Professor Pena-Guzman Discusses Animal Suicide

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

VICE -- David Pena-Guzman from San Francisco State University has written extensively on the subject, and believes animals are capable of self-destructive behavior. “There is also evidence that animals have rich emotional lives,” he says, “and experience negative emotions such as PTSD, depression, complicated grief and so on, which are commonly recognized as precursors to suicide.”

Some pets, argues Pena-Guzman, can actually die of grief when they lose their owner, just as we are gutted when they pass away. “Animals whose human companions die can be devastated by the loss,” he says. “In some cases, they sink into a depression so deep and so dark that they simply lose their will to live. They stop eating and die.”

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