Strange question.

I'm no naturalist, but I would hazard a guess that most animals DO NOT die of old age in the wild. As soon as they show signs of slowing down, they are usually the ones that are taken down by the predators. The old and the young are easy prey.

I am not sure what you mean by dying of old age-- there is always an immediate cause of death. It seems to me that an burrowing or tree climbing animal could probably stay away from predators it's whole life and die of some other cause. Like the elephant they just have a way not to be heavily predated (elephants just being too big and communal to get killed by anything but people). I imagine great apes would also have a good chance of going to some cause associated with old age.

Where are you getting your information on the causes of death of all of these animals? Do you have predation statistics, or are you just making assumptions?

NeuroFizz said:

Where are you getting your information on the causes of death of all of these animals? Do you have predation statistics, or are you just making assumptions?

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I'm basing it on my years of watching Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

RumBucuresti said:

i have no wild life knowledge outside of the discovery channel and animal planet at all really

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Then you're probably more knowledgable than the average person, who uses television to keep up with sports, which celebrity is fighting bulimia and who's getting voted off the island this week.

As a general rule, predation and disease will keep most animals from enjoying their "Golden Years", but I'm sure there are some exceptions. Let's just say there's not much of a market for 401ks and IRAs within the animal kingdom.

Of course even animal documentaries follwo the 'if it bleeds, it leads' motto. Not so much on chimps dying of polio and anteaters copping it in their sleep and only being scavenged after death. Realistically we haven't the faintest notion how most wild animals die.

The problem with the line of thought here is one of anthropomorphism. We're looking at non-human animals and making assumptions based on what the end of life is like for us. Yes, predation is a major cause of death in wild species of animals, but so is disease, injury, starvation, lack of water, exposure to the elements, and things like that. I don't believe one can think in terms of "dying of old age" in most non-human animals since it presents a problem of operational definition. One can look at a species and calculate things like the average age of a population (provided there is a clear measure), average lifespan, reproductive age ranges, maximum ages at death, and things like that. Since non-human animals don't have health care, and they don't have the kinds of protection from the elements and from harm, as compared to humans, talking about "old age" doesn't mean even close to the same thing. Also, getting back to the non-human animals, one would have to distinguish between predation and cleaning up sick (those that are dying from physical problems rather than predation) and dead animals by scavengers and the like.

I hope this helps.

Actually no, it gave me a headache. But essentially what you said is, animals don't normally die of old age. Right? Kind of what everyone else said.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Actually no, it gave me a headache. But essentially what you said is, animals don't normally die of old age. Right? Kind of what everyone else said.

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But he said it so much smarter. *swoons*

Shadow_Ferret said:

Actually no, it gave me a headache. But essentially what you said is, animals don't normally die of old age. Right? Kind of what everyone else said.

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No, the concept of death via old age is a human construct and can't really be applied to the study of non-human animals. Sorry about the headache. Don't let it slow you down so the predators catch you. (I don't use emoticons, so I'll just say this is my attempt at humor).

I think there is a chance that the gazelle can only die of old age - it just means theyve been able to run fast enough they can go to the grave peacefully.

BUT medically everyone dies of heart failure - the heart stops pumping thus the beat stops then your dead. We just have all these nifty little things called a Zoll LifePak 12 that zaps the heart back to life. Even if you survived the inital cardiac arrest - you may not survive the following cardiac arrest once you see the bill for it.

NeuroFizz said:

No, the concept of death via old age is a human construct and can't really be applied to the study of non-human animals. Sorry about the headache. Don't let it slow you down so the predators catch you. (I don't use emoticons, so I'll just say this is my attempt at humor).

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I've had some dogs that got pretty old and died. Nothing ate them. That's... kind of like dying of old age, right?

No one and nothing dies of old age. Each death - yes, all "natural causes" too - is due to specifics. Whether it's renal failure, heart failure, aneurysm, or pneumonia - it is not the age that kills us. There is always a specific cause or causes.

beezle said:

I've had some dogs that got pretty old and died. Nothing ate them. That's... kind of like dying of old age, right?

