This is such an interesting question! 

I couldn't resist joining the thread , even if wild life is not at all my field, but I hope to learn some, with you!

As I first quicly read your question, dear Marcel, my first (instictive) thought was that I should add that modern society is more and more a sort of Wildlife society, in its particular field, and consequently, we would find some reflects of what happens in wildlife, in our modern society)

I have been taking care of a severely handicapped cat for over 5 years. When I first chose my sweet Ygnatz, to bring home, he was the most adorable little white furred, blue-eyed kitten, rejected by his mother, drinking milk from a nice female dog in the neighbourhood. For the first few months I noticed nothing unusual about him, except for the fact that he only drank dog milk and that he was always so tremendously close to his little black brother, both leaning back-to-back.  When I picked him up to bring home, the little black brother cryed so much and poor Ygnatz also got so sad and confused, that I decided to bring them both. I bottle-fed them both with dog milk and still noticed nothing unusual from theirt behaviour, unless for that unusual close friendship. 

Only two months later, when I refurnished the living room, the poor animal was totally lost, and banged his head repeatedly into the new furniture. I realized that he is totally blind. The vet told me that blue-eyed white cats usually are blind, or deaf, or both... (and he now has also some hearing difficulties) . 

But I find that he is quite a happy animal, and hope that there is no suffering at all.

So there you go for a handicapped animalstory. The black cat (also a male), acts like a guide to his poor brother. The neighbourhood female dog adopted them both, and so did I, and I don't regret it, because they are so sweet. The only problem is that I can't move the furniture, nor change any house habit. All the rest was nasturally solved.

I don't know what would be of him, were he in the Wilderness, but I do know that he was lucky to have a female dog around, and a sweet concerned little brother.

Handicapped wildlife is notoriously very short living in nature to nearly make impossible to quantify. The situation changes totally for individuals under human control. To what degree the handicaps an individual should bear to be considered counter-selected? 

Individuals under human control eat food from the human table. It can cause human diseases. Wild animals eating natural food are much more healthier.

What about mother instinct in wildlife? Do wildlife mothers disciminate between offspring on the basis of handicaps? But then why intraspecific and even interspecific adoption exists? 

Mother instinct is natural and innate, dear Marcel!

In most of the cases, the handicapped animals are short living though under human control they can live to certain period. I want to convey my message here. We need to help the innocent and dumb animals more by spread our helping hands to those because they can not speak about their pains and sufferings.

Is natural selection not protecting sick animals disconnected from reincarnation where it is assumed that people can come back as an animal and therefore sick animals are protected by those that believe in reincarnation?

I would not venture outside science.

 I have seen handicapped wildlife surviving perfectly well, if their handicap does not affect their movement overmuch: I monitored a White Crested laughing Thrush living with its group and actively participating for over 2 years: it lacked a leg. In the case of rhesus macaques, it is common to see members of the group lacking a limb. when they get sick, they tend to drop out of the group and stay in a safe place. For many years, our home was their 'safe place', so we saw them recover first hand from internal ailments, eg fevers etc, although we could not be certain they actually had fever since we did not touch them; also after fights, they would be with us while their wounds healed. Less than a week ago, our dog caught a barking deer by one of its thighs, i had to rush over and free the deer, it ran away and is now limping about as usual. I suppose it will take a few days to heal, although there was lots of blood about where the incident occurred.

In butterflies, it is common to find individuals with their wings damaged, although in other insects, this is not often the case.

I have seen a blackcap (a small European passerine) with one leg during two consecutive years on our terrace attracted by a feeder.

Family had a caged song trush for ca. 15 years that at the end developed a cancer. He was occasionally fed with human-produced meat, but his lifespan was unusually long.

I am nearly sure that there is suffering in wildlife animals especially when they are handicapped or sick & my view is drawn from observing domestic tamed animals. I really wonder about the depth of their pains. Since they are largely unassisted by humans, then their death becomes highly probable. 

This is such an interesting question! 

I couldn't resist joining the thread , even if wild life is not at all my field, but I hope to learn some, with you!

As I first quicly read your question, dear Marcel, my first (instictive) thought was that I should add that modern society is more and more a sort of Wildlife society, in its particular field, and consequently, we would find some reflects of what happens in wildlife, in our modern society)

I have been taking care of a severely handicapped cat for over 5 years. When I first chose my sweet Ygnatz, to bring home, he was the most adorable little white furred, blue-eyed kitten, rejected by his mother, drinking milk from a nice female dog in the neighbourhood. For the first few months I noticed nothing unusual about him, except for the fact that he only drank dog milk and that he was always so tremendously close to his little black brother, both leaning back-to-back.  When I picked him up to bring home, the little black brother cryed so much and poor Ygnatz also got so sad and confused, that I decided to bring them both. I bottle-fed them both with dog milk and still noticed nothing unusual from theirt behaviour, unless for that unusual close friendship. 

