It is hard to conceive of animal suicide because we believe that animals don't know what death is. This is a very important concept to us, because it makes us feel superior to all other life on earth, but is it true? How can you ever find out for sure without communication between animal and human? Sure we can get talking birds, but they don't answer questions, as a matter of fact there has only been one animal, that I know of, that actually answered with an intelligent response when asked what death was and that was Koko the gorilla. Koko was taught the sign language by Dr. Penny Patterson when the ape was very young. It was never meant to be anything more than a 4 year study toward the doctor's PhD, but 35 years have passed and the two of them are still communicating. Koko was asked the BIG question, "What is death?" to which she replied that death was being put in a warm hole. Koko had been observed burying a dead bird that she had found and that is what prompted the question. It is true that Koko is an exceptional animal and has even been on the internet answering questions through a sign language interpreter and typist, but do other animals understand more about death than we suspect?

Dog
Photo Source: PD Photos Org

Why do animals commit suicide? Do they know what they are doing when they do it, or are they merely trying to escape predators? This is quite a bit to absorb, but lets look at what has been happening to dogs in Scotland lately. We don't think of dogs as having predator enemies that will eat them if they don't get away, do we? Yet there is this bridge in Scotland at Overtoun House, Dunbarton that is said to be the location of many dog suicides. It seems that dogs have been jumping off the bridge to their deaths in increasing numbers lately. In the last 6 months it is said that 5 dogs have committed suicide off the bridge by jumping off, onto the rocks below. Other dogs have jumped that have survived, but have been severely injured. A spokeswoman for the Scottish ASPCA said, “Animals do not commit suicide". Well thank you very much for this terrific insight. So what is going on? Is this just some kind of coincidence. No one can say why, but they can say when. It seems that these dog deaths may have started as early as the 1950s.

Animals have been found to suffer from stress from time to time. In this way they are very human like. The stress can get so bad, that the female octopus will eat her own arms. This is know as self cannibalism. Can an animal be so stressed that it decides to end it all? Most people say no because this would entail a conscious decision that would indicate that the animal knows it has life and wants to discontinue that life. This might be true in the case of Koko, if she ever decided to kill herself, but we just can't be certain.

Why is it that every once in a while we see a whale beach itself? It this a purposeful act, does the big animal want to end its life and has itr decided that this is the only way it is capable of doing it? This question has haunted scientists for many years. Whale beachings are not understood very well, even today. What is understood is that they do happen with some regularity. Here is the stranger part of the whale story. Sometimes after whales have been rescued, they beach themselves again. In 2002, 28 pilot whales were being destroyed because that had been rescued twice in two days and had beached themselves again a third time. This occurred in Massachusetts. at Cape Cod Bay and then Blackfish Creek. Originally there had been 55 whales who had beached themselves the first time, but some had died. An even more interesting piece of data is that in 1884, 1,500 whales were beached in Blackfish Creek. What the heck is going on here?

Grasshopper
Photo Source: PD Photos Org

In the insect world, grasshoppers definitely commit suicide. This is a known fact, but there is a caveat. When the grasshoppers kill themselves, they are out of their minds and under the control of a worm. This may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but there is a parasite called a hairworm that sometimes invades the body of the grasshopper. At a certain point in the grasshopper's life, the worm floods its brain with chemicals that makes it jump into the water to drown. When it is drowning, the worm leaves to continue its development. The grasshopper had become, more or less, a zombie before it was made to jump into the water. Yep this is the stuff of horror movies folks. I am sure glad there is nothing like this attacking us.

Lemmings Hiding From Bird
Photo Source: US Forest And Wildlife Service

There is a famous tale of lemmings committing mass suicide. A lemming is a small rodent. It may look to some that they are indeed committing suicide, but what is actually happening is that they are in a mass migration and things get in their way, like cliffs and such and they don't realize that falling off would be deadly, so they continue their trek and sometimes die. In winter a lemming is white and in summer brown.

One of the most bizarre animal suicides is that of captured dolphins. Apparently dolphins hate captivity more than most creatures and some will continually slam their heads into the side of their pool until they die. There have been some very famous dolphins that have done this. One that comes to mind was Cathy. Cathy was one of the stars of the Flipper tv series, but she decided to end it all one day. She died from self induced asphyxiation while her trainer watched helplessly. Did Cathy know exactly what she was doing and the consequences of her act? Was she so distraught that she decided to end it all? Many dolphins seem to like working with people and are very playful so this is really a puzzle.

There have been cases of fish jumping out of the water onto land, birds flying until they died and reptiles refusing to eat, even unto death. Do any of these creatures realize that they are killing themselves? It is hard to believe that they do, but it is even harder to understand the mechanism that makes them act like this. Maybe it is as simple as mental illness or even a tooth ache or as complicated as some ancient urge that evolution has planted in their psyche?