numerous cases of animal suicide 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 continues to happen today).

In more recent times, in 1845 a case was published in the Illustrated London News in which a dog, which had shown signs of a previously depressed behavior, he had jumped into the water of a park without pretending to swim, leaving his legs still with the supposed end to sink The dog was rescued, but after that he 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 they have stopped breathing (in these beings breathing is not semi-conscious as in us but conscious and voluntary).

Another typical example is that of lemmings, of which an alleged mass suicide has been documented when there is overpopulation. However, the truth is that said mass suicide is not such but is something that could occur accidentally when try these animals to migrate en masse to areas with availability of food and run into different accidents geographical. They would be trying to find food, advancing with that purpose and not with the idea of ​​killing themselves. In fact, it is speculated that the image we all have of these rodents falling off a cliff was actually a montage, its reliability being unclear.

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

self-generated deaths

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

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

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

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

Another type of self-generated death in animals is the one that is used in order to protect another being, generally the offspring of the creature. For example, the parent can serve as a distraction for its young to flee or attack the aggressor to defend them even though this could cause death. However, in this case it is not a 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.

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

Finally, some parasites and fungi are known to 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 want to die. Other bacteria generate behaviors that can lead to suicidal behavior such as approaching or losing fear of predators.

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Arguments of those who defend its existence

Practically until a few centuries ago, a large part of the population considered that only the human being was aware of himself, capable of abstract thought and reflection. Therefore, under this type of thinking we would be facing the only animal species that would be capable of voluntarily and consciously causing death.

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

There are multiple species that have manifested the ability to identify themselves., as occurs with primates and dolphins, and that manifest the ability to become depressed and feel anxious (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 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 they experience. A widely known example occurred in the experiments that gave rise to the theory of learned helplessness, carried out with dogs that, in the presence of electric shocks, of which they originally could not flee they stopped trying to avoid them even when in another situation they just had to move to another side of the cage.

However, it is unknown if they have the same capacities in imagination, projection of the future and level of abstraction than the human being, or a sufficient level that would allow them to become capable of procuring their own death.

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Arguments of those who deny its existence

Those who consider that animals do not have the capacity to commit suicide consider that behaviors associated with autolysis are actually involuntary, and there is actually no intention to kill oneself as such.

The aforementioned self-harm, for example, could be explained as self-harm aimed at changing states of anxiety or stress, or to seek freedom from some kind of suffering (which on the other hand resembles them to the main reasons 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 mind of the animal, making him forget to eat. Suicide as a defense mechanism would be an instinctive and emotional reaction that would not really seek death but rather 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 caused by external factors, which would not be considered suicide.

a realistic conclusion

Many of the documented cases of animals that have caused their own death have series of characteristics that may cast doubt on the validity of considering said action a suicide or No.

It is undeniable that some animals actively cause their own death, but it is much more difficult to determine if their actions are really motivated by the wish to die. In this sense, science has not yet been able to determine this fact in a reliable way, and there is still no data enough to affirm or deny that animals have the capacity to commit suicide with full awareness that they are doing.

Bibliographic references:

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