Crows May Learn Lessons From Death Analysis

In the article “Crows May Learn Lessons From Death,” Ms. Kaeli N. Swift conducts an experiment to learn about what crows are doing when they congregate loudly around dead acquaintances. It is safe to say that many people have experienced this union of crows and it is easy to find a video of one online. Many people call it something along the lines of “Crows Giving Their Friend a Funeral” or “Crows Pay Their Respects to Dead Comrade” but Ms. Swift wanted to find out what was really going on. So, she held a long term experiment to figure out what this meeting was for and if the death of another crow evoked a distinct reaction from the birds. Her experiment was to sprinkle food on the ground and wait for some crows to gather. Then, a volunteer

Swift did this because of the belief that crows never actually forget a face. The latex masks looked like they were chopped off someone’s face and then decided to be worn. Almost every time that a volunteer approached the group with a dead crow, they would mob the person or dive bomb them. Compared to only forty percent when the volunteer held a dead pigeon that is a ton. The crows also just moved away until the coast was clear if the volunteer held nothing in their hands. After six weeks, the crows seemed to scold the volunteer more and more even if they were not holding anything in their hands. However, if the volunteer was wearing a different latex mask, the crows seemed to attack them less. The crows were also more hesitant to approach the food on days where a volunteer holding a crow approached them but they were not affected at all by a pigeon-holding volunteer. This shows that crows have an acute sense of where and when they are in danger and that they can all follow precautions so they don’t end up like their comrade. This is a fairly important feature because it shows that they have more advanced cognitive skills which is pretty consistent in animals that live in social groups such as dolphins and