W

e are afraid of death. When you're young and encounter death for the first time - even in a demo version - it's scary and leaves you with a lifelong fear. It’s a serious existential crisis and a lot of questions. What happens next? Why do I have to die? Will I just disappear? I faced these questions much later than I should have. I was 18 years old and was hit by a truck at an intersection on a university campus. After that, even though I survived, recovered, and have a relatively healthy life, albeit with some limitations, I'm constantly afraid of death.

Maybe that's why when I came across articles about elephants burying and mourned their dead, I thought: My God, do they do that too? Is their trumpeting an expression of emotion, grief, sorrow? For whom are they trumpeting?

There is a widespread belief that human culture and religion as such originated precisely with the first funeral rituals, when a person, torn apart by bitter feelings, found a way out in creating for himself another life, afterlife, eternal life. The first funerals were surprisingly simple - a hole in the ground and some objects belonging to the deceased or those whose purpose was to help him in the next world. The rites became more complex over time, and now monumental Egyptian tombs, amazing in their subtle tragedy towers of death of the followers of Zoroaster and burial mounds have appeared. But no matter how luxurious the funeral feast and how great the tomb, the essence is the same - an attempt to somehow arrange the afterlife "dwelling" of a loved one.

We are accustomed to thinking that these "death questions" are interesting only to our species - the one who has experienced religion and culture, who paints brilliant canvases and creates uplifting music, who leaves its name in the centuries or disappears immediately after death. But maybe this is not so: our anthropocentrism plays a bad joke on our own brain (not to mention those species whose existence we subject to serious pressure).

Do animals understand what death is? Do they ask themselves the same questions as we do? Do they mourn their dead and remember them years later?

And what if the answer is yes? What if they really do have something to trumpet about?

There have been rumors for quite some time that elephants actually do cry for their dead and even do something similar to burials, when the body of the deceased is covered with leaves and branches - but until recently there was no real evidence.

In a 2024 paper, researchers from India described five burials of Indian elephant calves that were made on plantation grounds without any human intervention. In each case, the elephants carried the dead by their trunks and legs and buried them upside down in irrigation drains, then tried to avoid the burial site. All five burials were located at a distance of 150 to 700 meters from populated areas and several kilometers from the nearest protected forest - that is, far from people and predators. In all cases, on both sides of the "grave" there were many elephant tracks of different sizes, and excrement - this means that there was a whole herd at the burial site, and not individual representatives. Plantation workers who observed the process from the side reported that the burials were done at night. Within 40 minutes after the burial, the herd left the body and, after that, tried to bypass the burial site, despite the fact that they had previously used the paths near the plantations constantly.

In literature, and especially in conversations, elephants are often portrayed as those who understand death. There are numerous anecdotal accounts of these animals remaining for long periods with a dying or dead relative, and then returning to the site of its death. In one experiment, elephants distinguished the remains of their relatives and showed greater interest in them, while showing little interest in the bones of other large animals.

Interest in remains is observed not only in elephants but also in other animals: marine mammals, wolves and dogs, and, of course, primates, particularly chimpanzees. In some cases, researchers even describe chimpanzee attempts to "cover" the body of the deceased with leaves and branches, something that may vaguely resemble a funeral cleansing rite.

In 2014, Koko, a female gorilla famous for learning to speak sign language, overheard a phone conversation about the death of her friend Robbie Williams - they had met many years before and Koko was absolutely delighted with her friend. Upon learning of Williams' fate, Koko showed only two signs - "woman" and "crying", and then closed herself off from the world, experiencing grief.

Does Koko understood the concept of death? And if so, doesn't that make us even closer to other species, those we've come to regard as "lesser brothers" at best, and mere tools at worst?

Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives on the phylogenetic tree, also seems to understand what death is like. Carl Safina in his book "Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace " wrote:

Returning to the question of elephants, I wondered if they possess all these superpowers. Of course, they have the ability to learn and extrapolate. Elephants are renowned for their learning abilities, primarily because they acquire much of their knowledge by learning from older family members. They live long lives, accumulating experience, and the most experienced become matriarchs. This experience is passed on to the young — and there is evidence that it's not just knowledge of where the tastiest pastures or fresh water are, or how far it takes to reach a particular spot, that is passed on, but even such "sacred" knowledge as proper behavior during estrus. Elephants are excellent at planning, cooperating (they communicate well with each other: at least 80 visual and tactile ways of displaying behavior have been described in the literature), and adapting to changing circumstances. Much depends on matriarchs: and if they teach how to live, why can't they also teach how to die?

