For many of us, family life is a multispecies affair—and although we don’t get to choose our relatives, we do, for the most part, get to pick our animal companions.
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- Cats have gotten a bad health rap, as new research suggests they may be beneficial to human health.
- Cats could even help to lower human risk of cancer.
- Cats may harbor T. gondii, but feline ownership does not predict risk of infection with this parasite.
News headlines over the past few years have linked cat
ownership to everything from cancer to craziness, but new studies
suggest that cats are actually beneficial to human health, and may even
reduce our risk for cancer and other diseases.
Reports in this week's issue of Biology Letters, for example,
counter the tabloid-suggested link between cats and human brain cancer.
Marion Vittecoq of the Tour du Valat research center and her
colleagues conclude that cats should not be blamed for human cancer. In
fact, studies show just the opposite.
Vittecoq told Discovery News that "according to our knowledge,
studies that have focused on the link between cancer and cat ownership
so far have found either no association at all or a reduced risk of
cancer in cat owners."
As an example, she and co-author Frédéric Thomas cite a
National Institutes of Health Study by G.J. Tranah and colleagues. It
found dog and cat owners have a reduced risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The longer the duration of pet ownership was, the less chance the
individual would suffer from this type of cancer.
Why cats and dogs may benefit human health remains a mystery,
but another study from earlier this month provides some intriguing
clues. It found that infants having pets at home suffered from fewer
respiratory tract illnesses.
"Our findings support the theory that during the first year of
life, animal contacts are important, possibly leading to better
resistance to infectious respiratory illnesses during childhood," wrote
Eija Bergroth and colleagues in the paper, published in the journal Pediatrics.
Countless other studies demonstrate the mental health benefits
of pet ownership, particularly for students, seniors and people with
chronic illnesses. In such cases, pets can provide much needed comfort
and companionship.
Cats have gotten a bad rap over the years, however, for a few
different reasons. One is based on old ridiculous superstitions, such as
how black cats are bad luck. The other, however, centers on a
scientific debate concerning cancer and the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii.
In earlier research, Vittecoq and Thomas determined that there
is a positive correlation between this parasite and incidence of brain
cancer. Cats can host this bug, and therein lies the "felines are bad
for you" media frenzy over the past several months.
But the authors themselves indicate that cats have been
mistakenly maligned, due to the other studies supporting the health
benefits of cats, the fact that the connection between the parasite and
cancer has still not been firmly established.
Thomas explained that "humans usually get infected through the
consumption of undercooked meat, especially sheep, containing asexual
stages of T. gondii" or through contact with contaminated soil
(which good hygiene remedies). Other studies show that ingestion of the
bug in contaminated water, fruit, vegetables, and raw goat milk can lead
to infection. The parasite is therefore somewhat similar to E. coli, in terms of transmission routes.
Victoria Benson of Oxford University's Cancer Epidemiology Unit, and her team also have a statement in the latest Biology Letters addressing this matter.
Benson and her team are conducting what's called the "Million
Women Study," which investigates a tremendous amount of data concerning
middle-aged women from the U.K. The scientists found zero association
with incidence of brain cancer and women living with a cat.
"This, however, does not rule out the possibility that T. gondii infection from another source may be associated with brain cancer incidence," Benson and her team write.
If that other source, which may even be another parasite, is
found, Thomas says it could "provide a means to reduce the risk of brain
cancer, particularly in countries like France where the incidence of
brain cancer and T. gondii are both high."
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Grover Krantz was onto something when he
had his remains donated to science.
A professor of anthropology, he
didn’t see why death should interrupt his life-long teaching. His body
first went to the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Center, where he contributed to the study of human decay. His skeleton was then moved to
Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, where he can be found to this
day. Back when Krantz first approached the Museum about housing his
remains, he was upfront about the catch: his bones were to stay with
those of his late Irish Wolfhounds, Clyde, Icky and Yahoo.
Krantz and his beloved companions didn’t stay behind the scenes for
long. In 2009, he and Clyde, his first and favorite dog, were put on
display in the exhibition Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake.
The position of the two skeletons, together in life and death, captures
the mutual adoration between the two species. In fact, the skeletons
were posed using a picture of Krantz and Clyde from the good old days.
Maybe you find Krantz’ final directives on the extreme side. A Washington Post piece
profiling Krantz’s life (and afterlife) suggests he had always been
known for eccentricities. Even so, life-and-death ties with pets run
deep.
A recent study published in Anthrozoös offers a novel approach to
investigating what companion animals mean to us. For the study, lead
researcher Cindy Wilson and her collaborators decided to analyze a
unique datasource: the obituaries. Over the course of three months, they
conducted a “bi-national, exploratory, content analysis of companion
animals mentioned in newspaper obituaries.” They wanted to know: when
people pass, do their obituaries make mention of a pet or pet survivor,
and are donations requested to a pet-related charity?
A scan of 11,818 obituaries in The Washington Post (Washington, DC), The Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia) and The Zurich
(Switzerland) revealed that 2.2%, or 260 obituaries, met their
criteria. Only one obituary in Switzerland mentioned an animal (in this
case, a man’s surviving cat), and all others came from the States.
Obituaries were roughly split between mentioning a pet survivor and
requesting pet-related donations. Most non-human survivors mentioned
were dogs, and the obituaries often gave the dogs’ names.
This study makes me think that many people might understand where
Grover Krantz was coming from when he decided to spend eternity with his
dogs. For one thing, the obituaries rarely used the word ‘pet.’ As the
researchers explain, “these animals have most likely been elevated to
family status…. To be listed in an obituary which is typically reserved
for conventional kin extends the concept of fictive kin to these animals
that appear in the last tribute to their human companions.” Fictive kin
refers to non-blood relatives on equal footing with biological
relatives. It seems companion animals can also serve as fictive kin.
In the obituaries, non-human animals were often listed as survivors
alongside human family members. An octogenarian is described “as being
survived by two nieces…a nephew…and a loyal canine companion, Shirley.”
Another describes a man as leaving behind “his beloved granddogs, Brie
Sherwin and Otis Huddleston. His non-furry grandchild will arrive in
May.” The obituaries also contain the other side of the coin—the
animals’ perceived response to the loss of a significant person. For
example, “He will be sorely missed by Molly, his ever-present cocker
spaniel companion.”
A study like this gives you pause. I imagine most researchers and
practitioners in my field would agree: on one hand, we try to
objectively study the inner world and workings of Canis familiaris
(whether in their own right or as they compare to other species), but
we also have personal relations with members of this species. There are
some dogs who think I am the bees’ knees, and I feel the same.
When I was a kid, I used to have a reoccurring, one-sided
conversation with my dog, Brandy. It usually took place at night when
she was stretched out under the covers, somehow taking up three-fourths
of the bed with her chihuahua-dachshund body. Before falling asleep, I’d
lay out the rules, “If you ever die, I’ll kill you.” At the time, it
seemed natural to couple such deep love with a threat. Like most dogs,
she didn’t listen.
Reference Wilson C.C., Dennis C. Turner & Cara H. Olsen (2013). Companion Animals in Obituaries: An Exploratory Study, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People , 26 (2) 227-236. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/175303713×13636846944204
About the Author: Julie Hecht is a canine
behavioral researcher and science writer in New York City. She would
really like to meet your dog. Follow on Twitter @DogSpies.
A PLOS ONE study recently confirmed what many of us already knew: dog love can be extremely similar to maternal love.
“Alloparenting,”
or adopting and caring for different species– has occurred for tens of
thousands of years (the first domesticated dog dates back to 32,000
years ago). Around two-thirds of American households have pets and spend
over $50 billion every year on their well-being.
