# Animals and suicide

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animals-and-suicide/344119>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [February 12, 2006, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animals-and-suicide/344119 "2006-02-12T16:36:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BabyNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BabyNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabyNuke)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animals-and-suicide/344119/1 "2006-02-12T16:36:51Z")

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I had to reply to this article:  
[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbugsuicide.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbugsuicide.html)

> [@](#):
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> “Other than humans, do otherwise healthy and reproductively-capable individuals of any other species perform actions foreseeably guaranteed to result in their immediate death?”, the answer is NO.

I’ll agree, that’s probably true for nearly all animals, but there’s atleast one exception. Dolphins do seem to commit suicide. Some articles to back up my claim:

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/interviews/obarry2.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/interviews/obarry2.html)

> [@](#):
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> And it wasn’t until Cathy died of suicide, what I would say, and I say that word with great trepidation and the lack of - I don’t know what else to call it. But you probably know that dolphins and whales are not automatic air breathers. Every breath they take is a conscious effort. So they can end their life whenever they want to and that’s what Cathy did. She chose to not take that next breath and you have to call that suicide, self-induced asphyxiation…

[http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet\_display.asp?ID=63](http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=63)

> [@](#):
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> Jacques Cousteau and his son, Jean-Michel, vowed never to capture marine mammals again after witnessing one captured dolphin kill himself by deliberately crashing into the side of his tank again and again.

One can easaly find more similar articles with google.

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**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animals-and-suicide/344119/2 "2006-02-22T06:53:06Z")

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Neither of those sites show any evidence of suicide.

The first site simply asserts that the dolphin commited suicide with no evidence whatsoever. Was an autopsy even performed to rule out illness? If not then the claim is purely anecdotal. My faith in it isn’t helped by the utilisation of pathos and anthropomrophism.

The second link is simply referring to a very common reaction by animals in captivity, that of beating themselves to deathon the sides of the cage. This isn’t suicide. The exact same reaction can be seen in flies, fish, wasps, beetles, birds, horses and almost any other animal you care to mention. The animal is stressed by capture and the flight-or-flight response results in the behaviour seen. It is neither consciously controlled nor a deliberate attempt to end life. It fails as an example of suicide on all counts.

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animals-and-suicide/344119/3 "2006-02-22T20:11:46Z")

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In amny species of spiders, the male is killed and eaten by the female 9after mating). Would this behavior qualify? In some cases, the male will attempt toescape-in others, he just waits for the fatal bite-and becomes food for his offspring.  
Damn hard to be a male spider.