By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

Do animals help each other? Do they empathise with those in trouble? When rats are abandoning the sinking ship, will they help their friends to come along?  A study at the Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan shows that rats will rescue their distressed friends from being drowned even when they’re offered chocolate instead. They’re also more likely to help when they’ve had an unpleasant swimming experience of their own.

The team devised a box with two compartments divided by a transparent partition. On one side of the box, a rat was forced to swim in a pool of water, which it strongly disliked. The only way the rodent could escape its watery predicament was if a second rat—sitting safe and dry on a platform—pushed open a small round door separating the two sides, letting it climb onto dry land.

Within a few days, the dry rats were regularly aiding their soaking companions by opening the door.  They did not open the door when the pool was dry, confirming that the rats were helping in response to others’ distress, rather than because they wanted company. Rats that had previously been soaked learned how to save their cage mates much more quickly than those who had never been put in water, suggesting that empathy drove their behaviour.

The team tested the rats by pitting chocolate against selflessness. The rats on the dry platform had to choose between two doors, one that allowed their drenched companion to escape from the pool and another that provided access to a tasty chocolate treat. The rodents chose to help their companions before going for the chocolate.

In a study done in 2011, scientists of the University of Chicago showed that if a rat is trapped in a narrow plastic tube, its free cage mate will work on the latch until it figures out how to spring the trap.

Researchers at the Champlimaud Centre in Portugal placed rats into pairs and offered them a choice: open one door and get a large food morsel for yourself. Open another and both rats receive a reward. All 15 rats tested chose the second door, making the unselfish choice.

These finds are the latest in a long line of studies which show that rats look out for each other. They will try and free stuck comrades and exhibit pain and anxiety at the sight of another rat in distress. Obviously rats don’t run rat races. Only humans do.

The human has defined natural biological instinct as one that is deeply selfish. But this seems to apply only to humans, as it is almost impossible to come across an animal, insect or bird that is completely self-centred. Even bacteria help each other survive. Ravens and crows never eat alone. Even if the amount of food is small, the bird will always give a unique cry calling other birds to come and share. When a crow baby is in trouble, all the crows will risk their lives to try and save it. A recent film on You Tube showed a rhesus macaque resuscitating another of its species which had been electrocuted at a train station in India. Its persistence and concern compared, to what humans do when they see an unknown sufferer lying on the road, should make us ashamed.

Altruism is doing good without expecting any reward or recognition. Ants and honeybees regularly sacrifice themselves for the sake of their colony.  Female bats commonly share their food with dozens of their neighbours who have had no catch that day and need nutrition.

Humans like to think of themselves as altruistic. In fact scientists claim that we are the only altruistic species; every other being driven by genetics, or the instinct for species survival, or even an insurance policy – an IOU that can be cashed when the need arises. I find this rubbish. When was the last time you did anything good without thinking of yourself? Giving money to beggars is not altruism. Donating old clothes to Goonj doesn’t count at all. Contributing to Oxfam by sending a few cheques is not it. Looking after your children, or even distant relatives, is certainly not philanthropy. When was the last time you went out of your way to help complete strangers, putting yourselves in harm’s way in the process? Would you even clean a disabled neighbour’s house? Contrast that with a cow whose own child has been taken for slaughter – and she knows it – and yet will give her milk selflessly to orphan calves; or small birds that will attack a cat in order to prevent her from reaching the nests of other birds. Dolphins, elephants, and apes are capable of forming social bonds and actually make conscious decisions to help members of their group. Recently, a group of sperm whales, about a thousand miles off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal, took in a disabled adult bottlenose dolphin. For eight days the dolphin travelled, foraged, and played with the adult whales and their calves till it found its own group. When it rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Wildlife researchers believe that altruism — defined as an act in which an animal sacrifices its own well-being for the benefit of another animal — is common and well documented behaviour. In 2008, one bottlenose dolphin came to the rescue of two beached whales in New Zealand and led them into safe waters. Without the dolphin’s guidance, the whales surely would have died. In another incident in New Zealand, a group of swimmers were first surprised when dolphins began circling around them, tighter and tighter, splashing in the water. The swimmers initially thought the dolphins were displaying aggressive behaviour, but it turned out that they were warding off sharks.

When animals live together in groups, there is naturally competition for food, nest sites and mates. In such a situation, one might expect the worst to come out in the animal, in terms of trying to take the best and most food and to put other individuals between themselves and a predator. Yet many animals act in ways that help one another: a ground squirrel, spotting a hunting hawk, stands tall and gives a shrill alarm call, potentially drawing the hawk's attention to itself; a lioness allows cubs, that are not her own, to suckle alongside her cubs; a honeybee comes to the defence of its hive by stinging an encroacher, an act which proves fatal to the bee. Why should animals place the interests of another creature before their own, even to the point of suicide?

The altruistic part of the brain is defined by two regions: the temporoparietal junction is involved in understanding how another might be feeling and seems to be linked to charitable giving. The anterior cingulate gyrus has been associated with empathy. Other species, especially primates, share very similar brain networks. The problem is that humans use that part of the brain less and less. And animals, as their world shrinks, use it more and more.

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