In this study,
researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital sought to directly
compare the “functional neuroanatomy of the human-pet bond with that of
the maternal-child bond.” To do so, they had women look at photos of
their babies and their dogs, as well as babies and dogs that they didn’t
know.
“There was a common network of brain regions involved in
emotion, reward, affiliation, visual processing and social cognition
when mothers viewed images of both their child and dog,” reads the
study. The unfamiliar photos didn’t provoke the same reaction.
But
brain response to children and dogs wasn’t entirely the same: An area
of the brain vital to processing faces was activated more by a dog
picture than a child’s face, while parts of the midbrain were more
active in response to children. It may be that facial cues are more
important in human-to-dog communication, given our lack of common
language. And the midbrain areas could be vital in forming
human-to-human pair b0nds, National Geographic reports.
Although
more research needs to be done to replicate the findings, it does make
sense that we should have such important bonds with our pets.
“Pets
hold a special place in many people’s hearts and lives, and there is
compelling evidence from clinical and laboratory studies that
interacting with pets can be beneficial to the physical, social and
emotional wellbeing of humans,” said Lori Palley,
DVM, of the MGH Center for Comparative Medicine and co-lead author of
the report. “Several previous studies have found that levels of
neurohormones like oxytocin – which is involved in pair-bonding and
maternal attachment – rise after interaction with pets, and new brain
imaging technologies are helping us begin to understand the
neurobiological basis of the relationship, which is exciting.”
Joanna Rothkopf is an assistant editor at Salon,
focusing on sustainability. Follow @JoannaRothkopf or email
jrothkopf@salon.com.
Are you a crossword addict? Sudoko fan? Or maybe a bridge fiend? If so, you’ll be happy to hear that brain games—activities that demand mental problem solving—aren’t only fun, they are also good for the mind… both human AND canine.
Memory and learning ability tend to decline with age, in both people and dogs. In fact, the types of brain changes, from normal aging to diseases like Alzheimer’s, are so similar between dogs and people that dogs are used as a model to study mental decline in human aging. The good news is that brain games help reduce some age-related brain changes. While it isn’t clear yet which specific cognitive exercises work best, the general consensus is that “use it or lose it” holds as true for human and canine minds as it does for our bodies, so Fido better perk up his ears if he wants to keep track of where the bones are buried in his sunset years. To help you keep those canine cognitive wheels well greased, here are a few awesome brain boosters that most dogs rate with two paws up and a big wag of approval.
ABCs
How many toys does your dog know the names of? Increase his vocabulary by teaching him to retrieve each toy by name. Start with his two favourites, and teach him to fetch them by name one at a time, in a room with no other toys to choose from. If he isn’t a naturally motivated retriever, use lots of praise, tug, or treats to reward the good fetches. Once he knows the names of two toys, put both on the floor and ask him to fetch them one at a time. Reward correct choices with whatever turns his crank, and by continuing the game. Respond to incorrect choices by repeating the request, and eventually guiding him toward the right toy if he really needs help. If he can succeed with two, try three or more. This is really tough brain work, so expect to build up his vocabulary very gradually. If you think you might have a doggie Einstein on your hands, check out Rico, the world-famous Border Collie with a 200-word vocabulary, for ideas on how to crank it up a notch
One, two, three
Get some small healthy treats, or kibble. Hold six pieces in one closed hand, and two in the other. Ask your dog to sit, hold your hands shoulder width apart, about arm’s length from your dog, and then open your palms and say “small.” Only let him chow down if he picks the smaller group—just close your palms and start over if he picks the bigger one. You can hand him the six after he gobbles the two—as an added bonus for choosing correctly. Randomly switch up which hand has the smaller number so he isn’t just learning to choose “right” or “left.” If he’s SUCH a chowhound that he just beelines for either hand willy-nilly, make him wait a few seconds before you say “small” so he takes the time to think. The closer the quantities, the tougher the task: if he can choose correctly between four and five you may need to enroll him in a doggie PhD!
Hot-Cold
This is a top pick for lazy owners with brilliant dogs. Sit back on the couch with your choice beverage in one hand, and a handful of small healthy treats in the other. Ignore any attempts by your dog to approach you directly for food. Think of a doggie action, like walking over to the bookshelf and making contact with it. Watch her for ANY movement in the right direction, and when you spot it say “HOT!” in an excited tone, and toss her a treat, but not too close to you OR the bookshelf. Gradually hold out for movement that is closer and closer to the action on your mind, and see how she reacts. If she’s a quick giver-upper you’ll need to make it easy for her so she doesn’t quit on you. If she’s a real tryer, you can let her get frustrated and rack her brains a bit harder. If you stumble on an action that will make a neat party trick, just throw in a command once she’s good at it, and you’re set.
Earning the kibble
Do you waste time and get aggravated searching for your misplaced purse or keys? Let your dog earn some of her kibble by helping you out. Dab these items with the tiniest drop of her favourite essential oil—so little that you don’t even notice it—and teach her to find them by scent, on request. Rewarding successful search missions with a stuffed chewtoy will keep her content as you head out the door, and motivate speedy and reliable retrieves.
Ever find yourself half asleep in bed, only to realize you didn’t close the bedroom door or turn off the light? Hop online or pick up a book on “targeting and clicker training” and teach your dog to use his snout to shut the door, and his paw to flick off the light switch. If you aren’t a morning person, you may want to put him in charge of turning the lights on to get you going. And no, you cannot safely teach him to make you a coffee!
The shell game
Have your dog sit, and let him see you hide one piece of kibble under a cup on the floor. Tell him to “take it,” and when he noses or knocks over the cup let him eat the kibble it was hiding. Once he’s good at this he is ready for the shell game. Rub kibble on your fingers and along the inside of three mugs lined up in a row, so the smell of it is everywhere—this is a visual tracking game and we don’t want him cheating with his talented nose! Let him see you hide a piece of kibble under one of the mugs. Tell him to “take it” and give him the kibble when he makes the right choice, no matter how long it takes him, and no matter how many mistakes he makes. Do this many times, hiding kibble under each of the three mugs, one at a time. When he’s good at this step, slide just the kibble-hiding mug to a different spot before telling him to “take it.” This is pretty tough, and not all dogs can do it. Finally, if your dog seems gifted, try swapping two mugs and see if he can track the kibble-hiding one. This game is EXTREMELY challenging, so don’t start out working him like a grifter or you won’t get anywhere! Success at any level means he is no Forest Gump!
Interactive brain games are a fun way to socialize with your dog, while encouraging healthy intellectual exercise at the same time. If you and your pooch enjoy physical activity as much as brainwork, there are also oodles of organized dog sports—agility, tracking, and flyball, to name a few—that work your minds and bodies together. Learning to engage your dog in these activities at just the right skill level is hard brain work for you, too, so now you have lots of activities to choose from that will help keep you BOTH mentally sharp! -
Remember that tourist
video of a lion pride and a crocodile playing a deadly game of
tug-of-war with a buffalo calf? Just when the lions seemed about to
triumph the buffalo herd came charging to the rescue. If you’re like
most people you cheered when the baby buffalo got up and staggered back
to its herd. For some reason, we humans rarely root for the predator.
But if we know what’s good for us, we better start.
A recent study in the journal Science, "Status and Ecological Effects of the World's Largest Carnivores,"
finds that life without top predators is a scary prospect for the
planet—and us. 31 carnivore species weighing over 15 kilograms were
analyzed. After reviewing over 100 different surveys the authors
conclude that losing predators from ecosystems causes those ecosystems
to unravel. The effects range from an increase in pest animals,
wildfires and diseases, loss of beneficial species, rivers changing
courses, desertification and speeding up of climate change, to name just
a few.
