She thinks this behavior might extend to other human-wildlife interactions, like those involving African and Asian elephants that have learned to use their tusks or logs to burst through electric fences surrounding crops. Benson-Amram studies how animals respond to their environments. “It’s really wonderful to see data showing that likely this is what’s happening.”ĭr. The human-bird innovation arms race is “a really exciting idea,” said Sarah Benson-Amram, a behavioral and cognitive ecologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “Neighbors on other side of highway suggested sticks. “Bricks seemed to work for a while, but cockies got too clever,” one survey respondent reported. As the birds prevailed over bricks and rocks, 61 percent of the residents who protected their bins changed their strategies. Being humans, 64 percent of the trash-can owners learned about new methods of bin protection from other people. In the survey, 172 residents reported guarding their garbage. Klump, the first author of a study published Monday in Current Biology, and a behavioral ecologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany. It’s “evidence that people socially learn from other people which protection methods to use, and that they are geographically clustered,” said Barbara C. In humans’ efforts to protect their garbage, they’re showing cultural transmission and innovation, too. ![]() ![]() That cultural transmission, it turns out, goes both ways. The clever birds learn about the behavior from one another, a type of cultural transmission. They open the lids using an innovative combination of prying up the front, lifting the lid, walking around to the side of the can and flipping the lid back. The cockatoos, which are native to Australia and frequent the suburbs, were already known to be trash-bin bandits. It’s between humans and sulfur-crested cockatoos, and the battle is over the trash. In Sydney, Australia, the innovation arms race is real.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |