Australian Birds of Prey Are Deliberately Setting Forests On Fire (cosmosmagazine.com) 96
An anonymous reader writes: If you've been counting the ways the Australian environment is trying to kill you, you can now add "arson" to the list. According to a six-year study published in The Journal of Ethnobiology, observers have confirmed what Aboriginal rangers have been observing for years: birds of prey routinely carry burning or smouldering sticks into dry grassy areas to scare small mammals into fleeing so they can be pack-hunted more effectively. This has implications for environmental management, since the best firebreak will not protect your controlled burn from a "firehawk" determined to breach it.
I hope (Score:5, Insightful)
that I don't get targeted by a short-sighted wedge-tailed eagle.
That's a *hell* of a fear to overcome - and a hell of leap for a hunter to make. It's not like they'd accidentally pick up a burning stick and remember that dropping it in just the right area results in lots of dinner running about in the open.
Re: I hope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: I hope (Score:5, Interesting)
If you watch some videos on what ravens have leared to do, it wouldn't come as a surprise. I'm not saying it's true, but it isn't any more complex than things other birds do.
A hobby the wife and I have is birding. Aside from traveling to various sites, we have a lot of feeders in our back yard.
And some of the intelligence shown by these critters perplexes me. From Blue Jays throwing out seeds to other critters like doves or squirrels to feed them, or one particularly strange moment, after I rescued a baby Bluejay from our backyard pond. The little critter was pretty pathetic, and I put a hair dryer a couple feet from him to warm him up. After 15 minutes, the little one flies away. A couple hours later, I'm sitting at the table on the patio enjoying a beer, and an adult Blue Jay flies in lands a foot away from me and starts opening and closing his bill and making clacking noises. After 30 seconds or so it flies off. I'd never seen that behavior before.
Something interesting seems to be going on in those little heads. Couldn't say what for certain.
As for the Ravens and crows, I've seen interesting activity out of them. Picking up burning sticks to flush out prey by watching what happens when there is a fire and learning to invoke new fires would not surprise me at all.
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I learned after watching Cooked that traditional aboriginal farming involves burning the grasslands and picking up the precooked critters. Climatologists blame the technique for all sorts of nastiness.
However, after reading some of the inconsistencies in the brief wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], I have to wonder if the aboriginals learned the technique from the birds.
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Crows [theatlantic.com] use tools [theguardian.com].
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Stone the flamin' crows!
Re: I hope (Score:5, Funny)
"Birds are intelligent. They can learn from mistakes."
Yep, it is the ability to learn from mistakes that distinguishes them from humans. ... Well ... that ... and feathers.
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"Birds are intelligent. They can learn from mistakes."
Yep, it is the ability to learn from mistakes that distinguishes them from humans. ... Well ... that ... and feathers.
Boom! Well played indeed.
Re:I hope (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like they'd accidentally pick up a burning stick and remember that dropping it in just the right area results in lots of dinner running about in the open.
I could easily see them picking up and dropping sticks to scare prey out of small grassy patches.
Adding the 'smoking sticks sometimes work even better' part doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it not unreasonable to think that they understand the connection between fire, critters fleeing fire, and burning sticks spreading fire. That critters flee fire, and that burning sticks start fire are both easily observed. Predators hunt by learning associations that indicate the presence of prey.
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Re:I hope (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow you're a fucking idiot. Wildfires don't cause long term loss of habitat in grasslands. Hell, they don't cause long term loss of habitat in forests unless a bunch of complete fucking MORONS pass a bunch of legislation not allowing them to occur on a regular basis and let the brush build up to forest-destroying levels.
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Thank you for the kind words. Your encouragement has given me the impetus to elaborate.
There is a secondary (and likely a tertiary) effect of the birds behavior, even if we stipulate it is an intentional learned behavior. Unlike human intelligence, it seems unlikely the birds' capacity for learning would ever leap to these longer range consequences.
Re: I hope (Score:2)
I think that the birdbrains over at PETA are clear evidence that birds can come up with all kinds of theories about their actions and the environment.
Wild fires actually increase food (Score:2)
The Aborigines would light big fires whenever conditions were right to clear eucalyptus trees (which produce no food) and encourage grass lands. And farmers burn of stubble to encourage new growth.
