This is a weird one. The one thing you will probably never think about when watching animal DVDs is romantic relationships. All the documentaries insinuate that animals mate to reproduce and that’s as far as their relationships go. And by looking at the animals in action, we are not guilty for thinking that. What we overlook, however, is the fact that they can’t talk to us to tell us how they relate. They have no Facebook account to update their relationship status, so all we have is science and, in Animals and Love, we learn that animals do have relationships.
Liz Bonnin (pictured) explores the complicated and almost unseen relationships that animals have with each other. In the first episode, she goes to the DRC to meet and study the bonobos, which are the closest extant relatives to humans. It’s Planet of the Apes all over again as the host looks for similarities in behaviour between the apes and us when love “takes over”.
The other animals that are studied include wild dogs and tamarins, and we are shown how they behave when they are head over heels for each other.
While the study shows that the love involved here is not only for mating, of interest is the fact that some animals have long-lasting relationships. The show introduces us to two elephants, Franki and ET, who have been together for a long time. They share a deep bond not only with each other, but also the man who saved and took care of them.
Penguins Dotty and Zee have been together for a decade, yet we see that it wasn’t a smooth ride for them.
So what comes after this discovery? Well, more questions will be raised including how animals deal with loneliness and death.
As a boy herding cattle, I recall seeing cows mooing at the spot where one was slaughtered. It was an uncomfortable experience because they seemed genuinely upset, even though they did not see the act or the dead animal. The elders suspected that they could smell the blood. It would be quite interesting to know what exactly they were feeling at the time.
Animals in Love airs on BBC Knowledge at 6pm every Sunday.