Dying Chimp Remembers Her Friend

What an epic video clip, nearly bought a tear, love animals too bits, it's people I have more of an issue with. To plagiarize Attenborough.....As individuals, we're OK, as a species, we are sadly, a virus.

 

Bless her heart.
There was a very similar story a few years ago about a Mexican man who rescued (ie broke in and stole) a young male lion cub that was being kept illegally in Mexico City. It was malnourished, sick and in appalling condition. He nursed it back to health, gave it medical treatment and saved its life but struggled to find a zoo that was prepared to take it. He fought legal battles to keep the lion himself until it could be homed before eventually finding a zoo in the US that was prepared to take it.
Many years later the Mexican man found himself visiting the US and curious to see if his lion was still alive he paid a visit to the zoo and enquired. The lion was still there, though it was now a huge mature male. The keepers invited the man to approach the enclosure for a closer look and when the lion saw him it recognised him immediately, raced across the pen, thrust its forelegs through the bars, clasped him in an embrace, nuzzled his face and purred.

In fact there have been many instances of these attachments between humans and big cats. What was striking about the above case was that the lion had never been treated as a pet. It was not domesticated and had not formed that kind of bond with the human who had come to its aid. Yet it seemed to be aware that this man had saved its life and remembered the kindness it had been shown. Its a remarkably human-like reaction.

Animals have a far greater capacity for memory and emotional understanding than we often give them credit for. They feel gratitude, loss and the consolation of friendship every bit as strongly as we do.