Crows can remember faces UW researcher finds
Crows can remember faces UW researcher finds
MICHELLE NIJHUIS; The New York Times
Published: August 27th, 2008 06:24 AM | Updated: August 27th, 2008 06:24 AM Crows and their relatives - among them ravens, magpies and jays - are renowned for their intelligence and for their ability to flourish in human-dominated landscapes.
That ability may have to do with cross-species social skills. In the Seattle area, where rapid suburban growth has attracted a thriving crow population, researchers have found that the birds can recognize individual human faces.
John Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, has studied crows and ravens for more than 20 years and has long wondered if the birds could identify individual researchers. Previously trapped birds seemed more wary of particular scientists, and often were harder to catch.
“I thought, ‘Well, it’s an annoyance, but it’s not really hampering our work,’” Marzluff said. “But then I thought we should test it directly.”
To test the birds’ recognition of faces separately from that of clothing, gait and other individual human characteristics, Marzluff and two students wore rubber masks. He designated a caveman mask as “dangerous.” For “neutral,” he chose a mask of Vice President Dick Cheney. Researchers in the dangerous mask then trapped and banded seven crows on the university’s campus in Seattle.
In the months that followed, the researchers and volunteers donned the masks on campus, this time walking prescribed routes and not bothering crows.
The crows had not forgotten. They scolded people in the dangerous mask significantly more than they did before they were trapped. The neutral mask provoked little reaction. The effect has not only persisted, but also multiplied over the past two years. Wearing the dangerous mask on one recent walk through campus, Marzluff said, he was scolded by 47 of the 53 crows he encountered, many more than had experienced or witnessed the initial trapping.
The researchers hypothesize that crows learn to recognize threatening humans from both parents and others in their flock.
Though Marzluff’s is the first formal study of human face recognition in wild birds, his preliminary findings confirm the suspicions of many other researchers who have observed similar abilities in crows, ravens, gulls and other species.