Self-awareness is more complex. Science still doesn't fully understand how consciousness works or what it is, even in humans, let alone other creatures. However, a number of researchers believe that if a species is capable of accumulating and using experience, it can be considered conscious. In 2012, a group of neuroscientists and neurophysiologists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Animal Consciousness, declaring that the presence of a neocortex is not a necessary condition for consciousness. In April 2024, the right to consciousness in vertebrates, cephalopods, decapod crustaceans, and insects was enshrined in the New York Declaration.

Understanding that other elephants are separate individuals is an even more challenging task. Human children only begin to grasp the idea of ​​other people's independence after a few years. This is called Theory of Mind. For many years, this ability was thought to be unique to humans, but in recent years, primates and some other species have successfully passed the test.

Empathy in elephants is being studied more extensively, and there is evidence that they often initiate social contact on their own when observing another elephant under stress.

It turns out that elephants fulfill almost all the "requirements." So what?

Yes or No

Why do elephants visit other elephants' graves? How can one explain their behavior at all? Well, for one thing, they may be visiting by chance - elephants usually have fairly conservative paths. Secondly, they may simply be curious. Thirdly: they are remembering.

One way or another, we run into the trap of anthropocentrism, where our understanding of what's happening stems more from within ourselves than from the actual process. It is precisely anthropocentrism, according to some scientists, that leads us to look to animals for a human-like perception of death, while the animal concept may be much simpler. Even within the human community, the concept of death varies greatly.

Perhaps this trap actually causes us to overestimate the capabilities and abilities of animals. Perhaps we want to see them as just like us. Perhaps we see "rituals" where, in reality, there are many other explanations for what's happening.

Is it possible to perceive all the examples we've seen through a paradigm other than the paradigm of mindfulness regarding death? Perhaps. For example, mothers who are unable to part with their dead calf may simply not understand that the calf is dead. This lack of understanding could be quite beneficial: if the calf is not dead, but merely unconscious, this could give it a chance to survive.

Another potential reason for carrying a dead calf is play. At least, this is suspected in dolphins: they have often been observed engaging in a rather peculiar form of play with members of another species. Males have often been seen with dead calves, and these could be simple cases of infanticide.

But neither explanation is entirely satisfactory. The fact is that neither dolphins nor primates carry their living and healthy young, even sick ones, in a similar manner. For example, one source notes that mother primates carefully carry their dead infants, but placing them whole in water while drinking, apparently recognizing that the infant is already dead. Finally, even species that normally do not carry their young, such as lemurs, attempt to carry their dead infants.

Furthermore, social animals often react differently to death among different group members. Animal behavior after the death of a loved one varies greatly, from grief and rejection to aggression, exploratory behavior, cannibalism, and sexual behavior. In a large community, complex relationships develop over many years between different group members. Some are close, others are distant, and some are even enemies. The response to death in such cases should be varied: a deceased female will be mourned only by her cub, while the entire pack will mourn the death of the alpha male. It turns out that the reaction to death depends on location, status, and cause — and this is no longer an instinct, but a cognitive effort, a voluntary choice.

But with all the evidence for and against, we still can't really escape our trap. There are many ways to see what isn't there and not to see what is. At least for now, the question of "does the elephant understand for whom it's blowing" remains open. And like any open question, we're left to find the answer ourselves.

We don't know if they really mourn - I rather want to believe it. Perhaps all this is connected with the fact that, moving away from nature and other species, we become more and more lonely with each century. The more familiar and emotional for us is each new cultural feature discovered.

The problem is that, despite our interest in and efforts to preserve species, entire animal populations are becoming extinct in some places. And just as genetic diversity is important for the survival of a species as a whole, cultural diversity is apparently no less important. Animal culture is a new concept, and we as humans are rather afraid to acknowledge its existence.

Perhaps we are simply afraid to finally admit: we are not alone.

We are not alone in our understanding and fear of death. We are not alone in the face of nature and destruction. We are not alone in what makes us: emotions, love, traditions and culture, grief and joy.

We are all part of one big wheel - from the little bacteria to the blue whale, elephants and humans, chimpanzees and birds. Perhaps the real truth is that the elephant trumpets for the same reason we cry. Mourning both those who have left, and those who remain, and ourselves, and everything that is in this world.

So maybe I shouldn't ask why exactly the elephants trumpet.

Maybe deep down I know: they always trumpet for me.