Do animals seek revenge? Maybe. Do they seek retaliation for things that harm their survival? Yes, almost certainly. It seems the difference between animals and humans comes down to degree of privilege and state of mind. No animal is likely to seek retaliation or revenge unless they have the time and energyEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More to risk conflict with another. To do this vindictively though, seems to be a particularly human imagining. In wildlife, it’s either extremely rare or doesn’t exist at all.
Thank you to Jess B for asking this question. And to Alice Fraser (@aliterative / @hellogargle) for coincidentally raising ‘Monkey Revenge’ on the very same day, in a typically hilarious episode of The Gargle podcast. As a member of the animal kingdom, inspiration for my behaviour, as always, comes from my own ecosystem!
There are many articles that seek to answer this question but few consider it from the perspective of animal impactWhat is Animal Impact? Without wildlife, Earth would not be habitable for humans, because it's animals that stabilise ecosystems. It’s a fundamental law of nature that animals (and humans) exist because we are the most likely lifeforms to minimise environmental chaos. Animal impact, therefore, is a measure of how much all wildlife is collectively responsible for creating a habitable Earth. The More. There is the saying ‘revenge is a dish served sweet’. But a diet of sweet things isn’t necessarily good for us. Animals are part of functioning ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More, so behaviour is the glue that connects us to the world. It becomes the way we survive.
One wonders, therefore, if acts of vengefulness are the sign of a population that is not surviving very well. Let’s find out.
Premeditation
Premeditation or mens rea, to give it a legal definition, is a substantial test in human criminal activity. Reasonable people do not commit calculating revenge crimes in full knowledge of the consequences of their actions. Only humans seem to commonly plan such premeditated attacks. This is either absent from wild animal behaviour, or so rare, it is practically undetectable.
Unlike most wildlife, humans exist above the natural carrying capacityThe population of animals that a steady-state ecosystem can support. It’s the number that results when total mortality equals total birth-rate. Populations aren’t evenly-distributed to carrying capacity depends on there being both population sources and populations sinks that balance each other out. This is why it can never be said that “animals can move somewhere else”. Loss of critical habitat More of ecosystems, which often brings us into conflict with our own kind. Who hasn’t at least thought about exacting revenge against an annoying neighbour? Or hidden a sibling’s toy out of spite? Or been cut up on the road and driven more aggressively? We have supreme cognitive ability, enabling us to play out scenarios in our mind, before picking one to do in reality. We can also imagine how bad it might make us feel and conjure up ways to project this feeling onto someone else.
But do animals seek revenge? It’s unlikely wild animals will spend hours calculating how to behave this way. Wildlife is too busy trying to eke out a living. Animals react according to their gut instinct … literally. The threat of another animal stopping you from being able to feed yourself, would be the only real driver for retaliation but even that’s risky, as it can backfire. Most animals seeks cooperation over carrying through with any harmful attack.
When animals seek retaliation
There are many of examples of animals retaliating for harm imposed on them by people, such as the infamous Siberian Tiger that apparently stalked and killed a hunter.
A thieving macaque in India found its way home after being relocated to a forest 22km away, saw its captor and bit him [Head to 30 minutes into this episode of The Gargle].
But do these animals seek revenge? Were the tiger and monkey just trying to protect themselves from further danger?
This study of chimpanzees found they would ‘retaliate against personally harmful actions, but unlike humans, they are indifferent to simply personally disadvantageous outcomes and are therefore not spiteful’.
“We think there are mechanisms up in the heads of social animals that are designed to deter them from posing harms in the first place. So revenge is the output of mechanisms that are designed for deterrence of harm”
Michael McCullough in Scientific American.
To protect their nest, Australian Magpies will swoop to attack unsuspecting cyclists. Though they can apparently recognise your face and will stop, if they know you’re not a threat. For some reason they see most bike riders as potential predators.
Off the Iberian coast in Europe, pods of Killer Whales have been attacking sailboats, leading authorities to issue safety directives. Do these systematic and cooridinated attacks indicate something planned? Whales are highly social with sophisticated language and may have been threatened by a boat some point. I doubt they deliberately go searching for victims.
Seaworld trainers have also been killed by captive Killer Whales, as exposed by the documentary ‘Blackfish’. It’s quite likely the animals knew exactly what they were doing. But it’s also possible a court of law would have ruled them in no fit state of mind to know the consequences.
The moral component
It’s unlikely that any animal thinks to itself … ‘maybe I shouldn’t do this’, before deciding to, because they think it will make them feel better.
In response to the question, do animals seek revenge, Malini Suchak in this article in Gizmodo argues that revenge has to have a moral component. That’s cultural and all animals have culture, and therefore some kind of moral code. But as Suchak says, we cannot assume that our moral system is the same.
