Do wild animals ever feel guilt, remorse, and resentment?

Question

Scenario one: A bird builds its nest on a weak and unstable tree branch 100 feet above the ground. While the bird was hunting for food, the tree shifted and the fragile branch fell to the ground, instantly killing its offsprings.

Will the bird feel a deep sense of remorse and guilt for unknowingly building its nest on a fragile tree branch? Furthermore, will it feel traumatized by the accident that it will avoid reproducing and raising chicks once again?

Scenario two: Two African elephants, a male and a female, are at a watering hole with their newly born cub.

The female elephant goes off to a nearby tree to pick up some leaves with its trunk. She leaves behind her cub, confident that the male elephant will watch over it and protect it from predators.

However, while the male elephant was drinking water, the cub runs off in pursuit of a dragonfly. It stopped numerous feet away from the protection of its parent. When the male elephant finally noticed that his cub was no longer beside him, it was too late.

The cub was eaten by a pack of tigers.

Will the female elephant harbor anger and resentment towards her mate for failing to watch over their cub? Conversely, will the male elephant harbor the same emotions toward his mate for leaving them behind?

Correction: A baby elephant is called a calf. I knew that!! Sorry about that error. Anyway, that's beside the point.

Answer 1

nope. They may be sad that something happened, but they will move on- nature is uncaring and they know it. They accept it and move on. Plus- everything is done by instinctual means. If a tiger is hungry- it will kill for meat. It will not feel guilty over killing. It would be happy.
A major theme in the animal kingdom is that offspring are replacable, and much more so than a breeding age adult. The main goal of living is to try to pass on your favorable genetics to offspring. That bird with the nest? If it does not build it's nest on a more secure spot- no babies. Every year, the babies will die, but it may just not learn.
Other birds that were smart enough to pick a good branch passes that on to their offspring (birds build nests at sites similar to where they were hatched).
With the elephants- both parents would be sad that they lost a calf ( elephants ferociously defend their young as a herd) but they would not get a divorce- they would mate again and produce another offspring. Plus- males usually are bachelors and just roam around mating with as many females as possible. Females live together in related groups. Therefore, the male would never be assigned to watch over the young- he would be out trying to get laid again :)

Answer 2

If it was an African elephant it couldn't have been tigers because they live in Asia. It must have been Asian elephants. Tigers do not form packs either. They are solitary predators except for brief periods of time when the are accompanied by a mate.

An Asian elephant can be mauled by a single tiger, miraculously escape and rejoin its mother and show a feeling of extreme sadness that it was attacked, almost died, and has serious wounds. It can even look for sympathy from it's mother. Elephants in general regardless of specific species can see the bones of other elephants and seem to show sadness while going through the bones with their trunks, examining the remains, but you seem quite smart and may have already known that.

Also, elephants can cover up lion kills with leaves and show disgust at the lions for being meat-eaters. They can even guard the meat from the lions in an attempt to discourage the cat from being a carnivore.

Answer 3

No. Only humans can feel human feelings. Animals are incapable of feeling human emotions.

Warning: Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and Walt Disney all try to depict animals as something more than animals, humanoid. The reason, money. They are out to make money. Making animals appear to have human qualities enhances their ability to make more money. There are truly very few people that are really interested in the REAL world lives of animals.

Why would a bird build a nest on a fragile branch? The urge to reproduce is the second strongest one to an animal. The first is getting food.

Look up the word anthropomorphic.

Answer 4

Animals don't think the way humans do. They don't have a deep enough understanding of what is going on to feel remorse. In the case of the bird, she would know that something happened to her babies, but she wouldn't feel remorse for not providing a safe place for them.

In the case of the elephants, it is commonly accepted that they grieve at the loss of a family member or a member of their herd. Both parents would be very upset, and they would grieve for a while. But they would only understand that their calf was dead. They wouldn't realize that they had allowed him to run off and get killed.

Answer 5

A baby elephant is called a calf, but anyway no, wild animals don't feel guilt or remorse, and they shouldn't, they; unlike us--are ruled by instinct. Everything they do is about survival, wheather its hunt, stalk, kill or prowl. They do share some of our emotions, i.e. fear, love or affection, anger, jealousy, confusion and loyalty, to name a few-but, life to them is about survival. They are not made in the image of God, and not expected to display a conscience. For some reason only elephants seem to have some kind of understanding about death and grief.

Answer 6

in your dreams
elephants watch very closely over their young and always move in groups ,and tigers are solitary hunters.But Elephants can be resentfull to humans and destroy fences ,cars ,or huts if they are angry.they also feel guilt or sorrow ,
when one dies they all march past the body and touch it with their trunk to say goodbye like a funeral.


birds are not that stupid to choose unstable branches for their nest

but a weaver bird weaves a nest and the female inspects it ,and she disaproves of the first 10 nests or so ,so the male has to make another one ,each time .if the finaly the eleventh nest meets with the females aproval he does not kill her out of resentment or frustration .a human would.

and i have had butcher birds as companions in several gardens that i made ,i used to leave worms out for them .and they would come and look for me if i was late .

animals have a range of similar emotions to humans and towards other animals not always of the same species,
like ,sorrow,friendliness,hate ,vengefull helpfull,thankfull ,

i have seen examples of all of these ,would take a book to relate it here.

Answer 7

For your scenarios, I am not too sure. However, I think that they have feelings and thinking just as any living animal.

My Mom has crocs. and she also hatch them. One was very weak when it comes out. She keeps it warm in her pocket until it stronger and put in the pen. Now, when Mom goes into the pen, it comes and use teeths to pull at Moms shirt to say hello. It it accidentally hurt Mom and she cries, it would put its nose to her hand as if it wants to sorry.

It it got injured and isolated, it will find many ways to gets out of that isolation pen (clime up, dig holes on ground, etc.)

FYR: We keeps about 100 crocs and are breeding more

Answer 8

The truth of the matter is; we do not know. The indications for complex emotions are there, but the ones you mention are rather hard to observe. We can keep observing and testing, while waiting for the neurological and molecular tools to show us further evidence.

Answer 9

Dude...... a baby elephant is called a calf.