In
contrast, the environmental and economic benefits these ecosystem
engineers provide runs the gamut—from mountain lions who keep mule deer
in check allowing plants and trees to grow to sea otters who’s appetite
for sea urchins protects kelp beds and the productivity of coastal
areas. Even with all our technology we humans cannot duplicate the
ecological services these predators provide for FREE 24/7/365 days a
year.
Tragically, more than half of these 31 carnivore species are at risk
of extinction. A growing human population, loss of habitat, loss of
prey, climate change, trophy hunting and poaching are taking a toll on
these keystone predators. And all those threats can be traced back to
one source: humans.
But if we’re the ones causing the problem we can also be the ones to
solve it. We're an innovative species capable of some pretty incredible
feats. Recognizing the problem is the first step. Encouraging our
political leaders to do something about it is the next.
According
to the study authors, “Promoting tolerance and coexistence with large
carnivores is a crucial societal challenge that will ultimately
determine the fate of Earth’s largest carnivores and all that depends
upon them, including humans.”
Please stick up for our fearsome friends. It’s for our own good.
Photos by Beth Stewart. Beth Stewart is an Associate Creative Director for Animal Planet. She
spends most of her spare time volunteering with animals, photographing
animals, advocating for animals and generally being wrapped around her
two cats’ little paws.
Zebras are obviously the chillest animals on Earth, but how did they
get that way? As it turns out, their signature stripes may not have
evolved as camouflage, but instead are largely a deterrent to
blood-sucking flies.
It's easy to wonder what possible value a zebra's striking coloration
could have, especially since many other mammals, and more specifically
equids, sport coats that do a better job of blending in with their
surroundings. But zebras' stripes wouldn't have evolved without a
purpose, and as you probably heard in grade school, the most obvious
explanation is that it serves as camo that confuses predators with the dazzle effect.
But according to research published today in Nature Communications,
there's another likely reason: Biting flies don't like to land on
stripes. The study team, led by Tim Caro of UC Davis, compared the
habitats, predators, and other factors that might potentially make
stripes useful for the seven extant equid species in Africa and Asia.
Two things stood out: The three species with stripes are the only
ones located in the same spot as blood-sucking, disease-carrying tsetse
flies, and their width of their stripes match previous models showing
the optimal stripe size for deterring flies. And to be clear, biting
flies can be a huge problem: studies have shown that cattle in the US can lose 200-500cc of blood per day if biting flies aren't controlled with pesticides, and they can also be serious disease vectors.
"Our data shows forcefully that the function (i.e. current
usefulness) of stripes is to deter flies from landing," Caro told me in
an email.
This figure shows that equid species with stripes (including E. africanus, which has leg striping) are found in regions with far higher tabanid fly activity. Image: Caro et. al
Various studies have shown that tsetse flies, stomoxys stable flies,
and tabanid biting flies land on striped surfaces far less than uniform
ones, but that alone doesn't discount a number of other hypotheses for
the utility of stripes. Broadly, they fit into five categories:
What we'd think of as traditional camouflage, in which the stripes
help a zebra blend into a woodland background or shadows from tall
grass.
Stripes confuse predators, by making it hard to judge an animals
size, speed, trajectory, location in a herd, or something similar.
Stripes help with heat management, especially on the hot savannah.
Zebras use stripes as social cues or for mate choice, as is often the case for flamboyant coloration, especially in birds.
Stripes act as a deterrent to ectoparasites.
After testing for each factor, Caro's team found that "there is no
consistent support for camouflage, predator avoidance, heat management or
social interaction hypotheses." As they note, many factors are
interrelated. Hyenas are located in both the hot tropics and subtropics,
combining temperature and predation variables; meanwhile, tabanid flies
sometimes rest in trees, combining parasite and background blending.
But the key correlation remained stripes and biting flies. Previous
studies have shown that biting flies are much less likely to land on
surface with stripes of less than 5 centimeters in width than surfaces
with wider stripes or uniform colors; all zebra stripes fall in that
range.
"There may be some equivocation depending on the species of fly and
their landing behavior, but the majority of field experimental studies
find that striped targets receive less flies," Caro wrote.
There's also a clear geographic correlation. "lndeed, the ranges
where tabanids and tsetse flies are active matches that of striped equids
well," they write. Take a look for yourself:
Comparison between equid ranges and biting fly ranges. Image: Caro et. al
Note that the ranges of the three striped zebra species all overlap
in regions where tabanid flies (Glossina) are known to be found, or
where tabanid flies (Tabanus) are located at least seven consecutive
months out of the year. In contrast, the three Asian species, the onager (E. hemionus), Przewalski’s horse (E. ferus przewalksii), and kiang (E. kiang) all aren't located in the ranges of the biting flies included in the study, and none of the trio have stripes.
I asked Caro about the puzzle-like lack of overlap between
Asian equid species and tabanid fly ranges, and he said it might be a
bit of a coincidence. "I saw that too, but remember we just took one
measure of tabanid biting fly annoyance—seven consecutive months," he
wrote. "If we had taken eight or six, the fly range boundaries would
have moved a bit, so dont read too much into it."
Additionally, zebras are hardly the only large mammals susceptible to
biting flies. "Why, therefore," the authors ask, "should African equids
be so sensitive to biting flies and have evolved morphological as well
as behavioural
defenses?" While it's a bit of a chicken-egg scenario, the authors found
that zebras have far shorter hair than their non-striped relatives, and
also don't have the added benefit of growing thick winter coats like
those equids found in cold Asian regions.
So that means flies likely have an easier time biting zebras than
species with thicker coats. And regardless of whether it's largely blood
loss or disease that's proving negative, it's clear that zebras would
need an alternate defense.
"We discuss whether zebras are trying to avoid blood loss, or to
avoid fatal diseases carried by African biting flies, and we err towards
the latter explanation," Caro wrote in an email. "But certainly
domestic livestock suffer badly from weight loss and low milk production
in the southeast US without insecticide application , so blood loss
might also impact fitness. Disease surely will."
The authors note that it's not possible to say that stripes solely
evolved to combat flies, as there are too many intermixed variables, and
stripes may provide benefits that didn't initially drive their
evolution. For example, zebras are fearsome kickers, and rump stripes
may also serve as a warning to predators—especially hyenas, which have
trouble taking down zebras—to back off.
There's also the question of sample size: With only a few extant
equid species and thousands of tabanid flies, developing complete range
maps for comparison is difficult.
Still, the influence seems clear. As the authors conclude, "striping
on equids is perfectly associated with increased presence of biting
flies."
We now have solid evidence that elephants are some of the most
intelligent, social and empathic animals around—so how can we justify
keeping them in captivity?
Elephants walking in line in Amboseli national park, south Kenya. Credit: blieusong/Flickr
One day in 2010, while taking a stroll in his backyard, Kandula the
elephant smelled something scrumptious. The scent pulled his attention
skyward. There, seemingly suspended in the air, was a sprig of bamboo
decorated with bits of cantaloupe and honeydew. Stretching out his
trunk, he managed to get the fruit and break off a piece of the branch,
but the rest of the tasty leaves remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Without hesitation he marched straight to a large plastic cube in the
yard, rolled it just beneath the hovering bamboo and used it as a step
stool to pull the whole branch to the ground. Seven-year-old Kandula had
never before interacted with a cube in this manner. Determined to
satisfy his stomach and his curiosity, he did something scientists did
not know elephants could do: he had an aha moment.
A couple weeks earlier a team of researchers led by Diana Reiss and
Preston Foerder, then at City University New York, had visited Kandula’s
home at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. They placed sticks and
sturdy cubes around the yard and strung a kind of pulley system similar
to a laundry line between the roof of the elephant house and a tree.
