Whether you have a dog, a cat, a canary, a pig or a human child, scientific evidence is growing stronger by the day that early trauma and stress causes life long problems which radically affect social behaviour, life skills, emotions, intelligence and ultimately survival and life span in all animals.

Experiments on piglets showed the effects of stress

Ground breaking experiments were recently conducted on 4 month old piglets (physiologically our closest relatives) in Norway, the results of which reconfirmed what ethologists and scientists have always suspected - the grave, negative impact which stress causes on early development often cited for permanent, psychological damage.

The experiment was conducted using two groups of 6 piglets from the same litter, comprising of equal numbers of males and females, selected at random.  The only difference was Group 1 had been removed from their mothers at two weeks old and hand reared, while Group 2 were raised naturally by the parent.

The most shocking result to emerge was the effects of this early trauma and stress on social behaviour:

• The stressed group, when placed together, immediately started attacking one another and did not stop until they collapsed 35 hours later from exhaustion!
• The unstressed group remained calm and friendly and showed no signs of aggression whatsoever.

The tests also revealed:

• The stressed piglets were unable to solve simple tasks and showed poor memory retention, while their lack of confidence prevented them escaping from life threatening situations.
• The unstressed piglets showed remarkable confidence, intelligence, memory retention and problem solving skills

Lack of suitable role models

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Poor  parenting, stress and the absence of a suitable role model in early childhood has also been the background of some of the worlds most notorious serial killers, such as the likes of  Moses Sitole, Geofrey Dama and Ted Bundy, to name a few.

Elephant rage - almost always caused by early trauma and stress

So it’s not surprising that behaviourists are now discovering that elephant rage, which claims the lives of about 500 people a year, is the result of early trauma. Animals, unlike humans, are affected by stress in more subtle ways which is not always obvious or detectable until the lid comes off the pressure cooker and a life is lost.

The young offspring of culled elephants are often spared and shipped off to reserves, zoos and circus’s where they appear well adjusted and happy. However this is not so, because these very same, cute baby animals, when older and ‘for no apparent reason’, seem to lose their heads, attacking and killing their care givers without warning.  But these attacks are never without a reason and are probably due to mounting and all consuming inner torment.
And when these deadly rampages were analyzed, it was found all the ‘killer elephants’  had been severely traumatized as little ones, having lost their mothers under horrific circumstances, and then adding to their misery and stress, they were deprived of the loving care and parenting of a  mother.

Attacks between elephants and rhinos

And even more revealing are the violent clashes between elephants in reserves targeting rhinos, of which 36 have been viciously attacked and killed in one South African game park alone. According to conservationists, the gang of young elephants had uncharacteristically provoked the rhino population since they were introduced.

The unprecedented attacks were carried out by the same orphaned elephants whose parents had been culled in the early 1990s in an effort to control the burgeoning population in Kruger National Park. And as these youngsters had matured, so had they become more aggressive, with the attacks escalating in number.

A park ranger who witnessed an attack described an elephant knocking a rhino over, trampling it and driving a tusk through its chest in a violent rage. The ranger was shocked by the violence and believed the killing was purposeful and brutal in the extreme as the rhino was ripped into pieces, which is totally uncharacteristic and abnormal behaviour.
Following the rapid demise of the rhino population in the park, a fascinating experiment was undertaken. Six adult elephant bulls were introduced to the park, in the hope they would restore law and order. Incredibly the young animals’ deviant behaviour returned to normal in the presence of adult role models. And while this story appears to have a happy ending, no one can be sure of long term effects of the trauma these youngsters experienced early on in their lives.

Care for your children - both human and animal

And if there is a lesson to be learnt, it is for us to take great care of our precious children and companion animals when they are young and vulnerable, because the negative and permanent impact of trauma and stress on their lives is even more critical than we ever suspected.

Once again we must remind ourselves that our animals are not black boxes, devoid of feelings and emotions, but rather highly intelligent, sentient beings capable of all the emotions we experience.