DO ANIMALS COMMIT SUICIDE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2985, 12 January 1926, Page 4

DO ANIMALS COMMIT SUICIDE

Whilst naturalists assert that it i is impossible for an animal purposely to seek death as a relief from trouble and stvess, beeause, as Mr. R. Poooek, F.R.S., puts it, “such an act presupposes a foreknowledge of death and its consequences,” others are of opinion that animals do occasionally kill themselves purposely. The following amazing instance of animals suicide lends weight to ihis last opinion.

A two-year-old terrier dog belonging to a labourer at Dunmow, Fissex, entered, one day in 11)12, a pond in the town and commenced to swim round and round. It refused to come out when called, and, after swimming in a circle for about ! wenty minutes he got weaker and milk lower into the water. The terrier then deliberately dived to the bottom and did not rise again. “Boh,” a big black bear bnlongng to the menagerie in Central Park, New York, committed suicide in the presence of a number of spectators.

The head keeper said that the animal stopped taking food, and in other ways showed remorse at having strangled its mate some time previously. One morning “Bob” climbed to the top of the rocky ledge at the rear of his den and threw himself backward to the asphalt flooring 20 feet below. The fall broke his neck and he died in a few minutes.