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Firebirds (Score:3)
But not Pontiac.
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Just wait until those birds fly to Quebec for the summer. Then, they really will be Pontiac firebirds.
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The summary said "firehawk." But it's not Thexder, either. [youtube.com]
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Best played with a Roland MT-32, CM-32L, CM-64 or LAPC-I.
Time to write Australia off (Score:5, Funny)
Surely it's time to just give up on Australia. It's the same temperature as the sun, every single creature there wants to either kill you or give you an STD and now even the god damn birds are trying to set the whole country ablaze.
Maybe it's time to just board up the windows and move to a less murderous country.
Re:Time to write Australia off (Score:5, Funny)
If the animals are giving you an STD you're doing nature watching wrong.
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If the animals are giving you an STD you're doing nature watching wrong.
I think that was an attempt at humour. A firestick. STD's. Think a moment about that.
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Or maybe it's because the most common clamidia carrier in the country often results in pictures like this: https://photos.travelblog.org/... [travelblog.org]
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...Maybe it's time to just board up the windows and move to a less murderous country.
Oh come on, toughen up and get on with life. It's only ONE more thing to worry about. And it's really trivial compared to the butterflies, for example.
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Unfortunately the rest of the world wants our iron ore, coal, natural gas, gold, wheat, cows, wool, sheep and other exports so we cant leave :)
Re: Time to write Australia off (Score:1)
Far better than the US, where it's the people who are trying to kill you.
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Far better than the US, where it's the people who are trying to kill you.
Oh, we don't just try - we're very good at it, and persistent.
Re: Time to write Australia off (Score:2)
Re: Time to write Australia off (Score:1)
Instead of abandoning it can't we still use it for something? E.g. we could use it to store criminals.
Re:Time to write Australia off (Score:5, Funny)
Death held out a hand. I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS-
Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.
After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.
Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them for his master to clamber free.
HMM... Death picked up a book at random and read the cover. "DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA, " he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.
He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?
They waited.
IT WOULD APPEAR THAT-
"No, wait master. Here it comes."
Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up an caught the single sheet of paper.
He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.
"May I?" said Albert. Death handed him the paper.
"'Some of the sheep, '" Albert read aloud. "Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside'd be better, then."
WHAT AN INTRIGUING PLACE, said Death. SADDLE UP THE HORSE, ALBERT. I FEEL SURE I'M GOING TO BE NEEDED.
Until?!?? (Score:2)
> Just wait until the insects get with the program and take over the world.
Number of people:
5,600,000,000
Number of insects:
10,000,000,000,000,000,000
There are roughly 20,000,000,000 times as many insects as people. People have only been on Earth a short time, 300,000 years. Insects have been flying for over a thousand times that - 400 MILLION years. We just figured out flying a hundred years ago. We're a nearly irrelevant blip in their world.
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Numbers are almost irrelevant when we're the species that can eliminate all other large species. Who cares if there's a kazillion bacteria when we've eliminated anything bigger than a cockroach? To be an advanced species you need a considerable brain. Which requires a considerable body. Which we won't let you. It's really quite simple....
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and yet bacteria can evolve to resist the most powerful drugs we've managed to develop, and go on to overwhelm our systems and kill us. Those bacteria aren't an advanced species, just evolved.
Insects get rid of us more often (Score:2)
> we're the species that can eliminate
Insects eliminate a a much higher percentage of humans than humans do insects. Their "kill ratio" is far higher than any human military. Just from mosquitoes alone, in just one year, there are millions of malaria cases.
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Humans can eliminate all other large species only by driving humanity to extinction at the same time -- and even at the cost of our own extinction, we're incapable of wiping out all insect life with all the nukes at our disposal. Also, if insects eliminate all humans they can continue happily on with their lives -- if humans eliminate all insects, we go extinct. It's clear whose position is stronger.
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> We'd be able to intelligently plan and act against large threats, like a plague or a meteor. We can detect disasters - not just imminent ones but long term, plan our colonies around territories with risk.
New Orleans begs to differ. ;)
Obviously humans are a very important species at the moment, and probably a "special" species. Also, insects have completely permeated the planet for hundreds of millions of years, so "the rise of the insects" isn't a future event, but a prehistoric one.
