How Animals Grieve
- Contents
- Review Quotes

2 A Dog’s Best Friend
3 Mourning on the Farm
4 Why Bunnies Get Depressed
5 Elephant Bones
6 Do Monkeys Mourn?
7 Chimpanzees, Cruel to Be Kind
8 Bird Love
9 Sea of Emotion: Dolphins, Whales, and Turtles
10 No Boundaries: Cross-Species Grief
11 Animal Suicide?
12 Ape Grief
13 On Bison Death in Yellowstone and Obituaries of Animals
14 Writing Grief
15 The Prehistory of Grief
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Readings and Resources
"In this deeply moving and beautifully composed treatise that is sure to anger some, but inspire many, Barbara King methodically presents her powerful evidence that many animals possess thoughts, feelings and emotions, including the profound sense of loss following the death of a family member or close companion. Consider, for example, the female dolphin who carries her dead calf for several days, loath to part with her beloved child. What else is she doing but grieving? It might be a controversial, minority viewpoint that some animals mourn the death of others, but King’s profound and well-documented work has left me firmly in her camp."
"Humans and other animals experience love and fear, and form deep emotional bonds with cherished companions. We mourn when a close friend dies, and so do other animals, as Barbara King’s poignant book illustrates in compelling detail. How Animals Grieve helps us to connect and to better understand the complex social lives of other animals and of ourselves."
Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology | Evolutionary Biology
Cognitive Science: Human and Animal Cognition
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