If by "symbols" we just mean "something that points beyond itself," a sign (not to get into semiology), I think that their use is very common among nonhumans. A smell points to the source of the smell. A bared grin points to "oh crap the alpha dog is pissed off." An event points to a future event. Animals don't live in the solipsism of the moment. It's hard to imagine any but the most rudimentary form of stimulus-response behavior that doesn't use them.
^^^ CB: "Symbol" as I'm using it is something used arbitrarily and conventionally to _represent_ something that it's not. A sign ( in English) is like gray clouds are a sign of rain. The relationship between signs and what they are connected to is not arbitrary or conventional , but natural, objectively necessary. Sign is synonymous with symptom.
French and English use "symbol" and "sign" in reverse ways. French "sign" means English "symbol", at least with the anthro terminology I'm using. Signifier and signified in French structuralism.
Non-human animals do understand lots of signs in the wild. They only learn and use symbols in "capitivity" by humans.