Only two months later, when I refurnished the living room, the poor animal was totally lost, and banged his head repeatedly into the new furniture. I realized that he is totally blind. The vet told me that blue-eyed white cats usually are blind, or deaf, or both... (and he now has also some hearing difficulties) . 

But I find that he is quite a happy animal, and hope that there is no suffering at all.

So there you go for a handicapped animalstory. The black cat (also a male), acts like a guide to his poor brother. The neighbourhood female dog adopted them both, and so did I, and I don't regret it, because they are so sweet. The only problem is that I can't move the furniture, nor change any house habit. All the rest was nasturally solved.

I don't know what would be of him, were he in the Wilderness, but I do know that he was lucky to have a female dog around, and a sweet concerned little brother.

Cases reported by Peter and Marcel are possibly exceptions for lack of predators or because happening in urban environments. In the rainforest or savannah survival of the fittest is the rule and no exception lives long . Though my previous question remains without answer: to what degree the handicaps an individual should bear to be considered counter-selected? (e.g. lack of one ear, or one leg)

I had a cat who adopted and raised my dog's litter of 9 puppies. One of the puppies was brain-damaged, but the cat didn't discriminate. All of the puppies, including the handicapped one became great at hunting mice.

I often happen to closely observe packs of stray dogs. I noticed that animals handicapped are part of the pack in all respects.

Francesco, I live on a forest estate in the Himalaya, we have the entire complement of predators available in the area, so certainly my observations are not based in an urban environment! :)

The question is about handicapped wild animals life "But the condition of normal wild life is such that, though government is trying to stop killing animals by law and orders but I don't think it is worth even today many many wild animals was killed for meat even in my village. In case of handicapped animals it will be targeted very first the situation will change only by self realization. "until or unless self realization take place no laws can stop them"

It depends on what way they are handicapped, if it is related to survival instincts then its very unlikely animal will survive.

Regards,

Bhushan Poojary

Are animals that are reared by humans and then released (mentally) handicapped?  

Ultimately no one survives, all eventually become handicapped, so it is even among all animals, human, wild or not.  In the meantime, as Prabhakar eloquently expresses:  "handicapped animals...targeted...situation will change only by self realization." 

Yes, CJ , as the famous French writer and phiylosopher, Albert Camus would say:

«Nous sommes tous condamnés à mort» / We are all condemned to death.»

In this sense, Nature has its own cruel ways, that includes maiking us all sorts of convicts...

What should we say on nature's cruelty towards the weakest creatures?

Yes Marcel! Handicapped individuals occur more often in domesticated animals than in wild life animals. This is because the domesticated animals are partly supported by human in helping in getting food . But the wild animals have to find their food by their effort. We often see handicapped dog, cat, cattle or bird which survive for many years. In the wild also we often see a crow one eye blind or one leg or a dog similarly handicapped can survive for pretty long time. In the case of handicapped carnivores like tiger and lion the hunting ability is crippled and become man eaters. Jim Corbett amply supported this theory in the case of tiger and lion. In our farm, an ox, a good breed who lost one hind leg, lived for many years as we fed it.  So, the chance of survival for long in domestic animals is  more than in wild animals.

Hi Maria, thanks for quoting Camus in the original.  I find nature on the contrary not to be cruel, but miraculously life-affirming at every turn, even in death.

Regarding the original question, I think that solitary animals tend not to survive if they are injured, but those that live in groups, eg. monkeys, etc, benefit from communal living and are able to live longer even with handicaps. Thus, finding food, warning of attack, escape, etc all become easier if one is living in a family.

The nature has its ways of survival. I believe everything living is designed and made to live. with corrections and adapting to the situation. my opinion to the question is yes it survives. Lives how long than the average is a matter of study. Although i am not an expert on this subject. 

There is of course the spiritual or philosophical approach: What is life and what is a handicap? Each specific living being has its specific talents and therefore also its handicaps not being able to do everything all the time. For instance, can anybody do everything or live in any environment? If you are reared in culture A/with species A can you properly survive in culture B/with species B, and if so, in what conditions? Some are more or less handicapped in this respect, or not?

Thus, the definition of a handicap is environment-specific or population-specific or species-specific, or community-specific, or.... ?

Thus, the defintion of a handicap is a relative concept?

