Animals With Love
Image courtesy (www.xemanh.net/when-animals-in-love)
Humans, who are after all, social primates-believe they know what love is, and esteem it highly. Yet many animal behaviorists are cautious about saying animals experience love.
An expert writes: “It is important to remember that animals are not displaying ‘true love,’ but simply following the dictates of their genes.”
Is it really as simple as all that? What about the animals who stay together until one dies? Evolutionary biologists often say that pairing is a way to ensure adequate parental care, but it’s not always clear this is the case. Some animals continue to accompany each other when not raising young. Mates commonly sleep together, groom each other and in some case forage together. And they appear to exhibit sorrow or show a sense of loss when one of the pair dies.
Animals may fall in love dramatically. Two gray lag geese are most apt to “fall in love” when they have known each other as youngsters, been separated and then meet again. Compared this to a man who meets a woman and astonished that she is the same girl he used to see running around in a school uniform-falls in love and marries her. According to parrot-behavior consultant it is common for some of the larger species of parrots to fall in love at first sight. This phenomenon is the “thunder bolt.”
Instinct may urge animals to love, but it does not say whom they will love, though it may drop heavy hints. Seeking a mate for a male umbrella cockatoo, a researcher games purchased a young female cockatoo with beautiful plumage and introduced the two birds. “The male acted like the female was not even in the room.”
۞ Cross the bridge
Zoo keepers know, to their despair, that many species of animals will not breed with just any other animal of their species.
Defending the zoo’s decision to separate the animals, the zoo director said,” It sickens me when people start to put human emotions in animals, and it demeans the animal. We can not think of them as some kind of magnificent human being: they are animals. When people start saying animals have emotions, they cross the bridge of reality.” His vehement statement shows how strong the fear of anthropomorphism can be, even in people who work with animals and who should witness their expressions of joy in one another.
۞ Perfect couple
Yet there is evidence of love in the devotion that members of pairs lavish on each other. Geese, swans and mandarin ducks are all symbols of marital fidelity: field biologists tell us this representation is accurate. Coyotes, which are considered synonymous with trickery, would make equally good symbols of devotion, since they also form lasting pairs.
A naturalist observed coyote pairs curled up together, hunting mice together, greeting each other with elaborate displays of wagging and licking, and performing howling duets.
An animal raised another species will often show affection for a member of that species when it grows up.
While the idea of love among animals has been generally rejected by science, there is some anecdotal evidence that the wild kingdom’s glorious beasts do experience joy, love and heartbreak remarkably like our own.
