It’s essential to recognize and honor grief in elephants and other animals.

An elephant's death can affect an entire social world: relationships may be disrupted and knowledge lost.

Death must be factored into conservation decisions, human-wildlife conflict, and the care of captive animals.

Our inability to fully understand another species' emotional life isn't evidence that it is absent.

There's little doubt that elephants and many other animals experience grief. Elephants often are the "poster animals" for their profound response to the death of other elephants, something I observed after the death of an elephant matriarch in the Samburu National Reserve along with elephant expert Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton. I could literally feel their grief and the depth of their loss. Psychologists Drs. Dustin Kieschnick and Katie Lawlor's research on this important topic speaks to many current questions of interest about this important and hot topic.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you decide to study grief in elephants?

Dustin Kieschnick and Katie Lawlor: Our interest in elephant grief grew from our work as psychologists and our longstanding curiosity about the emotional lives of animals. Much of our professional work has centered on grief, attachment, and the ways people navigate loss, including the loss of beloved companion animals. Through this work, we've come to appreciate that grief is, in many ways, a reflection of love and attachment. It speaks to the significance of relationships.

That led us to ask: If grief emerges from attachment, memory, and the disruption of social bonds, why assume it is exclusively human?

Elephants are especially compelling because of their complex, multigenerational societies, enduring relationships, and remarkable communication. Our interest deepened through our connection with Dr. Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell and a visit to Mushara, a research waterhole in Namibia's Etosha National Park. Witnessing elephants interact in their natural environment was profoundly moving.

Our work draws on decades of field research to explore what elephant........

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