Example:

A living being A can be defined as handicapped in environment A (e.g. a person that starts to learn a new language in a new country, and therefore being handicapped in communication) and not handicapped in environment B ( e.g. a person that speaks the language of the country in which (s)he lives, and therefore not being handicapped in communication)?

Yes, dear Marcel. I see your point of view.

In this particular case of handicapped in wild life, I also believe that we should restart or rethink the concept of wild-life.

There is certainly a new third environment to be considered. There are more and more wild stray creatures closer to urban societies, and they develop their own new concept of living environment. 

I am of course considering the huge community of stray cats and dogs, or stray racoons that live on garbage and whastes from human societies. Even your little handicapped bird from the nearby forest, or the strange seagull that often comes to visit my balcony, or even the urban pigeons that pollute my city.

They are all half-wild-half - domesticated, and this minorizes any of their handicap ailments, from the proximity with humans.

Dear Maria,

Yes! Humans or human impacts influencing non-humans happen everywhere. I fed a pigeon on a terrace yesterday. The pigeon obviously did not have what people might call wildlife behavior

My seagull is wild, for sure!

He first came, probably for warmth and cat food. He was half-skinned, very much looking like a half-supermarket-chicken, and  I fed him a tuna-fish can, because I thought the olive-oil would help . We all hate him, and he hates us . He wants our food, but wants us out of his sght. He got better and sometimes pays a complimentary visit, but still hates company. We should respect. At night, I leave more tuna fish and dried pieces of cod fish and bread, and this disapears, overnight. 

Will planet Earth become one big open-door zoo, e.g. the living conditions and survival of non-human beings will mainly depend on the goodwill of humans and their activities?

In my home town Lisbon feeding pigeons is forbidden by law. They were so many, and they distroyed the building roofs, and their guano mixed with rain, transformed our side-ways and stairways into huge surfing or skying lanes.

Bird and bat guano is a rich substrate for the growth of pathogenic microbes. Epidemics of histoplasmosis, caused by Histoplasma capsulatum, are reported in USA. In the Gangetic West Bengal, where tropical conditions prevail with huge numbers of bats and pigeon droppings deposited, several cases of histoplasmosis are reported  and causal fungus Histoplasma capsulatum is isolated from bat habitat with huge deposit of bat guano. In Lisbon, the guano deposit should be studied for any pathogenic microbes.

To add to page 3's thread, handicaps may turn into adaptations.  In other words, by our wills to live (e-volution, out of the will?), all our adaptations may have resulted from perceived handicaps.  For example, one adaptation for a newborn deer is by not having any scent, avoiding detection, etc.

Please look at the following reference:

Korn, H. and Braak, L.E.O (1987): Survival of wild gerbils (Mammalia: Rodenia) parasitizes by larvae of the blowfly Cordylobia antropogphaga (Insecta: Diptera): Z.f. Säugetierkunde 52: pp. 56 - 57.

If you cannot obtain a copy, send me an Email ([email protected]) and I will send you a scan of the paper:

In this study I did not find any evidence that the larvae (up to 6 in an animal) were killing the animals or have any significant other negative effect. In spite that the infestation was impressive. If you compare the size of the blowfly larvae and its rodent host, imagine that a human beeing has several animal the size of a hedgehog growing in its flesh! I cannot imaginge how a human beeing could survive it but the rodents did.

From other field studies with small mammmals I life trapped heavily wounded animals (broken legs, cut open belly) that survived in the wild and were re-trapped. But the sample sizes are too small to draw up general conclusions.

There are never advantages without disadvantages!

To survive that is "to turn disadvantages into advantages and to avoid advantages turn to disadvantages".

Only survive "Associations for Reciprocal and Mutual Sharing of Advantages and DisAdvantages" (ARMSADA).

http://armsada.eu

Dear Marcel,

of course not. I don´t know any wild living creature without exoparasites. They are sometimes handicapped, in most cases they have adopted and arranged with the infestation.

Perhaps invertebrates attached to vertebrates initially called parasites might also be beneficial, e.g. in relation to stimulation of the vertebrate immune system/natural vaccination?

Each infestation will stimulate the immune system, but I would not name this natural vaccination. Some times these infects kill the animals and in such cases the term benefit is a bit strange.

Real benefit can be found if a cooperation is manifested like the flora in intestinum etc.

I think it might be helpful to have clear definitions in mind for what constitutes a handicap or disability: definitions found here (http://www.pediatrics.emory.edu/divisions/neonatology/dpc/Impairment%20MX.html) might be a good starting point, although are written in a very human-centric perspective and perhaps others have alternative ideas?

"Impairment: any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function.

Disability: any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being.

