So yes, animals do have a sense of family and they mourn just like we do. That gopher hunter is one sick fuck.
And yes, I am trying to "toughen up". I went hunting with a friend of mine last weekend for ptarmigan. I do not like hunting, but it's better than, say, factory farming. That is all.
I agree that gopher hunter is a sick fuck, but (Wombat may not agree) I don't think demonstrable measurable emotion exists in many animals at all, exceptions including apes, elephants and dolphins. Predators, in particular, I don't believe have much emotion at all and as for familial sense - outside of Disney, few animals and especially prey animals are capable of that level of emotion. If they were, I imagine the food chain would collapse when all the inconsolable rodents stopped breeding. I would agree that some very rudimentary emotions exist but are short term and generally contribute to handling situations. Anger and Fear, possibly, and anxiety (my cats occasionally exhibit this) but I doubt anything more complex, like Joy or Grief, exist in animals outside of the apes, elephants, dolphins.
This is where PETA loses credibility with a lot of people they probably could have convinced on, say, the fur or meat arguments. When they straight-facedly conduct a campaign saying that giraffe feel pain when you hook them and try to get humans to be sympathetic to giraffe they lose people. I don't like leghold traps and I'm not much for fur, but I do believe that the earth and it's bounty exists as a self-sustaining system and people are a part of it - it doesn't exist for our use only.