From the cable they dangled fruit-tipped bamboo branches of various
lengths both within and without of Kandula’s reach. After preparing the
aerial snacks they retreated out of sight, turned on a camera and waited
to see what the young elephant would do. It took several days for
Kandula to achieve his initial insight, but after that he repeatedly
positioned and stood on the cube to wrap his trunk around food wherever
the scientists suspended it; he learned to do the same with a tractor
tire; and he even figured out how to stack giant butcher blocks to
extend his reach.
Other elephants had failed similar tests
in the past. As it turns out, however, those earlier studies were not
so much a failure of the elephant mind as the human one. Unlike people
and chimpanzees, elephants rely far more on their exquisite senses of
smell and touch than on their relatively poor vision, especially when it
comes to food. Previously, researchers had offered elephants only
sticks as potential tools to reach dangling or distant treats—a strategy
at which chimps excel. But picking up a stick blunts an elephant’s
sense of smell and prevents the animal from feeling and manipulating the
desired morsel with the tip of its dexterous trunk. Asking an elephant
to reach for a piece of food with a stick is like asking a blindfolded
man to locate and open a door with his ear. “We are always looking at
animals through our human lens—it’s hard not to,” Reiss says. “But now
we have an increased appreciation of diverse thinking creatures all
around us because of so much research on so many species. It’s
fascinating to try and find ways of testing animal minds so they can
show us what they are really capable of.”
People have been telling legends of elephant memory and intelligence
for thousands of years and scientists have carefully catalogued
astounding examples of elephant cleverness in the wild for many decades.
In the past 10 years, however, researchers have realized that elephants
are even smarter than they thought. As few as eight years ago there
were almost no carefully controlled experiments showing that elephants
could match chimpanzees and other brainiacs of the animal kingdom in
tool use, self-awareness and tests of problem-solving. Because of recent
experiments designed with the elephant’s perspective in mind,
scientists now have solid evidence that elephants are just as brilliant
as they are big: They are adept tool users and cooperative problem
solvers; they are highly empathic, comforting one another when upset;
and they probably do have a sense of self.
Despite the sharpened awareness of elephant sentience, many zoos
around the world continue to maintain or expand their elephant exhibits
and increasing numbers of heavily armed poachers are descending on
Africa to meet the soaring demand for ivory, killing as many as 35,000
elephants a year. The U.S. recently banned ivory trade,
with some exceptions, but there have been no steps toward outlawing
elephant captivity. At least a few zoos are using the latest science to
transform their elephant enclosures, giving the animals more room to
roam as well as intellectually stimulating puzzles. Only some zoos can
afford to make such changes, however, and many elephant experts maintain
that, given everything we know about the creatures’ mental lives,
continuing to keep any of them locked up is inexcusable.
Mental mettle
The modern elephant mind emerged from an evolutionary history
that has much in common with our own. The African bush and forest
elephants, the Asian elephant, and their extinct relatives, the
mammoths, all began to assume their recognizable forms between three and
five million years ago in Africa. As Louis Irwin of The University of
Texas at El Paso explains, both humans and elephants adapted themselves
to life in Africa's forests and savannas around the same time,
emigrating to Europe and Asia; both evolved to live long and often
migratory lives in highly complex societies; both developed intricate
systems of communication; and both experienced a dramatic increase in
brain size.
Over the years numerous observations of wild elephants suggested that
the big-brained beasts were some of the most intelligent animals on the
planet. They remembered the locations of water holes hundreds of
kilometers apart, returning to them year after year. They fashioned
twigs into switches to shoo flies and plugged drinking holes with chewed
up balls of bark. They clearly formed strong social bonds and even
seemed to mourn their dead (see “When Animals Mourn” in the July 2013 issue of Scientific American).
Yet scientists rarely investigated this ostensibly immense intellect in
carefully managed experiments. Instead, researchers looking for
evidence of exceptional mental aptitude in nonhuman animals first turned
to chimpanzees and, later, to brainy birds like ravens, crows and some
parrots. Only in the past 10 years have scientists rigorously tested
elephant cognition. Again and again these new studies have corroborated
what zoologists inferred from behavior in the wild.
Scientists living among herds of wild elephants have long observed
awe-inspiring cooperation between family members. Related elephant
mothers and their children stay together throughout life in tight-knit
clans, caring for one another’s children and forming protective circles
around calves when threatened by lions or poachers. Elephant clan
members talk to one another with a combination of gentle chirps,
thunderous trumpets and low-frequency rumbles undetectable to humans, as
well as nudges, kicks and visual signals such as a tilt of the head or
flap of the ear. They deliberate among themselves, make group decisions
and applaud their achievements. “Being part of an elephant family is all
about unity and working together for the greater good,” says Joyce
Poole, one of the world’s foremost elephant experts and co-founder of
the charity ElephantVoices, which promotes the study and ethical care of
elephants. “When they are getting ready to do a group charge, for
example, they all look to one another: ‘Are we all together? Are we
ready to do this?’ When they succeed, they have an enormous celebration,
trumpeting, rumbling, lifting their heads high, clanking tusks
together, intertwining their trunks.”
Cynthia Moss, director of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants and
another preeminent elephant researcher, once saw a particularly amazing
example of elephant cooperation. One day the young and audacious Ebony,
daughter of a matriarch named Echo, bounded right into the midst of a
clan that was not her own. As a show of dominance, that clan kidnapped
Ebony, keeping her captive with their trunks and legs. After failing to
retrieve Ebony on their own, Echo and her eldest daughters retreated. A
few minutes later they returned with all the members of their extended
family, charged into the clan of kidnappers and rescued Ebony. “That
took forethought, teamwork and problem-solving,” Moss says. “How did
Echo convey that she needed them? It's a mystery to me, but it
happened.”
In 2010 Joshua Plotnik of Mahidol University in Thailand and his colleagues tested elephant cooperation in a controlled study
for the first time. At a Thai conservation center, they divided an
outdoor elephant enclosure into two regions with a volleyball net. On
one side stood pairs of Asian elephants. On the other side the
researchers attached two bowls of corn to a table that slid back and
forth on a frame of plastic pipes. They looped a hemp rope around the
table so that when both ends of the rope were pulled simultaneously the
table moved toward the elephants, pushing the food underneath the net.
If a single elephant tried to pull the rope by him or herself, it would
slip out and ruin any chance of getting the food. All the elephants
quickly learned to cooperate and even to patiently wait for a partner if
the scientists prevented both animals from reaching the rope at the
same time. One mischievous young elephant outsmarted the rest. Instead
of going through the hassle of tugging on one end of the rope, she
simply stood on it and let her partner do all the hard work.
Some scientists studying wild elephants have argued that, in addition
to cooperating for survival’s sake, the creatures are capable of
genuine empathy. Poole recalls, for example, one elephant flinching as
another stretched her trunk towards an electric fence; it was
fortunately inactive at the time but had been live in the past.
Elephants often refuse to leave their sick and injured behind, even if
the ailing animal is not a direct relative.Poole once
observed three young male elephants struggle to revive a dying
matriarch, lifting her body with their tusks to get her back on her
feet. Another time, while driving through Kenya’s Amboseli National
Park, Poole saw a female elephant give birth to a stillborn baby. The
mother guarded her dead calf for two days, trying over and over to
revive its limp body. Realizing that the grieving mom had not had any
sustenance this whole time, Poole drove near her with an offering of
water. The elephant stretched her trunk inside the car and eagerly drank
her fill. When she was done, she remained with Poole for a few moments,
gently touching her chest.
When elephants encounter an elephant skeleton, they slow down, approach it cautiously, and caressthe
bones with their trunk and the bottoms of their sensitive padded feet.
