Suicide

[spiff]

Are Human beings the only creatures to voluntarily end their own lives?

[incuriam]

Whales and dolphins sometimes beach themselves en masse for no apparent reason. Suicide, bizarre accident, result of a secret missile test -- who knows? 

[Octavius]

What about lemmings..?

 

 

[Tweed]

Lemmings don't, that's a fallacy

[amarillis]

Lemming suicide is actually fiction. Contrary to popular belief, lemmings do not periodically hurl themselves off of cliffs and into the sea. Periodic explosions in population do occasionally induce lemmings to attempt to migrate to areas of lesser population density. When such a migration occurs, some lemmings die by falling over cliffs or drowning in lakes or rivers. These deaths are not deliberate "suicide" attempts but accidental deaths resulting from the lemmings' going into unfamiliar territories and being crowded and pushed over dangerous ledges. When the competition for food, space, or mates becomes too intense, lemmings are much more likely to kill each other than to kill themselves.

[amarillis]

posted at the same time Tweed !

[brachiopod]

It's a complete myth about lemmings and suicide.

 

It only occurs in Disney wildlife films (where the film-maker forced lemmings off a cliff in order to show this mythical behaviour)

See;

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

 

[Octavius]

I found on a learned arctic wildlife website that ...

 

"When there are too many lemmings in one area and not enough to eat, they migrate to find food. Many drown by running into the rivers and lakes."

 

If that aint suicide (or plain stupidity) I don't know what is!!

[Morrisonker]

when more then one whale or dolphin is beached it's because the first animal calls out to it's family group in distress and the others in the pod (group) come to try and help.  As a result they often all become beached and die.  I remember thinking that was the most tragic thing when i first heard it, it's very moving in a strange way...

 

But I don't think that other animals voluntarily kill them selves.  Although animals in captivity often suffer from depression and can, to an extent self harm (birds pull out feathers, horses throw themselves against walls etc), I've never heard of animals taking action to kill themselves.

[Quizmonster]

Surely suicide, as we conceive of it, is a deliberate act of self-murder. The problem, as far as other animals are concerned, is contained in the word 'deliberate', with its connotations of 'having been thought out' or - in your own words - 'voluntarily', with its connotations of acting by choice. 

I do not believe any other creature has the mentality to carry out such a thinking process or even to have a concept of personal death at all. My answer to your question, therefore, is 'Yes.'

[bernardo]

I read an article in a magazine recently by someone who watched an injured pigeon at a railway station for several minutes.  It waited at the edge of the platform for ages and then flew out in front of a train just as it was passing.  It got killed, so it could have been a deliberate suicide.

[Rabelais]

The is a condition in animals called learned dispair. Where in an animal will give up trying to preserve it's life in the aquired knowledge that it's actions are pointless. An example of which is putting a rodent in an inescapable waterbath and letting it swim to exhaustion, which it will frantically do the first few times. If you fish it out before it drowns when exhausted and repeat the proceedure it will rapidly lose the initial escape reflex and just cease moving on entering the water and will drown. It no longer swims preserves it's life as a survival mechanism.

[Bangkok]

Rubbish answer, but my daughter is asleep on my lap so I cannot check!  This Book, recently published and undoubtedly in some of your Christmas stockings, says there is one animal that commits suicide, and I think it began with A.  At some point I will follow this up.

[brachiopod]

I found on a learned arctic wildlife website that ...

 

>>> "When there are too many lemmings.....they migrate to find food. Many drown by running into the rivers and lakes."
 
If that aint suicide (or plain stupidity) I don't know what is!!    <<<

 

Well, put like that, Octavius, then by the same reasoning, the herds of wilderbeest on the African plains are trying to commit suicide, as "many drown by running into rivers". If you qualify it by saying they are actually attempting to cross the river or lake, it makes more sense, as you say, they are trying to migrate.

[mash]

A worm ran out in front of my spade last weekend.......very sad. He must have had 'real issues' on his mind?

[Octavius]

That snail I trod on last night could have got out of the way, but he chose to stay put.

 

Barchioplod - I quoted the words of someone else, hence the ".  So why would I change the text AND qualify it?  

 

[Yinzer]

I have heard of animals "losing the will to live" - as in one case of a circus tiger that was always confined to a little cage, (with no real health problems) just laying down and dying.

[raven8401]

no. Like us some animals would give up their life to save another.