Feature:
These Birds Remember Their Human Enemies
“Antarctica travelers, take note: do not mess with the brown skua.
Researchers from South Korea studying birds in Antarctica have discovered that the brown skua can recognize humans & flag them as enemies.
Avian enthusiasts might not be that surprised to learn another species is being recognized for its impressive cognitive abilities. They may already be aware that crows have the intelligence & ability to learn who we are & warn others if they know we’re not around as friends.
...the brown skua has had relatively little experience when it comes to interacting with us, & our encounters with them have only been through the growing development of research stations there over the past few decades...
...During the study, researchers from South Korea investigating their breeding habits on King George Island visited their nests once a week to check on eggs & chicks.
They explained in a statement that to test if the birds were identifying individual researchers they would approach the nests in a pair wearing identical clothing that included someone who had been to the nests & someone who had not. Then they would separate & walk in opposite directions. They found that each time, the skua parents whose nests had been invaded would follow & attack the person who had been to there, but never followed the other person...
The researchers posed 2 theories about how these birds are able to recognize us – they’ve had enough encounters with us over time to learn to discriminate, or more likely, they’ve just always been exceptionally smart.
‘It is amazing that brown skuas, which evolved & lived in human-free habitats, recognized individual humans just after 3 or 4 visits. It seems that they have very high levels of cognitive abilities,’ said Won Young Lee, a researcher from the Korea Polar Research Institute...”
Alicia Graef
April 3/2016
care2.com
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