Do animals hold funerals?

Walking through the park and seeing animals all around him, CrowdScience listener Dougie wondered why he rarely, if ever, sees dead bodies of the creatures that live there.

He’d been thinking about what happens to animals when they die after seeing a dead fish on a beach with his Mum, Molly. It got him wondering whether any animals hold rituals that are like funerals and whether they grieve.

CrowdScience presenter Caroline Steel is setting off to find out, meeting researchers who have watched the behaviour of whales change after the death of another, and zookeepers who witnessed a mother’s unwillingness to let go after giving birth to a stillborn child.

Then, on a trip to an urban park, she sees for herself why dead animals don’t last long in the open.