Elephants do not show the same interest in the remains of other species.
In one experiment
elephants spent twice as much time investigating an elephant skull as
those of either a rhinoceros and buffalo and six times longer probing
ivory than a piece of wood. Moss has witnessed elephants kicking dirt
over skeletons and covering them with palm fronds.
Plotnik and renowned animal behavior expert Frans de Waal of Emory University recently teamed up
to study elephant empathy. On a monthly basis between the spring of
2008 and 2009 they observed 26 Asian elephants at the Elephant Nature
Park in Thailand, looking for signs of what researchers call
“consolation.” Many animals are capable “reconciliation”—making up after
a tussle. Far fewer animals display true consolation: when a bystander
goes out of his or her way to comfort the victim of a fight or an
individual that is disturbed for some reason. On dozens of occasions
Plotnik and de Waal saw elephants consoling one another. A perturbed
elephant often perks up its ears and tail and squeals, roars or
trumpets. Over the course of the study, many elephants behaved in this
way, because of an altercation, because they were spooked by
something—such as a helicopter or dog—or for an unknown cause. When
other elephants recognized these signs of anxiety, they rushed to the
upset animal’s side, chirping softly and stroking their fellow
elephant’s head and genitals. Sometimes the elephants put their trunks
in one another’s mouths—a sign of trust because doing so risks being
bitten.
The aspect of elephant intelligence that is the trickiest to
gauge—the one that has really challenged scientists to think like an
elephant—is self-awareness. Scientists now have preliminary evidence
that elephants are indeed self-aware, overturning previous findings. To
determine whether an animal has a sense of self, researchers first place
a mark on an animal’s body that it can identify only with the help of a
mirror. Then they wait to see if the animal tries to get rid of the
mark when it encounters its reflection. Doing so, the reasoning goes,
means the animal understands when it is looking at itself rather than
another animal. In the earliest studies on elephant self-awareness,
researchers placed a one by 2.5–meter mirror outside the bars of an
enclosure, angled in such a way that the animals could see only the
upper thirds of their bodies. The elephants reacted to the reflection as
they would to another elephant, raising their trunks in greeting. When
the scientists dabbed the elephants’ faces with white cream, the animals
failed to recognize that the marks were on their own bodies.
But what if the experimental design itself prevented the elephants
from understanding that they were looking at themselves in the mirror?
After all, elephants identify one another primarily by touch, scent and
sound—not sight—and the animals in the study could not physically
investigate the mirror. So Reiss, de Waal and Plotnik decided to redo these experiments, this time allowing the elephants to use all their senses.
In 2005 the trio constructed a 2.5 by 2.5–meter shatterproof mirror
and bolted it to a wall surrounding an elephant yard at the Bronx Zoo in
New York City. Three female Asian elephants named Patty, Maxine and
Happy were free to approach and inspect the sturdy mirror at their
leisure. When they first encountered the contraption, Maxine and Patty
swung their trunks over it and attempted to scale the wall to which it
was attached, as though checking to see whether another elephant was
hiding behind the glass. When they found nothing, all three elephants
swayed their trunks and bobbed their heads while looking right into the
mirror, just as we might wave our hands to see whether a shadow is our
own. They stared at their reflection and stuck their trunks inside their
mouths as though searching for snagged spinach.
A few days later the scientists painted a white X onto the right side
of each elephant’s face. Maxine and Patty did not seem to notice the
marks, but Happy began to touch the X on her face with her trunk after
strolling past the mirror a few times. Eventually she faced her
reflection and repeatedly swiped at the painted part of her face with the tip of her trunk.
The fact that only one of three elephants noticed the X on its face
might seem a disappointing performance, but it is actually quite
remarkable. Reiss points out that even in studies with chimpanzees—which
most researchers accept are self-aware—sometimes fewer than half pass
the mirror test. Plotnik argues that expecting elephants to pay
attention to a random blotch on their face may not have been the best
test of their self-awareness anyhow. Whereas chimpanzees are fastidious
groomers that spend hours picking nits and gnats out of one another’s
hair, elephants stay clean by getting dirty, routinely spraying
themselves with dust and dirt to deter insects and parasites. And they
love to galumph in mud. “There’s no reason to think elephants would have
same kind of vanity," Plotnik says.
Brains behind bars
All the new evidence of elephant intelligence has intensified the debate
about whether to continue keeping the creatures in captivity. Former
elephant caretaker Dan Koehl maintains a thorough database
of elephants around the world. He has records of 7,828 elephants
currently in captivity: 1,654 in zoos or safari parks; 4,549 in
"elephant camps" where tourists can ride the animals; 288 in circuses;
and the remaining in temples, sanctuaries or private residences. The
latest research on the well-being of U.S. zoo elephants is not
particularly encouraging. With mny collaborators, animal welfare expert
and Vistalogic, Inc., consultant Cheryl Meehan recently completed a gint study
on nearly all of the 300 or so elephants in North American zoos
accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The
researchers assessed the physical and mental health
of captive elephants with a combination of photographs, videos, blood
and hormone tests, veterinary reports, and surveys filled out by
caretakers: about 75 percent of the elephants were overweight or obese;
between 25 and 40 percent had foot or joint problems of some kind
depending on the year; and 80 percent displayed behavioral tics, such as
pacing and continual head bobbing or swaying.
Stephen Harris of the University of Bristol and his colleagues conducted a similar study
on U.K. zoo elephants in the late 2000s. I asked him whether it is
possible to keep an elephant physically and mentally healthy in a zoo.
His answer was succinct: “No.” The elephants he studied spent up to 83
percent of their time indoors, often in cramped conditions; the majority
had abnormal gaits; 75 percent were overweight; more than 50 percent
had behavioral tics; and one individual displayed tics for 14 hours in a
single day. Captive elephants also have higher rates of infertility and
die younger on average than their uncaged counterparts. Whereas wild
elephants migrate great distances through the forest or savanna in
search of food and water—eating huge amounts of tough, fibrous grasses
and shrubs that are difficult to digest—zoo elephants spend too many
hours standing idle on concrete and consume calorie-rich foods they
would rarely encounter in their native habitat. Researchers have also
learned that many zoo elephants do not get the rest they need because
they do not like to lie down and sleep on stone or other hard surfaces.
Few zoos can adequately re-create the complex social life of wild
elephants. Female elephants in captivity are often strangers acquired
from here and there. Any friendships that do form can dissolve in an
instant when a zoo decides to relocate an animal. “Sometimes people
treat these creatures like furniture,” Moss says. Researchers used to
think that male elephants, which leave their clans in young adulthood,
were loners. They now know, however, that male elephants socialize
extensively with one another. Yet zoos mix males and females in ways
that would never occur in the wild and try to offload adult males if
they become too cantankerous or lustful.
Now that the evidence of the elephant’s intellect and emotional lifeis
no longer mostly anecdotal the zoological community faces even more
pressure to answer a daunting question: Why keep elephants in captivity
at all? Zoos usually give two main reasons: to rescue elephants from
dire situations, such as the threat of poachers or the stress of living
in so-called rehabilitation centers in Asia that keep the creatures
leashed to trees; and to teach the public how amazing elephants are, in
hopes of promoting their conservation.
These arguments have become increasingly tenuous over time. Few
elephants in zoos today were rescued from an awful life; instead they
were born in captivity. In the mid-2000s zoos embarked on an especially
aggressive captive elephant breeding program, trying to compensate for
all the animals they had lost to disease and frailty. "For every
elephant born in a zoo, on average another two die," concluded a
comprehensive 2012 investigative report by The Seattle Times.
