Elephants are really smart, and also quite emotional. They have been known to grieve, for very long periods of time, upon the death of babies or partners. Most animals get over it, fairly quickly.
The first one involves a group of elephants who formed a circle around their caretaker's home for a couple of days to grieve when he died.
The second one involves an elephant who's shot at his head for poaching, he ran away to where forest rangers camp is, and just laid down to be taken care. The elephant survived.
Animals are complex creatures and see, hear and know more than we think. We should stop acting so boneheaded, IMHO.
I wonder though if generalizing to most/all animals really makes sense here.
I get the sense that these kinds of stories are mostly limited to highly social and fairly intelligent animals like elephants, dolphins, and dogs.
Maybe other primates as well, although IIUC they're more likely to be spiteful to some people than are e.g. dogs and elephants.
I could write tons and tons of things where she was very aware of my emotions and responded to it, or communicated with my parents in their own way.
So, I don't think it's limited only to "more complex" animals like dolphins, dogs, and elephants. Cats and birds (oh, look at cockatoos, crows magpies, etc.) are also in that group as well.
Cockatoos raid trash bins and find ways to open even the blocked ones if their strength allows.
Lastly, here's a parrot which trolls its owner and laughs about what it did! Oh boy, it's aware of what it did [0].
What's the downside to just assuming all animals are intelligent and treating them as such?
And if you include things I've read on Facebook, even jumping spiders.
A genetic project for the 21st century: try giving them voice and hands. See what happens.
Elephants are one of the races that have been "uplifted" to sophistry. Some (Neophants) have been engineered further and now have hands.
Check out the notes below the following two comics for some of the musings that make these stories so compelling to me:
How much intelligence is needed? Using a hose is an accomplishment for elephants. People in this thread are amazed that elephants can remember events, even traumatic ones like the death of a child. Has an elephant ever created a structure of any sort?
> if elephants could speak
I don't think they'd have much to say ...
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/toi-original/watc...
So yeah, elephants truly never forget. And some will make it their life mission to right the wrongs.
I call bs.
People hide, but for the burial, they come out of their houses, make noise, alerting the elephants.
Elephants get aggressive again. People run away. Elephants trample what they left behind.
Them, Elephants also trample the village.
Seems like a pretty likely scenario?
Stuff happens!
How did the elephants know generally where this person lived? How did they know specifically which house she lived in? How did they know there was a funeral to crash?
I'd speculate that the answer is scouting, and the idea of elephants scouting for other elephants in a planned attack is so damn cool that I just want to assume that must be the answer in the face of knowing that I'm speculating.