Can animals be caring and compassionate

As the owner of a couple of dogs I have often contemplated the question of whether or not animals are capable of acting beyond pure instinct, and if so, to what degree.I received this e-mail today showing a crow taking care of an orphan kitten. The Crow and the Kitten I have received other similar e-mails in the past.It does seem to me that animals are capable, in an animal like way, of acting compassionately and even with a degree of altruism.Any comments?

I suppose that when I think about instinct I mean the instinct for survival. I think a lot of people look at pets and think that they bond to humans out of their need to be fed and feel secure. I agree that that does play a large part in their behaviour but I also think it goes beyond that.I think though, what interested me in this particular video is that you have a totally wild crow seemingly showing empathy and a sense of connection and fondness that likely surprises us. It can't be something that has rubbed off from humans as it might be argued in the case of a pet.Here is a very short bit on the intelligence of chickens I realize that intelligence is not the same thing as emotion or altruism but I think that if animals are more intelligent than we have previously thought then they are more likely to be capable of emotion and/or altruism.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

I think that there are behaviours that go beyond instinct such as the guy who risks his life to save someone else. The natural instinct would be for survival but we are able to rise above instinct.In this case we have a crow that is attracted to, feeds and cares for a young kitten. That is unusual and I think that this particular crow seems to have risen to something that is beyond his instinctive norm.

That makes no sense. In order for someone to have reproductive success it is necessary for them to survive in the first place. Obviously if someone altruistically gives up their life then their future reproductive success is zero.I don't see any evolutionary advantage in what the crow, or the gorilla for that matter, have for displaying what appear to be similar emotional behaviour as humans.The whole thing also raises the question of how far down the chain does this go. Can a fish experience compassion? How about a cockroach?Edited by GDR, : No reason given.Edited by GDR, : typo

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Yes and no. I contend that our natural instinct is the survival instinct but that our natural instinct can be adjusted by influences in our lives so that it does become more or less instinctive to do the unselfish thing for the benefit of someone else. There does seem to be a great many people who do harm to their own and a great many people do good for those who are not of their own.It seems to me that if you are going to make the argument that it is about maintaining your blood line then the only ones that would be considered 'one of your own' would be those in your own gene pool. Isn't that about being indoctrinated to overcome your natural instinct? Once again yes and no. I agree the paternal instinct can be strong but it also seems to end when the offspring mature and go off on their own. I know when we took our pup back to visit its mother there appeared to be zero recognition. This seems to be normal for all animals other than humans. If they lose the parental instinct for their own offspring then I'm inclined to think that there is more going on than just parental instinct in the case of the crow, although maybe less so for the gorilla.Of course this is all just my opinion but it appears to me that animals, even wild ones, are capable of a degree of altruism that goes beyond their natural instinct.

People die trying to save the lives of those they don't even know. They have no idea whether they are on their side or not. People risk their lives for their pets. I'm more inclined to believe that it is a learned response. Just look at a nest of young birds fighting over every scrap of food. How about a litter of young pigs pushing aside siblings to get at one of the sow's teats.There doesn't seem to be any altruism amongst the newly born, animal or human.