Handicap: a disadvantage for a given individual that limits or prevents the fulfillment of a role that is normal."

In a sense the question becomes perhaps one of the magnitude of the effect? Can one consider an individual with a gastrointestinal parasite or malaria as disabled or handicapped? Is permanence important or can one be temporarily disabled? Things get complicated and potentially sensitive, because the terms are used commonly in day to day language. Whether or not this is what the original question had in mind I am not sure, but Amotz Zahavi's handicap principle came to mind, where a handicap might serve as an honest indicator of quality, for example in sexual selection theory.

To add a few examples to what Peter Smetacek mentioned above about social animals perhaps being able to better survive with Impairments/disabilities/handicaps;

In many habituated wild primate's living in large groups (30+ individuals) that I have had the opportunity to work with, I have seen individuals surviving for multiple years with seemingly rather serious injuries (e.g., multiple sooty mangabeys surviving with an eye missing due to an infection, a white faced capuchin monkey with a missing hand and also a chimpanzee with a missing hand). All of these groups were not being fed by humans or being actively protected from predators, but offhand I wouldn't be able to say whether these individuals reproduced so hard to estimate fitness.

I attach a few other examples from the literature, where compensatory behaviors by individuals and groups are discussed, but if there were enough data available, it would be interesting to look at how sociality impacts survivorship for individuals with disabilities.

Thanks for the interesting discussion!

Article Disability, Compensatory Behavior, and Innovation in Free-Ra...

Article Monkeys with disabilities: Prevalence and severity of congen...

Article Healthy baboon with no upper jaw or nose: An extreme case of...

Article Effects of Manual Disability on Feeding Skills in Gorillas a...

Be frank, wildlife ecology not all my field but I just would like to share a picture took two weeks ago at one of the East Java National Park, Indonesia. This monkey is handicap because he only have one leg, but being taking good care people live around the area and given a name "Butong".

Yes, they can. ALL animals are handicapped to some extent. They have some kind of parasites, disease, they were raised in a bad year and didn't grow as much as others, they have lost appendages and so on. Examples here are often about people feeding and caring for the handicapped animals, but they are common in nature as well, and not cared for. Of course, those that handle the handicaps best leave more descendents.

More than once I have observed gemsbok (Oryx) in the wild with a single horn; the latest was a loner; it could certainly live on, but whether the unicorn could defend exclusive reproductive rights against his peers seems doubtful. 

Growing up in Killingworth, Connecticut, USA, I came upon a large wood turtle, Glyptemys insculpta, that was missing both front legs.  Such a sad sight.  I assumed it was doomed to die soon.  However, over a period of at least 10 years, I continued to see that turtle now and then, and it was doing just fine.  Who knows for how many years it had survived in that condition before our first encounter.

Yes these turtles are real survival artists. I think this depends on the slow metabilics and the strategy of protecting themselves by their shell. Imposing example!

Can they survive? Sometimes, in the short run - - maybe even long enough to reproduce.  In the long run, they (and we) are all dead.

Dear Matt,

surviving means still acting after an insult. Our living time is defined by the medium time which our species acquires. Of course we have finite time intervals on earth.

Dear Marcel,

I´ve no idea and wish to prolongue our lives to eternity. And I´m glad, that some times earth is cleaned from the old humans.

Yes, they can - in general.

I observed already two times game animals with missing legs: once a wild boar, once a roe deer. The wounds healed well and the wild boar even had offspring.

I assume these injuries were due to traffic accidents or poorly done hunts. Nevertheless, in our area large predators are missing - therefore I do not know how these animals would do under "normal" conditions.

Marcel, this last hunting season a friend of mine shot a very large buck white-tailed deer.  When he was removing the meat, he noticed that this buck had completely broken one of its femurs years ago, and the 2 ends had fused together side-by-side.

Effectively that would have rendered that leg significantly shorter than the other.  And there had to be months when that deer could put very little weight on that leg.  Yet it survived in the wild without any help from humans for at least a couple of years.  When my friend shot the deer, he never noticed any kind of limp.

So there are cases of seriously damaged wildlife surviving in the wild for quite some time.

Greater Flamingos with a broken/chopped wing after impact with power lines may survive several years if they happen to fall in a suitable habitat. From individual marks I would say that surviving 5-6 years occurs quite often. This can be checked more precisely on the Tour du Valat databases, if needed.

Nicola's enlightening post on the Greater Flamingos puts me in mind of the Monarch Butterflies and how in their hazardous migrations their wings get really beat up, yet forge ahead to their destination seemingly none worse for the wear.  Compared to coddled domesticated pets not in the wild, it may be they would be more susceptible to injury, disease, etc., versus how in shape wild creatures are, particularly when needing to recover, deriving their strength from their very wildness.  In fact, a lot if not all of diseases of domesticated animals stem from being domesticated and no longer wild.

