DO ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS I

PART- I
  DO ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS?  


HARRY
is the name of our Labrador Dog the moment  he sees me embracing my wife,  jumps  in between us and expects me to show the love for him.
I have seen that when I pretend to scold my daughter  and when she pretends to cry,,he will never tolerate it and  will bark at me to stop the same as he never wants her to get hurt and he knows how much she loves him.
I  laugh every time when I recall about our previous friend SHEENA- a female Doberman who lived her full life with our family and who never tolerated me  sitting closer to my newly married wife. She would  sit  in -between us.
I have also read news and articles about animals and zoo animals that  they become sick and weak after the death of their mates and even pass away. I have also seen birds like crows expressing their anguish by flying in a haphazard manner and sounding bad when any one of their birds get hurt.
I have painfully watched once on the road a small bird expressing deep grief and pain  when her mate was dashed to death by a fast moving car.
Really,  it touched me  to see the  photos of two Love Birds which are said to have been taken in the republic of Ukraine where the bird was trying to save his mate and expressed his anguish and shock. Millions of people cried after watching this picture around the world. Hats off to the photographer to kindle the human heart!                          



                        
 HERE HIS MATE IS INJURED AND THE CONDITION IS APPALLING.
                      
 HERE HE BRINGS HER FOOD AND ATTEND HER WITH LOVE AND COMPASSION.
                          
 BUT SHOCKED WITH HER DEATH AND TRY TO MOVE HER.
                                       
STAND BESIDE HER AND SCREAM SADDENED OF HER DEATH.
FINALLY AWARE THAT SHE WOULD NOT RETURN TO HIM AND SHE HAS DEPARTED, 
STANDS BESIDE HER BODY, SAD AND SORROW.

This made me to think - 
Do animals have emotions?
Are they so perceptive ?
Can they often sense the owner’s joy ,sorrow and pain ?
Do they have joy, sorrow and empathy?

I could get some interesting answers when I read the book –

THE EMOTIONAL LIVES OF ANIMALS - BY AN ANIMAL SCIENTIST -MARC BEKOFF WHO IS A PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO IN BOULDER.

HE SAYS …
Look at their faces, tails, bodies and, most importantly, their eyes. What we see on the outside tells us a lot about what’s happening inside animals’ heads and hearts.
While stories about animal emotions abound, there are many lines of scientific support about the nature of animal emotions that are rapidly accumulating from behavioral and neurobiological studies- what we call now -SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE.

Common sense and intuition also feed into and support science sense and the obvious conclusion is that mammals, at the very least, experience rich and deep emotional lives, feeling passions from pure and contagious joy during play, to deep grief and pain.
Recent data also shows that birds and fish are sentient and experience pain and suffering. Prestigious scientific journals regularly publish essays on joy in rats, grief in elephants and empathy in mice.
SPINDLE CELLS, which were long thought to exist only in humans and other great apes, have recently been discovered in humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales and sperm whales in the same area of their brains as spindle cells in human brains. This brain region is linked with social organization, empathy and intuition about the feelings of others, as well as rapid gut reactions. Spindle cells are important in processing emotions. It’s likely that if we seek the presence of spindle cells in other animals we will find them.


WHALES, there’s also a story about a humpback whale who, after being untangled from a net in which she was caught, swam up to each of the rescuers and winked at them before swimming off. The rescuers all agreed that she was expressing gratitude.
Neuroscientific research has also shown, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that ELEPHANTS have a huge hippocampus, a brain structure in the limbic system that’s important in processing emotions.We now know that elephants suffer from psychological flashbacks and likely experience the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, all mammals (including humans) share neuroanatomical structures (for example, the amygdala and hippocampus) and neurochemical pathways in the limbic system that are tied to feelings.
Are  LABORATORY MICE  actually empathic? Research has shown that mice react more strongly to painful stimuli after they observe other mice in pain, and it turns out that they are fun loving as well.

Researchers were almost all skeptics who spent their time wondering if DOGS, CATS, CHIMPANZEES and other animals felt anything. Since feelings don’t fit under a microscope, these scientists usually didn’t find any— But today the question of real importance is not whether animals have emotions, but why animal emotions have evolved the way they have.


DOGS AND CATS behave unusually after the loss of a companion, eating inadequately. Like humans, animals experience grief. Animals that have been separated from an owner or lose an animal companion feel something similar to human grief.Grief is a natural and intense emotional reaction to the loss of someone or something we love.
THIS MAY BE DUE TO :
Loss / Missing of devoted human family member ( Death  &, divorce, CHILD boarding school, Family moves away and leaves their faithful friend behind)
Loss of another companion animal. (Death, kidnapped / stolen Early weaning of offspring and premature separation from mother)
Loss from removal of something loved. (removal or loss of a favourite soft-toy, plaything or blanket. when a new animal is introduced to the family. Even the loss of position e.g. a retired police horse / dog, stud animal and desexing.)

Grief is a very personal experience and depends on how the loss is perceived. Some animals (and humans) appear unaffected, others adjust and gradually come to terms with their loss, while others still tend to struggle and find it harder to cope.

PLEASE WAIT FOR MORE:


CAN I MEET YOU AGAIN!    READ PART - II

2 Comments:

R.Srishobana said...

This is really very touching story of a Birds "couple"...Yes,i agree with ur point.Animals do have emotions...Nice info

Anonymous said...

Its to bad the human race dosn't disappear so animal could live as they were ment to, happy or sad from their own doing not human doings. I would gladdly die to save the animals.

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