As for educational outreach, modern technology has rendered zoos
obsolete. “When I was a kid we had no television and even when we did
wildlife images were very few,” Harris says. “You went to the zoo to
interact with elephants, to ride on them and touch them—there was no
other way to get a sense of them. Now of course there’s an information
overload. You can get a sense of scale and see all kinds of wonderful
behaviors from photography and films that you would never see in
captivity.” Consider how much one can learn from vivid scenes of wild
elephants in a nature documentary of Planet Earth caliber compared with the experience of staring at an arthritic bobble-headed zoo elephant.
Other scientists think that, even if there are few good reasons to
keep elephants in zoos in the first place, arguing for an abrupt end to
elephant captivity is naive and idealistic, especially outside North
America and Europe. “Although I believe all elephants should be wild,
unfortunately that is not realistic," Plotnik says. In Asia, where he
works, people have been using elephants as beasts of burden for
centuries and currently have thousands of the animals captive in camps.
Suddenly releasing all those animals is simply not feasible; there may
not even be enough wild habitat left to accommodate them all. Plotnik
thinks the best way forward is maintaining the wild Asian elephant
population through conservation and slowly phasing out the captive one
by finding new, equally lucrative jobs for elephant caretakers. Moss
wants something similar for elephants in zoos in the U.S. and Europe: “I
would like to see them live out their lives and have no more breeding
or importation.” Meehan hopes the kind of information she has collected
will help improve the well-being of zoo elephants.
In recent years at least a few zoos have been trying to use animal
welfare science to make their elephant enclosures more like sanctuaries.
The Oregon Zoo in Portland is close to remodeling its elephant habitat
in a way it claims will improve the livelihood of its four male and four
female Asian elephants. Elephant Lands,
set to open in 2015, is a hilly 2.5-hectare habitat covered mostly in
deep sand rather than concrete and featuring a 490,000-liter pool for
wallowing, bathing and playing. Elephants will be free to roam from one
part of the terrain to another, explains elephant curator Bob Lee, which
should hopefully allow males and females to interact as they choose.
Various feeding machines will provide elephants with food at random
intervals, because studies have linked such unpredictability to
healthier body weights. Other feeders will exercise the elephants’
trunks and brains with out-of-reach snacks and mechanical puzzles.
Refurbishing elephant enclosures so they are roomier and more
intellectually stimulating is at once an acknowledgment and dismissal of
the research on elephant intelligence and welfare. After all, if the
zoos really have the animals’ best interests at heart, they would close
their elephant exhibits. In 2005 the Detroit Zoo became the first to
give up its elephants solely on ethical grounds. Spending so much time
in close quarters—and waiting out the harsh Michigan winters
indoors—left their two Asian elephants physically and mentally ill.
Wanda and Winky were moved to the Performing Animal Welfare Society's
(PAWS) 930-hectare sanctuary in San Andreas, Calif. A handful of zoos
have followed suit, but they are in the minority.
Ed Stewart, president and co-founder of PAWS, thinks that even his
massive haven is not adequate to keep the elephants as healthy as they
would be in the wild. "Elephants should not be in captivity— period," he
says. "It doesn’t matter if it’s a zoo, a circus or a sanctuary. The
social structure isn't correct, the space is not right, the climate is
not right, the food is not right. You can never do enough to match the
wild. They are unbelievably intelligent. With all of that brainpower—to
be as limited as they are in captivity—it's a wonder they cope at all.
In 20 years I hope we will look back and think, 'Can you believe we ever
kept those animals in cages?'"
Mounting evidence indicates that the common chicken is much smarter than it has been given credit for.
The birds are cunning, devious and capable of empathy. And they have sophisticated communication skills.
That chickens are so brainy hints that such intelligence is more common in the animal kingdom than once thought.
This emerging picture of the chicken mind also has ethical implications for how society treats farmed birds.
In the animal kingdom, some creatures are smarter than others. Birds,
in particular, exhibit many remarkable skills once thought to be
restricted to humans: Magpies recognize their reflection in a mirror.
New Caledonian crows construct tools and learn these skills from their
elders. African grey parrots can count, categorize objects by color and
shape, and learn to understand human words. And a sulfur-crested
cockatoo named Snowball can dance to a beat.
Few people think about the chicken as intelligent, however. In recent
years, though, scientists have learned that this bird can be deceptive
and cunning, that it possesses communication skills on par with those of
some primates and that it uses sophisticated signals to convey its
intentions. When making decisions, the chicken takes into account its
own prior experience and knowledge surrounding the situation. It can
solve complex problems and empathizes with individuals that are in
danger.
These new insights into the chicken mind hint that certain complex
cognitive abilities traditionally attributed to primates alone may be
more widespread in the animal kingdom than previously thought. The
findings also have ethical implications for how society treats farmed
chickens: recognizing that chickens have these cognitive traits compels
moral consideration of the conditions they endure as a result of
production systems designed to make chicken meat and eggs as widely
available and cheap as possible.
Chatty Chickens
It has taken researchers almost a century to figure out what is going on
in the brains of chickens. The first inklings emerged from studies
conducted in the 1920s, when Norwegian biologist Thorleif
Schjelderup-Ebbe established that the birds have a dominance system,
which he named the “pecking order” after noting that chickens will
enforce their leadership by administering a sharp peck of the beak to
underlings whenever they get ideas above their station.
The next major breakthrough in understanding the chicken mind came
several decades later. The late Nicholas and Elsie Collias, both at the
University of California, Los Angeles, categorized the birds' calls and
determined that chickens have a repertoire of about 24 different sounds,
many of which seem to be specific to certain events. For example, when
faced with a threat from above, such as a hungry eagle, the birds crouch
and emit a very quiet, high-pitched “eeee.” The clucking sound that
most people associate with chickens is actually one they use when
encountering a ground predator. The discovery of food elicits an excited
series of “dock dock” sounds from males, especially when a judgmental
female could be listening.
These early findings suggested that more happens in the chicken's
walnut-size brain than one might think. The vocalizations appeared to
encode specific information intended to evoke a particular response from
onlookers. Yet connecting these sounds and movements with their true
meaning proved difficult until the development, in the 1990s, of
technology that allowed researchers to test their hypotheses more
rigorously. It was then that the late Chris Evans of Macquarie
University in Sydney, Australia, and others began to use digital
audio-recording devices and high-resolution televisions to test the
function of chickens' array of sounds under controlled conditions. In
essence, they created a virtual reality for the birds, surrounding a
test cage with TVs that allowed them to change what a chicken
encountered—a companion, a competitor, a predator—and to record how it
responded to a variety of situations. A test chicken might see a
simulated hawk flying overhead, or a fox running toward it from the
side, or a rooster making a series of dock-dock sounds.
This virtual reality led to a truly astonishing revelation: the
sounds or movements an individual chicken makes convey specific
information, and other chickens understand it. A chicken need not see an
aerial predator, for instance, to behave as if one was there; it needs
only to hear the warning call from another bird. The chickens' calls are
“functionally referential,” as behaviorists would say—meaning that they
refer to specific objects and events broadly in the way that words used
by people do. In a chicken hearing the calls, the sounds appear to
create a mental picture of that particular object, prompting the bird to
respond accordingly—whether to flee a predator or approach a food
source.
The virtual world also revealed that individual chickens tailor their
messages for their audience. A rooster that sees a threat overhead, for
example, would make an alarm call if he knows a female is nearby, but
he would remain silent in the presence of a rival male. Females are
equally selective, only sending up an alarm when they have chicks.
Taken together, these findings suggested the sounds did not simply
reflect a bird's internal state, such as “frightened” or “hungry.”
Instead the chickens interpreted the significance of events and
responded not by simple reflex but with well-thought-out actions.