Some of the examples mentioned above are fascinating and show an amazing ability of animals in the wild to survive after injury. This fits also a few examples from my own observations of Equids (feral horses and Asiatic wild ass) who seemed to carry injuries and recover. We also see some horses that have been living for generations in the marshland of Donana N. Park, Andalusia, and they manage very well with extremely high levels of infestation from Tabanids and other blood sucking flies and ticks. (Some individuals may have hundreds on them). Yet, we had also a few cases of mortality or disappearance of animals from injuries that were seen for a while, but after a period of days or weeks, it seemed that they have not survived. So we have to remember that the survival cases have an inherent bias in them - those are the ones we are likely to find. some injured animals recover in a formidable way, however, there may be others who don't, and without a systematic, quantitative, study, we cannot estimate what percentage are the survivors and how many die after an injury (either as a direct cause, or due to higher susceptibility to predation or starvation). There are a few such studies (see examples in Jan Frederk post above) but we would need a lot more studies to get the true picture that surrounds the anecdotes we often see. Attached is a sample of flies on a Retuerta horse in Donana. The second photo shows a mare who got stuck in mud, and had we not found her on time and rescued her, she would end up like the dead stag we found nearby, also stuck in mud. 

I work at the Butantan Institute, Brazil, and have been researching malformations in snakes. The Institute receives many snakes caught in the wild but very few who have malformations, however about 2.5% (pit vipers) and 13% (rattlesnakes) at birth had some type of malformation. So I believe in wildlife animals with disability do not succeed. Of course that will depend on the type and degree of malformation.

How should Ali's remark be interpreted?

Cheers

It´s very easy, he wants to learn. A very imposing approach. Go on Ali!

I have no idea because:

- I do not work on wildlife and assume there is a fundamental difference between working on wildlife and working on captives?

- I only work with healthy animals to improve data interpretation in research?

- I have no idea what 'sick' truly means given there are millions of processes going on in each living being, so the probability that at least one process is not functioning well is quite high, e.g. how much is ignored?

Etc?

Dear Marcel,

I agree, we are overcrowded with processes which could be interpreted as sickness. But healthy organisms have redundant answers and possibilities to manage such attacks. And disabilities like lost of one leg for an animal with four feet is surely less hindering than an infect with highly aggressive virusus or bacteria.

An urgent example for Marcel´s idea is the ebola epidemic in africa originally resulting from consumption of infected but surviving animals.

I can report two interesting cases among cetaceans (whales and dolphins):

1. See Wilson & Krause (2013) Repeated Non-Agonistic Interactions Between a Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Azorean Waters. Aquatic Mammals 39: 89-96. on a malformed dolphin living among a group of sperm whales obviousely surviving. There also exist a video on this.

2. I saw a conference poster many years ago on a grey whale still traveling 1000s of miles though this individual completely lost its fluke. It remained completely unknown how this animal can travel such distances and furthermore nourish itself.

3. I have heard of a sperm whale with a broken lower jaw which unables the animal hunting and catching food on its own. The animal has to provide itself with food in any alternative way.

Hope this might help.

Michael

Dear Michael,

great examples.

Hypothesis Wilson & Krause to be outlined (?): Dolphins are social animals always swimming fast in groups. Because the handicapped dolphin cannot swim fast, (s)he joint a group from another species that swims slowly, perhaps to feel protected and to increase the chance to find food? 

The article also shows that we do not always require big sample sizes to produce a very interesting publication.

The publication on the flukeless grey whale is:

Flores de Sahagun et al. (1998) A flukeless gray whale in Laguna San Ignacio, B.C.S. Proceedings World Marine Mammal Science Conference 20.-24.01.98 in Monacco by Society for Marine Mammalogy and European Cetacean Society, pp. 43.

This flukeless grey whale was resighted in the area along a span of 9 years.

And I further found a flukeless humpback whale including video on this post:

www.facebook.com/MammiferesMarinsDeLaCoteNord/posts/490611394321265

Best, Michael

I thought this to be interesting for this topic: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2015/jan/12/blind-orangutang-released-wild-sumatra-video

Dear Francesco,

Thanks for this amazing video.

My experience with birds in the field is that, if it is a leg then they survive ok, particualrly after the leg drops off (it seems they have the ability to isolate the member and let it drop, whihc raises an immunological question!). If it is a wing, then the story is different... Birds can also survive well after laparotomy for sexing which again shows how strong their mmune system is.