# Do animals commit suicide

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 9, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346 "2007-01-09T23:18:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346/21 "2007-01-11T19:39:22Z")

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[QUOTE=solkoe]  
Ric O’Barry was Flipper’s trainer. He is convinced that Flipper committed suicide.  
[/QUOTE]

Was he a doctor or a scientist? Or just really good at training animals? Was a necropsy every performed on the animal? I ask cause I have no idea.

What I do know, is sometimes dolphins are sick and just _stop breathing_. I have worked with many sick dolphins. Some can be rehabilitated and released, other just die. How or why is he convinced that the animal did not have some infection?  
I had one dolphin “look me in the eye and just stop breathing” once too. But he did not commit suicide. He stopped breathing because he had a fungal infection that caused swelling in his brain. We know this because we used real science and a necropsy to determine it. I suppose we could have just made some shit up, but what would the point of that be? Other than to help the “I \<3 Animals” agenda, I mean.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346/22 "2007-01-12T23:08:17Z")

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What about animals sacrificing themselves for their offspring?

Aren’t there some species of spider where the male does this to ensure the female is fertilised with his sperm?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346/23 "2007-01-12T23:24:46Z")

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[QUOTE=Quartz]  
What about animals sacrificing themselves for their offspring?

Aren’t there some species of spider where the male does this to ensure the female is fertilised with his sperm?  
[/QUOTE]

That isn’t suicide - at best, it’s _sacrifice_; animals that do this don’t do it because they _want to die_, they do it because they _want their children to live_ (insofar as it can be said they _want_ at all).

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**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346/24 "2007-01-13T05:28:38Z")

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[QUOTE=Blake]  
[Staff report “Does any animal besides humans commit suicide?”](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbugsuicide.html)

Short answer: No.  
[/QUOTE]

Ever see a Chihuahua run up to a Doberman Pinscher and just start yapping at it?

🙂

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**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346/25 "2007-01-13T06:19:09Z")

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_Underdstanding_ death and being able to _apply its inevitability to one’s self_ are two different things entierly. Take children, for instance. They may be able to understand that grandma has died and grieve for her, but they don’t necessarily grasp the concept that they, too, will die one day. Hell, I’d gander to say that it doesn’t totally become a concrete concept with some folks until adulthood.

I think animals are much like children in that respect. They understand death as something that happens to others and are deeply affected by grief, but they don’t really apply that concept to\* themselves\*. To do tha requires a higher reasoning capability and even in the most intelligent of animals, such as apes and whales, I don’t see any evidence to support the notion they have it.

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**Author:** ![solkoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-animals-commit-suicide/387346/26 "2007-01-13T22:26:28Z")

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[QUOTE=Bear\_Nenno]  
Was he a doctor or a scientist? Or just really good at training animals? Was a necropsy every performed on the animal? I ask cause I have no idea.

What I do know, is sometimes dolphins are sick and just _stop breathing_. I have worked with many sick dolphins. Some can be rehabilitated and released, other just die. How or why is he convinced that the animal did not have some infection?  
I had one dolphin “look me in the eye and just stop breathing” once too. But he did not commit suicide. He stopped breathing because he had a fungal infection that caused swelling in his brain. We know this because we used real science and a necropsy to determine it. I suppose we could have just made some shit up, but what would the point of that be? Other than to help the “I \<3 Animals” agenda, I mean.  
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know the answer to your question. I know he was a professional trainer. He trained all five flipper dolphins. He was very close to the one and claims committed suicide. Perhaps his emotional attachment clouds his view.

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