Nonetheless, wild animals are unlikely to attack because they believe it will give them a sense of personal reward. They attack mostly because their survival is threatened or retaliate as a pre-emptive measure to protect themselves against a likely future adversary.
Malice and privilege enables revenge
Anyone who punishes someone else in full knowledge of the consequences of their actions is being spiteful and malicious.
What humans think we need or deserve is artificial. It’s an artefact of society. We even have access to an increasingly large library of revenge-laden movies, narcissistic leadership rhetoric and commercial adverts that stroke our egos, encourage and convince us that ‘we’re worth it’.
The costs of being mistreated also go up if people around you have watched, because ‘If you don’t take revenge, there’s a chance people will learn that you are the type of person who will put up with mistreatment’ (Michael McCullough in Scientific American). What if we are more prone to vengeful thoughts from the illusion we’ve built for ourselves, of always being surrounded by virtual friends (social media, TV etc)?
No such virtual reality exists in the wild animal kingdom.
Culture is strongly connected to ecosystems and revenge signals a breakdown of the behaviours that allow us to survive.
The intelligence of animals is nonetheless far more sophisticated than we care to imagine. And our behaviour, the way we connect with ecosystems, has to be quite similar because we are guided by the same fundamental rules for survival.
A friend relays a story of the cat that was denied food and calmly pawed a glass off a kitchen bench. Was the cat behaving spitefully? A house cat is well fed. Animals with full stomachs are more likely to behave that way.
Our fat cat society represents a perfect storm of conditions for revenge. We have artificially high-density living, full bellies, spare time on our hands and a mind built to plan future scenarios. But is this healthy? What does it mean for our role as animals on Earth?
Do animals seek tiny instalments of revenge?
If we assume revenge requires a level of spite, malicious intent or vindictiveness, it is unlikely to be prevalent in wild animals. That would transcend survival needs. Evolutionary pressures means that retaliation, let alone revenge, are hardly detectable in nature. Evolutionary success depends on cooperation. The evolution of culture among animals that have survived millions of years, has strongly selected against this type of behaviour. Populations that seek needless revenge simply die out fast.
So, can a social animal that’s been wronged by another, be slightly revengeful? Or is revenge happening on the margins of animal society, like it is in humans? Possibly. There is no reason to think animals aren’t behaving similar to us, albeit in minuscule and insignificant ways.
Degraded or overloaded ecosystems force animals into competition and that is when social norms break down. Competition and desperation, combined with complex social and cultural instincts, lead to new manifestations of behaviour. One of my favourite reference of all time is about how city birds are angrier.
Urban birds suffer from a breakdown in their ability to communicate and maintain territory separation. This is like living in flats with very thin walls. Combine that with an ample source of food e.g. waste from bins and picnic tables and you could say, the birds are literally ‘fed up’ with each other.
This may be why recognisable acts of revenge are practically undetectable in wildlife that lives in more natural areas. Soundscapes are protected and food is only just enough. Revenge takes a lot of energy and most wildlife is living on the edge of survival, having found its niche. Individual wild animals aren’t fed enough or privileged enough to be vindictive. And even if some of them were, that subpopulation quickly starves to death.
Learning to be better animals
As one of many animals on Earth we should be worried about vengefulness dominating our population. Culture is strongly connected to ecosystems and revenge signals a breakdown of behaviours that allow us to survive.
Ultimately, the answer to the question, ‘do animals seek revenge?’ is largely, no. But that’s only for wildlife in reasonably intact ecosystems. Domesticated animals maybe, wild animals in urban areas or under conflict with humans, maybe too. The India Times suggests that cases of animals seeking revenge on humans may be rising. There could be something in that, as we increasingly degrade our planet.
In normal wild animals, any revengeful (spiteful or vindictive) action would have died out long ago. It uses too much energy and evolution will select any such population for extinction.
That’s different for individuals though. In declining ecosystems, individuals might find it beneficial in the short-term. It’s just not viable for a population to behave vengefully. The thing to always remember though, is that behaviour change isn’t always a choice. Bad behaviour is a consequence of changes in our environment too.
Fortunately, one of the unique traits of humans is to understand and share knowledge … like we are now. Most humans can choose to cooperate and be kind, if we think that will serve us better. Though it seems we all suffer the consequence of having too much spare time. We have over-active imaginations, worry too much about what other people think of us, and eat more than enough.
This ability to plan for a better imagined future though, might be how we save our planet and species. Wildlife probably can’t forecast its own extinction and do something about it. We can.
I would like to think that this is how learning to be better animals will help us survive.