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Actually pets come the closest to humans in this regard because we lavish them with protection, medical care, and an assured, healthy diet. Yet, it is upon these domesticated animals that we also lavish the most insidious anthropomorphism--because they become family members.

Yes. Despite my comments, which are not anything close to pet bashing, I love my two dogs (yellow lab and rescued greyhound).

Are we just dallying with semantics now? Old age. Not old age. Natural causes. Human constructs.

Whether it is anthorpomorphosizing or not, if an animal doesn't die of predation, disease, starvation, etc. but dies from its body just finally running out of steam, is that not dying of "old age" or "natural causes?"

But, the OP's question was, Is it possible that a NON predator species can die of OLD AGE.

I answered no because there are so many other ways for the creatures to die. Reaching that ripe old retirement age is very rare in nature. Semantics aside, isn't this the case?

Shadow_Ferret said:

Are we just dallying with semantics now? Old age. Not old age. Natural causes. Human constructs.

Whether it is anthorpomorphosizing or not, if an animal doesn't die of predation, disease, starvation, etc. but dies from its body just finally running out of steam, is that not dying of "old age" or "natural causes?"

But, the OP's question was, Is it possible that a NON predator species can die of OLD AGE.

I answered no because there are so many other ways for the creatures to die. Reaching that ripe old retirement age is very rare in nature. Semantics aside, isn't this the case?

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Families attribute death in the elderly to old age when, in fact, there is going to be some underlying pathology or injury. We rationalize this as the body just wearing out. It makes it more acceptable, in my mind. The chances of such pathological or injury conditions developing increase in the elderly, which is part of the aging process. Anyone studying causes of mortality in non-human animals would likely look specifically for the underlying pathology or injury. So, while they may find some cases of unknown causes, that data set would probably be really small, and I doubt they'd call it "old age."

Yes, this is partly semantic. Do non-human animals suffer the same age-related susceptibility to pathological conditions as humans? Yes. Do they die of aging alone? No really, and neither do we, although convincing exceptions can probably be found.

I think the original question assumed that predation would not allow animals to die of old age (at least that is the way I originally interpreted it), and that isn't true. Many animals die of non-predation related causes. I just object to it being called "old age" for reasons stated in other posts.

RumBucuresti said:

I would have thought mostly all zoo animals died of the closest thing to animal old age (with the exception of vetinary intervention for reasons of ill health due to....well.....old age?) by that i mean one would expect a Wildebeest to live far longer in a zoo than it would in the wild, the main reason being of course it is protected from predation. Perhaps i have misunderstood the point you made as this is a difficult subject to discuss as i asked a general question with very little by way of guidelines, kind regards and i appreciate your replies!

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This is not necessarily true. Wild animals in captivity can be exposed to risks not normally found in their natural habitats, such as viral infections and even psychological issues. Here's an example:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_Elephants.html

The findings from the demographic data startled the researchers. They found that Asian elephants in European zoos typically live about 15 years, only half as long as elephants in timber camps. Asian elephants can live as long as 65 years in the wild, the researchers said.

I think the when people say "old age" they are referring to dying by any circumstance which wouldn't have been an issue previous to their current rate of genetic decay. I would imagine most intelligent adults (which I will in this instance I will assume, perhaps fool-hardly, that the majority of this forum is) are aware that animals don't die from from simply being alive to long. "Old age" is just an easy way to refer to organ failure or something of that nature. A researcher could mostly be able to find out what percentage of a species die from some kind of bodily failure rather then predation (I'm assuming we can safety refer to disease as the result of predators, what with bacteria being animals and all.). What everyone's saying is probably a pretty safe bet, I don't think that many animals live until a ripe old age, since that's a pretty new thing even to humans, and not all of our societies even enjoy that particular advantage.