Is it true deer are not upset when another deer dies?

I heard that they don't react when one of them is being killed. And that they don't grieve the loss.


Cats, dogs, whales, cows, horses, elephants all grieve. Why not deer?Is it true deer are not upset when another deer dies?
In contrast to some posters, the evidence does show that animals have emotional responses. What they do not have is higher reasoning (obviously). Emotions come out of a rather primitive part of the midbrain (pons, medulla, etc), which in an animal makes up a relatively larger portion of their brains compared to humans. However animals don't spend time brooding on how this loss will effect their lives and how much they will miss their buddy! It does seem to bum some animals out when another dies - how much is anyone's guess. Whether we should even call that response grieving is also hard to say because grieving as we know it in a human is a complex and sometimes lengthy process.


One major difference between humans and other higher mammals is a human will keep the same emotional response going for a long time by thinking about it and brooding over it - essentially projecting it into the future. Animals won't do that (so it makes it seem as if the emotion may be missing). The emotional responses of an animal are very quick and they're over it (generally). (And I suspect they experience them more intensely and immediately rather than most humans which tend to blunt the intensity of their emotions by their thought process.)





A few anecdotes:


When a cat's owner dies in the home (and isn't noticed), they will end up eating the owner after they get hungry. A dog will sometimes just lay down next to it's owner and starve to death. (Seen multiple times by EMS crews.)





I've had quite a few deer groups circle back to check on the fallen deer as I was in the middle of gutting them out. Grieving? Who knows.





People who have taught primates to use basic language (symbols) find that a large part of what the primate communicates is an emotional response.





Although I am myself a hunter, I am obviously rather leery of hunters who want to believe that animals have no emotions (and some are dumb enough to think they don't even sense pain.) This is obviously a self-serving belief system. Deer, elk etc have a nervous system including pain receptors.














Maybe that's why deer jump in front of cars..... So depressed they just want to end it all.


(kidding)Is it true deer are not upset when another deer dies?
No Human Being, Person, or Human Animal can produce any evidence, or Proof to Prove, or Disprove beyond any reasonable doubt whether they actually do, or do not grieve, or feel the loss of another animal.* However it is entirely possible, and not unreasonable to believe that they do.*
I am not sure we can define or impose a human emotion on non-human life forms.





It may be true that some of the animals you list may exhibit human-like behavior when faced with the death of ';one of their own';, but to infer that it is the same grieving you might feel when faced with the death of another human (relative, friend, or stranger) is stretching things.





I have seen deer show reactions at the death of other deer, especially does and their fawns. Fawns will linger around their mother who has been hit by a car or shot during hunting season. Does will do the same with their fawns. Is this grieving? I don't know. But they do seem to know something is ';not right'; and linger for awhile before resuming their normal routines.
NO animal grieves when another passes. They don't have the brain capacity to do so.





Deer don't.


Cats don't.


Dogs don't.


Whales don't.


Cows and all other livestock animals don't.


Elephants don't.


Birds don't.





Your humanizing animals. Or personificating (giving human quialities to) animals.
Domestic Horses kept in small groups will show some distress if they loose a pen mate for any reason... usually because the have a strong herd instinct and rely on a buddy for alerts to danger.





In the wild they are too busy avoiding being eaten to notice much. All the animals you cite ';grieve'; when kept in close community domesticated situations... again... a response humans ';humanize'; when we observe it. Those animals have a social system instinctively ... what we see as ';grief'; is just a reaction to an adjustment in pecking order.
I don't think they fully comprehend it. About 15 years ago a mother deer and a young buck were crossing the road. The mother was struck by a car and killed. Two houses down the road was a veterinarian, my neighbor, who took care of the baby for a few months. I played with it in my front yard. It suckled my fingers. By the time it lost its spots, it lost interest in humans and returned to the wild. It never would have been accepting of us if it had not lost its mother and needed food. While I thought it had become domesticated, the vet said no, this was a phase. He was right.
Usually the other deer just run off or stand there trying to detect where the noise came from. Turkeys are cool in that if you shoot the dominant tom of the bunch, the submissive toms will come over and stomp the turkey poo* out of the dead dominant one. Not any grieving going on, just revenge.
well i have only been around cats mostly (had a rottie but had to get rid of him so i was the one grieving)


but when my one cat died last year the other 2 were walking all around the house looking for him and the one cat earl is his name was acting very down for about a week because his buddy wasent around anymore.





but deer are wild and only worried about surviving they are sort of a ';me or you'; animal
I think all animals grieve just not to the level humans do. I had two dogs about 6 years ago and one died and the other would go over to the bed of the one that died and she would sniff it then whine a little bit and walk away. She did that everyday for 3 months until she died.
Never bothered to stop and ask one personally.





So if cows grieve and deer don't maybe we're raising the wrong livestock.














Simple message to every anti-hunter out there. Everything dies eventually.
I don't know but if they do I doubt they grieve any more or less if a mountain lion does the killing as opposed to a human hunter. Guess it just sucks being a prey animal.
we are animals?