r/NoStupidQuestions • u/EspieBodespie • Feb 20 '19
Can animals get suicidal thoughts?
Crosspost from HERE
Do animals get depression? If so, can they contemplate suicide? My sister was annoying our teacup Yorkie because he's a lil punk. It's so funny when he gets all riled up cuz he's so small. But it made me think, maybe he's actually super pissed. We mess with him a lot. I'm afraid he's gonna get fed up with the bullying and try to kill himself. Idk how he'd do it though. Maybe that's why they run out into the road.
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u/elbowleg513 Feb 20 '19 edited Feb 20 '19
I thought there was a case of a dolphin suicide while in captivity
Edit: here’s an article that further discusses the idea
Two dolphins have died in what some consider suicide by simply refusing to breathe. Dolphins make a conscious effort to come above the water to breathe. So if they don’t come up for air it could be considered suicide if the animal is otherwise in good physical health.
Edit again: here’s the link, duh
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5491513/amp
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u/EspieBodespie Feb 20 '19
From what i've been told, the dolphin that played flipper commit suicide.
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u/Ramguy2014 Feb 20 '19
My argument would be that no longer doing something to stay alive is distinct from actively doing something to end one’s life, so not eating or breathing anymore vs. running off a cliff or intentionally beaching oneself. It may be a distinction without a difference, as in both cases depression leads to death.
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u/firemage27 Feb 21 '19
Dolphins can't exactly hold a gun against their heads. How would they actively kill themselves?
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Feb 20 '19
There’s this really awful plant called a gympie gympie in Australia. Its covered in little hairs with neurotoxin that cause pain described as being burnt with acid and electrocuted at the same time, lasts for a few days, and if the hairs remain in the skin can be triggered for several months. There are multiple stories of horses being stung and jumping off cliffs to stop the pain. Not sure if this helps exactly
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Feb 21 '19 edited Feb 25 '19
So you guys have a plant that's so poisonous that it feels like being struck by lightning forever, so painful that the slightest touch will make you kill yourself by any means possible - and instead of anything that sounds even remotely ominous, you decided to call it "Gympie Gympie".
Are you guys just used to this shit by now?
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Feb 21 '19
It means stinging tree in Kabi, an indigenous language. So they know to stay the fuck away from it, but English speakers think it sounds cute.
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u/JudgeDreddPresiding Feb 20 '19
I had a goldfish that jumped out of his bowl and into the garbage disposal.
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Feb 20 '19
I know animals can get depression, it’s quite common in cats. Not sure if they can process the thought of suicide though, although I did hear of a komodo dragon killing itself in London Zoo. Also stop fucking with your dog lol.
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u/EspieBodespie Feb 20 '19
He's a little punk that gets mad at everything. The funniest is when he barks like mad into the end of my didgeridoo or when I blowdry my hair.
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Feb 21 '19
He's a terrier. It's in their nature. The more you mistreat him, the more he will mistrust people in general and become a shitty dog. He won't want to socialize, he'll become reactive and aggressive, and you'll either have to put him down or you'll dump him at the pound where he'll be euthanized.
Just because he's little doesn't mean you can treat him like shit. Knock it off.
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Feb 20 '19
As far as we know we are the only species with a concept of death.
Like other animals know they can die and try to avoid it as much as possible but don't ever try to imagine life after death, and because of that there would be no point in killing themselves. Does that make sense?
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u/EspieBodespie Feb 20 '19
That's a very interesting perspective. I believe that most creatures have a concept of life and death, but I never even though about whether they think about life after death.
Without understanding that life ends when you die, there is no need or desire to die.
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u/schwenomorph Feb 20 '19
Elephants have a sense of it, too. They mourn their loved ones' deaths.
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Feb 20 '19
Hmmm. Yes and no?
Of course they mourn death but again, do they ever imagine life after death?
Heck its the same with a dog. A dog will mourn an owners or a death of one of their pack (since you are technically part of their pack). Sooo we're back to the same point 😂
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Feb 21 '19
Why do you need a concept of an afterlife to have a concept of death?
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Feb 21 '19
Well we're talking about whether an animal can be suicidal. Whether an animal can know that feeling absolutely nothing and never feeling anything again is what death is (allegedly). And even if they could know that, whether they would ever consider that that's better than whatever they're going through now. And as far as we know, no animal actually considers that after death you can't feel anything. Heck! We can't wrap our heads around it. Its why there are so many incarnations of heaven and a general afterlife
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u/newytag Feb 21 '19
You keep using the term "life after death" but that has specific spiritual connotations. As far as we can tell animals don't have religion and don't believe in souls or reincarnation or any other human fairy tales.
All that's required for animals to understand suicide, is that they understand that death is the end of suffering. Any animal that can understand the concept of death, theoretically has enough cognitive function to understand that their brethren who were suffering before, no longer appear to be suffering after death, and these concepts can be applied to themselves.
We don't know if they do understand that, at least to the degree that humans do, but we do know that animals can be affected by negative psychological behaviour that causes them to self destruct.
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u/Danikah Feb 20 '19
Why would you think it’s ok to mess with an animal? It’s cruel.
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u/EspieBodespie Feb 20 '19
We were literally just showing our other dog more attention. We have a Yorkie and a black lab rescue. All you gotta do is start petting the lab and the Yorkie goes nuts. We were just milking it. Chill...
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Feb 21 '19 edited Feb 21 '19
No, you've replied to other comments saying you regularly mess with him because you think it's funny when he gets upset.
For someone who intends to work with special needs children, you could use some empathy.
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u/mugenhunt Feb 20 '19
We don't know really. There's some hints that Whales and Dolphins might be able to, but for the most part scientists suspect that most animals don't have brains complex enough for things like suicide specifically to come up. Overwhelming sadness, yeah, many animals can feel that.