I think we need to be careful about what we define as "empathy". Up til now I've been using the term fairly generally and possibly quite wrongly. I don't think our instinctive emotional response is true empathy. Feeling sad or distressed is a natural response many animals obviously have. But I think true empathy is having the ability to put yourself in someone else's mind and imagine what they are feeling (or not feeling in the case of a deceased loved one).
So, the apparent distress and emtional response of an ape for her dead offspring is not empathy, but the apparent distress and emotional response of a human for her dead offspring is?
Based on what scale? Can you verify that to me in any other way than "it's obvious" or "I don't think it is the same"?
I agree it's a really difficult question, but if humans have an instinctual emotional response, and animals a similar instinctual emotional response, and you call it empathy in a human but an automatic response in an animal, why the difference?
I'm certain that humans can do more with their thoughts and feelings - but that's not empathy. Animals can plan their escapes and forsee a future outcome based on their observations - crows and squirrels and others for example have been seen using "tools" as WE would define them.
I think this "automatic response" idea is from a starting point of "animals are less than humans" which is the modern equivalent of "animals are automata" of two hundred years ago.