Firewolves (Score:5, Interesting)
That's interesting about the avian predators. We have a ranch where we have a pack of wolves that works with us to herd and defend our livestock against their wild cousins. Nothing keeps wild wolves away from our livestock like the wolves that adopted our ranch decades ago. Some of these ranching wolves use fire. They'll feed sticks into a bonfire and they'll take hot brands out of a bonfire and carry them away. This is an issue we have to be careful of and attentive to if we have a fire going. It's cute until they have a ring of fire going around you... Man is not the only hunter with intelligence.
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That's really interesting. Do the ranching wolves get anything out of protecting your ranch?
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They get a territory with protection from their primary predator (humans) plus a share of the kill - it's pretty easy work for them with a reliable year round food source unlike out in the wild where winter can be leaner.
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Or is this really B.S.
Re: Firewolves (Score:2)
Vernor Vinge predicted this (Score:2)
Vernor Vinge predicted birds starting fires in Marooned in Realtime.
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So that's where they got the idea!
And maybe that's why I thought of a short-sighted wedge-tailed eagle - they've spent too much time reading science fiction.
Vulture "mathematician" (Score:3)
It has bigger implications than that. Just how intelligent animals really are?
Some decades ago some friends and I were driving through the forest just north of "The Geysers" in northern California.
The road was a two-lane cut through tall trees. A buzzard (probably a california condor) flew out of the trees at about eight feet above the ground and dropped a squirrel on the road about 12 feet in front of our car.
The squirrel bounced, landed, rolled onto its feet, and ran pell-mell into the woods, getting off
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A buzzard (probably a california condor) ...
Wife (a west-coaster) says: No, it didn't look to her like a ca condor, which mostly (except around "The Pinnacles" national monument) don't actually inhabit California. Probably a turkey vulture, judging by the size.
Re:Vulture "mathematician" (Score:5, Interesting)
The crows around here have the lights at the intersections figured out. Drop a nut on the road, wait for the red light, and pick up the pieces of nut meat.
Then there are the Stellars Jay's who like to lure the cats out into the middle of the road.
Birds adjust to cars quite well.
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They don't need to understand why the heavy metal things stop, they just need to know that if one has just stopped, it'll stay stopped for a little while.
Birds have excellent colour vision too, so they can easily see the difference between red and green.
adapted crows (Score:2)
Superior knowledge. (Score:1)
European scientists, however, have shown a reluctance to accept the observations of Aboriginal Australians, which explains why this seemingly widespread behavior has not been scientifically documented until now.
Yeah. What do those primitive people who've been living there all their lives know about their territory?
I'll take (Score:3)
Things that want to kill you in Australia for $400 Alex.
If there was a concerted effort to clean-up brush before it created a firenado, the birds wouldn't have to...
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Clean up brush in the forest? You're fscking insane. It will literally never end unless you take out the whole forest. Then there's no forest to protect so what was the point?
Regular burning will keep the undergrowth manageable - and it isn't as if OzBush(TM) hasn't evolved to need moderate fires every now and then. But you're right in that it is a never ending job - just like any other forest management chore.
We All Know Who's Responsible For This (Score:1)
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I can't really blame Prometheus here. When you have your liver eaten by raptors every day, I think it's understandable if you eventually trade the secret for a little respite.
Simple answer to the problem... (Score:1)
Fire in Australia (Score:5, Interesting)
Fire and Australia have an intimate relationship. Aborigines and later Australians have been setting fire to this country for centuries to manage agriculture and wild game. Many animals depend on fire to set free the seeds of certain Eucalypts and certain ecosystems also depend on the fire-regrowth cycle. This study adds to the mystique of fire in Australia.
For those who have never visited, if you spend a little time in outback Austrlalia, there is something undefinable here that will burn into your soul.
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there is something undefinable here that will burn into your soul.
That's just the brownsnake poison paralysing the muscles of your heart.
One thing I hope (Score:2)
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You'll be pleased to know that those eucalyptus trees that burn so well in California are actually Australian. Brought over during the gold rush, I believe, when Sydney was actually closer than New York (by ship, before the train). Returning miners started the Australian gold rush.
Alright!!!! (Score:2)