Have you ever seen a documentary called 'A conversation with Koko'?  Granted it's not about chimps, but a gorilla who is taught sign language.  She signs that she really wants a child, so they get her a kitten to look after while they search for a suitable mate.  The kitten ends up getting knocked over and killed, and her reaction when they tell is absolutely heart breaking.

Course they do. So do elephants, dolphins and even your pets. A vet once told me that even hamsters can grieve. It happened to two of my last lot. When Toffee died, his brother Polo stopped eating and died himself two weeks later.

Thanks for the info, I've just found some fabulous clips on utube of Koko.

Essex the whole documentary is brilliant, I watch it years ago on national geographic and have been trying to source it on dvd with no luck as yet.

aww, bless.  Thats touching!!

Is this it Cinds? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nature...DVD-US/dp/B000228E3Q

my rats certainly grieve when they lose one of their buddys. especially if they were related i find.

it's no surpirse animals grieve...humans are just animals too at the end of the day...we are just arogant to think we are better

 That's really sad. My dog Paddy grieved when his older 'brother' Murphy died. He just sort of aged really badly within a week. That's one of the main reasons we got Daphne so quickly and having her really did help him (and us) through it.

Oh how sad, some of the comments underneath were out of order though.

Proves how close chimps are to humans and of course they grieve, our pets do so why wouldn't they?

Yes, but it's the US import bit that worries me, as you can't normally watch them on our dvd players.

Really sad, of course animals grieve they have feelings like us humans but they ahve to express it a different way obviously as they don't talk words like us but can communicate in their own language, fascinating creatures.

Ah sorry Cinds, I thought they were UK suppliers

Don't be sorry, thanks for looking.  I know you can get multi region dvd players, but I don't know what ours is, and would rather get one that can be played on a region 2 player.

Awwww
Having said that though, my parents' Jack Russell, Spike, didn't give a toss when his dad Pepe died. He was a cold one, though. Only puppy I've ever heard of who didn't cry for his mum and siblings on the first night in his new home. He just curled up in his new box and went to sleep!

When his dad died, all he did was spread himself out a bit further on the sofa because there was more room, and put on weight - because his greedy old dad wasn't around the scoff the lot first

 

Demantoid  I rather like the description of Spike!

 He's a geriatric old bugger himself now, 16 years old, got cataracts, deaf as a post, had a few operations and a bit senile. But he still knows when people are eating so he can do his usual "watching it from plate to fork to mouth" type of harassment, oh yes...

Chimps (actually, most or all of the great apes I think) are self-aware so it's pretty likely they understand death and grieve.  Bizarrely, I think chimps stop being self-aware when they get old.

I've never understood why the human species believe that they are superior to other species. And think that an emotional response to anything is exclusive to us. I've always thought that we could learn a lesson or a hundred by observing how other creatures cope in unusual circumstances.

# bit like some humans