Truth is scarier than fiction

Last week we saw an argument that bad behavior leads to the development of intelligence. This is a worrying notion, since superior intelligence means an animal can commit even more sophisticated offenses. Considering all the bad behavior I have documented, the possibility of such a truly vicious circle means that we need to be watching our backs.

Or, perhaps, we should be watching the skies, because quite a lot of recent research shows that birds - especially crows and ravens - are already a whole lot more intelligent than we thought.

You might read these reports and think them just a curiosity. One recent study showed that crows can remember the color of a container with food in it up to a year later. A good memory might not seem like a threat, but if you had a good memory, you'd remember our earlier post: Crows can also remember the faces of people who have annoyed them, and can use this knowledge to teach other crows who to attack.

Another scientist has shows that wild ravens can use gestures to communicate. You may think that gestures are primitive compared to language. But before this, experts thought that only primates could do this naturally, without being taught by humans. So not only are birds more intelligent than we thought, but have a way to communicate silently when they're sneaking up on us.

Perhaps most ominously, it's been shown that crows have what scientists call a "theory of mind," meaning they can see the world from another's point of view.

Why is this a problem? Most bunnyhugging animal lovers would no doubt jump to the conclusion that this means they are empathetic and care about your feelings. But knowing what another creature knows has a very important consequence: Now you know how to deceive them. And this is exactly what the researcher saw:

Out in the wild, jays and other corvids will hide food in the ground. We experimented with them, hiding food in two types of tray — one full of pebbles which was noisy when disturbed, and another full of sand which was quiet.

If other birds couldn’t see them hiding the food because they were behind a screen, but could still hear them, the jays picked the sand and were as quiet as mice when they buried food. But if other birds were watching, or if they were on their own, they realized that it didn’t matter how noisy they were.

If the birds were being watched when they hid their food, they rushed to move it to another hiding place as soon as the other watching birds were out of sight

The same researcher has also shown crows can plan ahead better than young human children. There's also the fairly old news that they can use tools - but more recent research has shown they can use up to three tools in sequence to achieve a goal.

So these birds know whether you're watching them, can communicate stealthily, hold a grudge and pass it on to their friends, and can use technology. Also take note of this interesting fact about their strength of character: researchers in Australia found that crows are able to delay gratification, waiting up to five minutes to swap a piece of food for something better.

And crows have plenty of reasons to resent us. While most birds are beloved for their grace and beauty, crows are seen as pests. A flock of bluebirds in your backyard would be considered a magical experience; a flock of crows is a different story. Even possibly the most animal-hugging city in the country, San Francisco, uses pesticides on ravens and crows.

It's said revenge is a dish best served cold, and it's clear that these birds have both the planning skills and the moral fiber to wait for the right moment. Like I said, watch the skies.

New frontiers in bad bird behavior

Some bad animals stick to tradition: there'll always be a place for the dog who bites the mailman. But they never stop coming up with new ideas as well, as demonstrated recently in a town in Norway.

For quite some time, candles left on the graves at a cemetery in Skagen had been mysteriously disappearing. Grieving relatives even begged the thieves to stop in the newspaper - which turns out to have been pointless, because the robbers can't read. They're birds.

The culprits were identified when someone finally realized there was a connection to another problem, this time at the airport across the road from the graveyard. The runway had long been used as a tool by seagulls: they drop mollusks on the hard surface to crush the shells so they can get at the tasty meat inside. But more recently, broken glass was being found all over the runway as well.

It turns out that crows and magpies steal the grave candles, drop them on the runway to break their glass containers, then eat the wax to fatten up for the winter. Now that officials know what to look for, the evidence is clear: "We can see traces of beak marks in the candles," one said.

On the one hand, we might reassure ourselves that these birds aren't all that smart, since they can't tell which candles are edible before stealing them: Electric candles have been found blinking on the runway as well.

But on the other hand, one has to wonder if the attraction of the runway is more than the hard surface, and whether there's a more sinister plan at work here. After all, leaving glass all over the runway where it can blow out airplane tires is a good way to ensure there will be more candles to steal - by sending more people to the graveyard.

Thanks for the tip and translation to Bruce Morén-Duolljá of Animals Behaving Badly's Scandinavia bureau.

Ominous crows by Flickr user Jim Donnelly.

Animals vs Law Enforcement: on the attack

Everett, Washington sounds like a nice small city, not the kind of place where the police are constantly confronted by abuse and harrassment from the citizenry. The human citizenry, anyway. But now they've got another species to worry about, as reported by the Everett Herald:

A few days ago, the crows decided they didn't like the cops. They started swooping down on them and dive-bombing them as the officers walked from their cars into the station.

Everett police Lt. Bob Johns recently was flanked by them and "got zinged," he said.

"They're like velociraptors," he said.

The crows don't care much for rank, either -- they've gone for top brass and detectives in particular, police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.

A wildlife expert's advice was to use umbrellas for protection. This may seem like a rather lame defense, but there's a risk to retaliating against these intelligent birds, as they've already demonstrated:

At least one officer has tried using his siren to scare the crows away: They responded by decorating his car with droppings.

And in fact, when you go after crows, you're at risk of very personal revenge. A study published last year showed that crows can recognize and remember the faces of individual humans who've threatened them - and they don't keep it to themselves.

To test specific recognition of faces rather than gait, clothing or other characteristics, researchers wore a realistic mask when trapping and banding crows, an experience that the birds - to put it mildly - don't care for. Then, volunteers visited the trapping sites, some wearing that mask and some wearing other control masks the birds had not seen before. The crows' reactions clearly distinguised the different faces.

“The birds were really raucous, screaming persistently,” said one volunteer who wore the trapper's mask, “and it was clear they weren’t upset about something in general. They were upset with me.”

The crows had long memories - three years later they still remembered and reacted strongly to their enemy. And they taught their neighbors and even their children about him: crows too young to have been born at the time of the trapping knew who the bad guy was.

"Crows hold a grudge, and they are big gossips," says professor David Craig. "They spread the information around. If you're bad to one crow, many more may hear about it."


Photo of helpful warning by the inappropriately named Flickr user pleasantcrow.