Chickens, it seems, think before they act—a trait more typically
associated with large-brained mammals than with birds.
By Hook or by Crook
The referential calls showed that chickens are more cognitively
sophisticated than they have been given credit for. The research also
raised an intriguing question: If these birds have the ability to
communicate information about environmental events, might they also
withhold that news or even broadcast misinformation when they stand to
benefit from such deceitful behavior? Further insights have come from
studies of other forms of chicken signaling.
Scientists have known since the 1940s that the birds perform complex
visual displays in connection with the discovery of food. The most
prominent of these displays is a series of actions collectively called
tidbitting, in which an alpha rooster twitches his head rapidly from
side to side and bobs it up and down, picking up and dropping food over
and over again to signal to a female that he has found something tasty.
This performance is the main way he lures a mate. Scientists thought the
subordinate males, for their part, focus on keeping a low profile, so
as to avoid attracting negative attention from the alpha. Yet some
observations of chickens in their social groups hinted that the pecking
order of the birds might not be quite as orderly as researchers
initially thought. In fact, mounting evidence indicated that chickens
could be devious bastards.
Human observers initially missed this underlying drama because
interactions between members of the flock are short and often secretive;
the birds prefer to hide in the tall grass and among the bushes. At the
same time, it is just not possible for a single person to monitor all
the chickens at the same time. To minimize those difficulties, one of us
(Smith) came up with a solution she called “Chicken Big Brother.”
Smith and her colleagues wired the outdoor aviaries at Macquarie
University—large outdoor spaces with lots of vegetation, surrounded by
nets on all sides—with multiple high-definition cameras and an array of
microphones to catch every move and sound the birds made. They then
analyzed the resulting recordings.
As expected, the alpha in any group would crow to show he was the
master of the territory. He would perform the tidbitting display to
attract the ladies. And he would make alarm calls to warn the flock of
danger from above.
It was the subordinates that provided the twist. The team expected
that these males should keep to themselves, to avoid the harassment of
being chased, pecked and spurred by the alpha if they dared to make a
play for his girl. Yet the cameras and microphones revealed a more
complex story. These lesser males employed surreptitious tactics in a
way previously thought impossible for the birds: they performed only the
visual part of tidbitting—making the head motions without making the
dock-dock sound—thus creating a new signal that could quietly attract a
mate while sidestepping the wrath of the alpha rooster.
The fact that the subordinate males modify the tidbitting signal in
this way to secretly seduce the hens demonstrated a behavioral
flexibility that shocked researchers. But they had yet to plumb the full
depths of the birds' deviousness.
To examine the animals' behavior more closely, they added more
technology to their tool kit. The chickens' vocalizations were often so
subtle that Smith and the other researchers were unable to catch them,
even with the extensive camera-and-microphone setup. They needed a way
to record every call as it was made and heard by each of the individual
chickens.
Ideally, they would outfit the chickens with little backpacks
carrying lightweight wireless microphones similar to those reporters
wear when working out in the field. But where to find the right
materials for those packs? Bras, Smith thought, could do the trick. She
began a hunt for old ones with easy-to-latch hooks and preferably
colored black so they would not stand out against the feathers. Smith
cut off the hooks and adjustable straps and attached these parts to the
microphone to create a harness. Once strapped to a bird's waist, the
jury-rigged apparatus—affectionately dubbed Chicken Big Brother
2.0—would record what the chicken said and heard.
Smith was particularly keen to take a closer look at how the animals
respond to danger. The previous research showing that males would
sometimes call out when they saw an aerial predator, such as a hawk, was
puzzling because making those squeals would place the rooster at
greater risk of getting noticed and attacked himself. Scientists had
assumed that the male's need to protect his mate and offspring was so
critical that making the call was worth the risk. Yet Smith wondered if
other factors influence the calling behavior.
It turns out they do. Using Chicken Big Brother 2.0 to eavesdrop on
even the quietest communications revealed that males sometimes made
calls for selfish reasons. The birds monitored the danger to themselves
and their rivals and were more likely to call if they could both
minimize their own risk and increase a rival's. A male calls more often
if he is safe under a bush and his rival is out in the open, at risk of
being picked off by a swooping predator. If the rooster is lucky, he
will protect his girl, and another guy will suffer the consequences.
This strategy is known as risk compensation, and it is yet another
skill that chickens have in common with humans. Many of us will take on
more risk if we perceive a mitigating factor. People will drive faster
when wearing a seat belt, for example, or when in a car equipped with
antilock brakes. Male chickens will likewise take more risks if they
feel more secure.
Mother Hen
The chicken's list of cognitive skills continues to grow with each
scientific discovery. Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trento
in Italy has shown that young chicks have the ability to distinguish
numbers and use geometry. Given a half-completed triangle, for example,
chicks can identify what the shape should look like with all its parts.
And research published in 2011 by Joanne Edgar of the University of
Bristol in England and her colleagues revealed a softer side of these
sometimes Machiavellian birds, demonstrating that they are capable of
feeling empathy.
In Edgar's experiment, mother hens watched as their chicks received a
harmless puff of air that ruffled their downy plumage. The chicks
perceived the puff as a threat and showed classic signs of stress,
including increased heart rate and lowered eye temperature.
Intriguingly, their mothers also became upset simply by observing their
chicks' reaction. They showed the same signs of stress the chicks
exhibited even though the hens themselves did not receive the puff of
air and the chicks were in no obvious danger. The hens also made more
clucking calls to their chicks. These findings indicate that chickens
can take the perspective of other birds—an ability previously seen in
only a handful of species, including ravens, squirrels and, of course,
humans.
The fact that the common chicken, which is not closely related to
other bird species known for their braininess, has such advanced
cognition suggests something interesting about the origin of
intelligence. Perhaps it is rather more common in the animal kingdom
than researchers have thought, emerging whenever social conditions favor
it as opposed to being a rare, difficult-to-evolve trait.
For its part, the chicken presumably
inherited its cognitive prowess from its wild ancestor, the red
junglefowl, which lives in the forests of southern and Southeast Asia.
There the ancestral chicken society consisted of long-term, semistable
groups of four to 13 individuals of varying ages. A dominant male and a
dominant female headed each group, and as in many other societies, those
in charge got what they wanted, whether it be food, space or sex,
mostly by keeping their subordinates in line. Males spent much of their
time strutting their stuff for the females and providing them with food;
females carefully observed the males, judging them on their actions and
remembering what each had done in the past; they shunned the ones that
were deceptive or nasty. A rooster's reputation was important to his
long-term success with the hens, and competition for the females was
fierce.
Competition within the flock was not the only source of pressure on
the birds' mental capacity. They also faced a range of threats from
outside the flock—including predators such as foxes and hawks—each of
which necessitated a different escape strategy. These conditions forced
the fowl to develop clever strategies for dealing with one another and
the dangers around them, as well as ways to communicate about all these
situations. Those characteristics are still present in the domestic
chicken.
That such a litany of abilities belongs to animals that humans eat by
the billions naturally raises questions about how they are treated.
Birds that would typically live in small flocks in the wild can be
penned in with up to 50,000 others. A potential 10-year life span is
shortened to a mere six weeks for chickens raised for meat. They are
killed so young because these birds have been genetically selected for
such fast growth that allowing them to become any older would subject
them to heart disease, osteoporosis and broken bones. Egg layers fare
little better, living only 18 months in a space about the size of a
sheet of printer paper.
The chicken's flexibility and adaptability, derived from its social
red junglefowl ancestor, may have been part of its undoing, letting the
birds survive even under the unnatural and intense conditions in which
humans now raise them. This type of farming will likely continue as long
as most people are unconcerned about where their food comes from and
unaware of chickens' remarkable nature.
