Humans helping animals in trouble.

[Magnetic]

It makes me wonder how such a trait would evolve in an animal, the desire to help out another species in trouble.

Today . . . . . . on the Today Show, they ran a report on a Dolphin that got stranded inland somewhere and a bunch of people were working to get it back out into open water.

It made me think about how we came to care about the welfare of other animals and what it means on an evolutionary level (if there is even such a level).

Do any other species help out other species the way humans do?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

It makes me wonder how such a trait would evolve in an animal, the desire to help out another species in trouble.

Today . . . . . . on the Today Show, they ran a report on a Dolphin that got stranded inland somewhere and a bunch of people were working to get it back out into open water.

It made me think about how we came to care about the welfare of other animals and what it means on an evolutionary level (if there is even such a level).

Do any other species help out other species the way humans do?

There is the usual anecdotal evidence of dolphins helping stranded sailors and swimmers, and the equally anecdotal evidence of how the family dog/cat saves the family from a fire/tornado/flood/other natural disasters. However, in those cases, the anecdotes are much more a projection of our own desires, and the desire to feel a connection with those animals, on the coincidental behavior of the animals in question.

Then there are prey species who alert each other when a predator is nearby. This is a case of convergent evolution, where it is advantageous to have different prey species in the same ecosystem be, at least, passingly familiar with each other's alarm cries. After all, the antelope that realizes that the local howler monkeys have spotted a tiger, will be more likely to survive and reproduce.

[Akhlut]

It happens, but far less often than it does in humans. There was an article on the BBC website about a group of female lions helping out a young girl who was being kidnapped by chasing the kidnappers away and sticking around the child for a while. One lion expert said that they were getting ready to eat her when the cops arrived, another said that her cries likely reminded them of a young lion cub and put them into maternal-asskicking mode. There's also been reports of dolphins pulling people toward shore, Koko keeping her kitten, chimps playing with baboons, and all sorts of stuff in zoos with baby animals (rhinos and eland, for instance) playing with each other. There was even one of those Mutual of Omaha wildlife documentaries where a young lioness adopted a baby antelope for a period of time. I only saw the previews for it, though, so I don't know what happened in the end.

As for why it would evolve, it might make a lot of sense for social animals to gain that trait in addition to the trait that allows them to help members of the same species. Since most social animals that exhibit these traits are relatively intelligent, they might have a primitive worldview that things that show responses similar to them are members of the same group and need protection or some social interaction with the group.

[lance]

There is always all those symbiotes, ants and aphids, some fish and a crab I think. Dolphins I believe have been known to help people.

[wolveraptor]

That's because to be human, for us, is more than genetic. Koko the gorilla, I feel, is more human than someone in PVS. Sentience is what makes us human, and therefore, when interacting with other intelligent animals, we in a sense see them as other humans, just wrapped in different skins, and realize that hurting them could be an experience we would relate to.