Person: Marc Bekoff

A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC

Do funeral rituals exhibit animal emotions?

W hen a predator approaches, does an ostrich bury its head in the sand thinking: “If I can’t see it, it can’t see me.”? Do red rags make bulls lose their cool? Will the relatives of a deceased stoat carry its body in a solemn funeral procession? Elephants, who ‘never forget’, are said to grieve, as do magpies. What truth, if any, lies behind such notions?

Sun, 08 Mar, 2020

Killing cats to save birds is not a solution

A book just published calls for an all-out war on free-ranging cats, writes Richard Collins

Mon, 17 Oct, 2016

Who’s a clever bird, then? The rook, for one

Ornithologists dislike the use of ‘birdbrain’ as shorthand for stupid, because our feathered friends are very intelligent, says Rita de Brun. The British Trust for Ornithology has called on the British public to take part in a national survey on bird intelligence

Tue, 19 Aug, 2014

Why elephants chance their arm

ARISTOTLE, who was born in 384BC, considered elephants superior to all other animals in ‘wit and mind’. Many wildlife rangers, zookeepers, and mahouts living with working elephants, would agree.

Mon, 10 Mar, 2014