Consumers have begun to effect change, however. In Europe and some
U.S. states, such as California, new laws are being passed that require
improved housing conditions for egg-laying chickens, largely driven by
buyer demand for better animal welfare, as well as healthier food. In
Australia, producers now actually highlight the positive conditions
under which they raise their animals, competing for a growing population
of ethical consumers. Yet there is still more to be done. The
conditions under which meat chickens are raised have largely gone
unscrutinized.
Researchers have just begun to elucidate the true nature of chicken
intelligence, but one thing is already certain: these birds are hardly
the “dumb clucks” people once thought them to be.
This article was originally published with the title "Brainy Bird."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Carolynn “K-lynn” L. Smith is a research fellow at Macquarie
University in Sydney, Australia. Her research investigates communication
and cognition in animals ranging from giant cuttlefish to elephants.
She is the joint recipient of a 2010 Australian Museum Eureka Prize.
Sarah L. Zielinski is a freelance science writer in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in Science, Science News and Smithsonian, among other publications.
I’m a dog behaviorist, and here’s a headline that makes my blood boil: "Dog on Trial after Attacking Child."
It’s from a story on a Pointer-Hound
mix named Milo, a dog who had never caused any problems. Milo was
napping on the couch in his home in January when a 6-year-old neighbor
arrived. The boy sat down on the couch and started petting the sleeping
dog. The child was bitten in the face after being left alone with the
dog. No one witnessed the incident.
Dogs read certain friendly human behaviors as hostile. What big teeth you have by Shutterstock.
The dog was put on trial for an accident that's preventable when
people understand what our behavior means to dogs. I not only have spent
years studying dog bites but I also teach classes on safety and
liability protection for dog owners. I also provide community safety
solutions and promote the right way to behave around dogs through the
Dog Owner Education and Community Safety Council. I’m the author of People Training for Good Dogs: What Breeders Don’t Tell You and Trainers Don’t Teach.
The legal system can be harsh to dog owners. Unhappy laywer by Shutterstock.
Dog owners are set up for failure because our default is to blame the
dog. Owners get fined or sued for repeated human mistakes. Dogs often
pay with their lives for mistakes made by people. That's the case for
Milo. At his Feb. 27 hearing in Mansfield, MA, authorities voted to
euthanize him.
To avoid this, prevention has to be the priority. Sure, it's cute to
us when the baby hugs the dog. But dogs do not say 'I love you' with a
hug. When one dog 'hugs' another, it's an act of domination. People
should understand that humans shouldn't hug dogs. Yet the message for
children to hug dogs is prevalent in our culture, and the facial bites
continue.
Here are some other common misperceptions people have about dog and
human behaviors -- and how you can change to prevent catastrophes.
1. When greeting a new dog, extend your hand for it to sniff
Know how to approach a dog you’re meeting for the first time. A young man and his dog by Shutterstock.
Dogs don't sniff each other's paws when greeting and like us prefer
to be asked before being touched by a stranger. Instead, ask the owner
and then also ask the dog by tapping your hand on your thigh
simulating a wagging tail and act friendly. The dog will relax and
nuzzle you, need to sniff more to get to know you, or will stay away.
2. Breed dictates temperament
Dogs, first and foremost, are predatory canines that live in groups.
Breeds are generalizations that enable breeders to better market the
product they sell. What dictates temperament is their pack position --
the role that you, the human, play in the group and the rank of group
members.
Dogs have superior/inferior interrelationships and command and defer
accordingly. And just as siblings in a family have the same parents yet
are very different, one cannot purchase behavior by buying a dog of a
certain breed.
3. When a dog charges, there is nothing you can do
When a dog charges you, it's trying to decide if you are friend, foe
or prey. Their eyesight is poor so hats, sunglasses and other objects
you may push or carry can scare them. Act like a friend and pretend you
are not afraid. Stand facing the dog with relaxed body language, tap
your thigh with your hand and use a high-pitched voice for a friendly
greeting like "good girl." Fake it if you are afraid.
4. Posting "Beware of Dog" protects you from liability if your dog injures someone on your property
This won’t do much for you after the fact. Beware of the dog by Shutterstock.
Dogs can only read body language. These signs make people react to
your dog in a fearful manner, which is more likely to cause a dog to
consider visitors prey and bite them. Use No Trespassing and Dog At Play
signs instead.
5. Only bad dogs owned by bad people bite
Even responsible dog owners operate under the same false beliefs
about human and canine behavior. They are also encouraged to take a
passive role concerning their dog. Any dog can bite especially when it
feels personally threatened, is exposed to prey behavior or thinks that
someone lower in rank threatens its resources, such as food, toys,
bedding and the attention of its owner.
About the Author: Melissa Berryman is a former
Massachusetts animal control officer and national dog bite consultant
who founded the Dog Owner Education and Community Safety Council. She
designed and teaches a safety and liability class for dog owners, from
which People Training for Good Dogs is derived. She has worked with more than 10,000 dogs.
I’m a dog behaviorist, and here’s a headline that makes my blood boil: "Dog on Trial after Attacking Child."
It’s from a story on a Pointer-Hound mix named Milo, a dog who had never caused any problems. Milo was napping on the couch in his home in January when a 6-year-old neighbor arrived. The boy sat down on the couch and started petting the sleeping dog. The child was bitten in the face after being left alone with the dog. No one witnessed the incident.
The dog was put on trial for an accident that's preventable when people understand what our behavior means to dogs. I not only have spent years studying dog bites but I also teach classes on safety and liability protection for dog owners. I also provide community safety solutions and promote the right way to behave around dogs through the Dog Owner Education and Community Safety Council. I’m the author of People Training for Good Dogs: What Breeders Don’t Tell You and Trainers Don’t Teach.
To avoid this, prevention has to be the priority. Sure, it's cute to us when the baby hugs the dog. But dogs do not say 'I love you' with a hug. When one dog 'hugs' another, it's an act of domination. People should understand that humans shouldn't hug dogs. Yet the message for children to hug dogs is prevalent in our culture, and the facial bites continue.
Here are some other common misperceptions people have about dog and human behaviors -- and how you can change to prevent catastrophes.
1. When greeting a new dog, extend your hand for it to sniff
2. Breed dictates temperament
Dogs, first and foremost, are predatory canines that live in groups. Breeds are generalizations that enable breeders to better market the product they sell. What dictates temperament is their pack position -- the role that you, the human, play in the group and the rank of group members.
3. When a dog charges, there is nothing you can do
When a dog charges you, it's trying to decide if you are friend, foe or prey. Their eyesight is poor so hats, sunglasses and other objects you may push or carry can scare them. Act like a friend and pretend you are not afraid. Stand facing the dog with relaxed body language, tap your thigh with your hand and use a high-pitched voice for a friendly greeting like "good girl." Fake it if you are afraid.4. Posting "Beware of Dog" protects you from liability if your dog injures someone on your property
5. Only bad dogs owned by bad people bite
Even responsible dog owners operate under the same false beliefs about human and canine behavior. They are also encouraged to take a passive role concerning their dog. Any dog can bite especially when it feels personally threatened, is exposed to prey behavior or thinks that someone lower in rank threatens its resources, such as food, toys, bedding and the attention of its owner.
About the Author: Melissa Berryman is a former Massachusetts animal control officer and national dog bite consultant who founded the Dog Owner Education and Community Safety Council. She designed and teaches a safety and liability class for dog owners, from which People Training for Good Dogs is derived. She has worked with more than 10,000 dogs.
Posted in DOGSTER TIPS, TRAINING, BEHAVIOR, ASK A TRAINER