“the whale on the left is an adult female. the one on the right is her male escort. we were on our way to roca partida when we heard that the female’s calf had been attacked [and killed] by a few killer whales. when we got there, the mother was inconsolable. the male was trying to comfort her by touching her gently, but it was useless. some of you may already know this, but it’s only the male whales who sing (while mating), so this was obviously a devastating and silent moment.” - rodrigo friscione wyssmann, who shot this last week.
whales, along with elephants and chimpanzees, mourn the loss of loved ones like humans.
as john chaney explains of his shot in botswana, “elephants are legendary for their memory and intelligence including attributes associated with grief, making music, altruism and compassion. we came across this elephant whose corpse was overcome by vultures and jackals. from a distance we heard and then saw another elephant approaching at a fast pace. she was successful at chasing away the predators and then very slowly and with much empathy wrapped her trunk around the deceased elephants tusk. she stayed in this position for several hours guarding her friend.”
here, chimps at the sanaga-yong chimpanzee rescue center in cameroon, orphaned from the illegal bush meat trade and habitat loss, stand in mourning as dorthy, a recently deceased member of their adopted and extended family, is wheeled past them.
this photo was taken by monica szczupider, a worker at the centre, who describes how dorothy was rescued from an amusement park in cameroon, where, tethered to a chain for twenty five years, she was taunted, teased, had cigarettes thrown at her, and made to smoke and drink beer for the entertainment of others.
“despite her tortuous past, dorothy was in fact one of the kindest chimps - or living creatures, in general - i have ever met,” says szcuzupider.
describing the picture, she noted that “chimps are not silent. they are gregarious, loud, vocal creatures, usually with relatively short attention spans. but they could not take their eyes off dorothy, and their silence, more than anything, spoke volumes.”
according to professor emeritus at the university of colorado, mark bekoff, “that animals and humans share many traits including emotions [such as grief] is merely an extension of charles darwin’s accepted ideas about evolutionary continuity, that the differences between species are differences in degree rather than differences in kind.”
