Does any animal besides humans commit suicide?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
41

Well, thomas, a “testable” definition (it seems to me) is not really possible, no matter how desirable. We’re trying to define “suicide” here, and so how does one tell when a death is self-inflicted? Suicide is clearly related to intent, and we we have no way of judging animal intent (we ain’t even sure of people intent sometimes, but leave that aside.)

So Doug tried to set standards for behaviour that are reasonable for trying to measure intent. I mean, OK, if a wolf goes into a gun shop and buys a revolver and then shoots itself in the head, leaving a note behind about how he was too depressed to stand it anymore, well, OK, we could safely call that a suicide in the animal kingdom.

An animal wandering out into a road and being hit by a car would generally not be classified as a suicide in the same way that a human throwing himself in front of an oncoming subway train might be. One is inadvertent, the other is deliberate.

Doug suggested a set of criteria before trying to answer the question. In summary:

  • Healthy (to eliminate situations where disease causes a loss of appetite so that the subject starves to death)
  • Foreseeable (to eliminate situations like the hapless male mantis approachig a stressed out female)

If you accept his definitions, then there are no animals that commit suicide. If you reject some part of his definition, then there are animal death that you would categorize as “suicide”.

42

i see, we only insist upon health so long as it functionally contributes to death (eliminating diseases with adverse effects on appetite or, similarly, i would presume, blindness causing an animal to wander off a cliff). the definition now seems much more reasonable, if saying nothing for the soundness of the overall contention.

for example, the beached whale (the original beached whale, the sick one as opposed to his sadly devoted “followers”) is still a suicide under this refinement.

but in any event, as long as we agree that a testable definition is impossible, we acknowledge that this is more a debate for idle speculation than for scientific inquiry. (yet, i feel oddly compelled to keep discussing it…)

in light of the above, i’m not sure how readily i’ll affirm your contention that:
“If you accept his [admittedly untestable] definitions, then there are no animals that commit suicide. If you reject some part of his definition, then there are animal death that you would categorize as “suicide”.”