Little girl feeds crows; in return, they bring her gifts

[Seymore4Head]

http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/little-girl-feeds-crows-in-return-they-bring-her-gifts

Like many kids her age, 8-year-old Gabi Mann from Seattle has an
interesting collection of treasures. A yellow bead, one blue earring,
a tiny light bulb, a paperclip and a rusty screw. But unlike many kids
her age, Gabi didn't collect these treasures herself. They were
brought to her by crows.

<picture>

Yes, you read that right. Like Cinderella, Gabi has bird friends that
bring her gifts on a regular basis.

It all started quite by accident. As a toddler, Gabi was prone to
dropping her food as she walked along. Soon, the crows were keeping an
eye on her, and swooping in to pick up the pieces whenever she dropped
a morsel. As Gabi got older, she began sharing her school lunch on the
way to the bus stop. It didn't take long before the crows lined the
street to greet her bus each day.

Then, in 2013, Gabi decided to do more than just share the scraps of
her lunch. Each morning, she began filling a birdbath with fresh
water, and setting out food — peanuts, dog food and general leftovers
— for the birds to eat. It was then that the gifts from the crows
started to appear.

Her collection also includes a miniature silver ball, a black button,
a faded black piece of foam and a blue Lego piece. She stores the
treasures that the crows bring to her in a bead container, with each
gift carefully itemized and labeled.

What's Gabi's most prized treasure? A pearl-colored heart. Because
Gabi says that's the one that shows just how much they love her.

You can listen to Gabi and hear more about her story on The
Bittersweet Life podcast.

[Jimbo]

First crow: "You're looking well fed and prosperous lately."

Second crow: "I've got a trained human. I give it whatever worthless
bauble I happen to find and it provides me with great food and a
swimming pool."

First crow: "Whoa! What a beautiful scam! Can I join your gang?"

[someone]

On Sunday, November 29, 2015 at 5:38:37 PM UTC, Jimbo wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 11:33:12 -0500, Seymore4Head

> wrote:
>
> >http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/little-girl-feeds-crows-in-return-they-bring-her-gifts
> >
> > Like many kids her age, 8-year-old Gabi Mann from Seattle has an
> >interesting collection of treasures. A yellow bead, one blue earring,
> >a tiny light bulb, a paperclip and a rusty screw. But unlike many kids
> >her age, Gabi didn't collect these treasures herself. They were
> >brought to her by crows.
> >
> ><picture>
> >
> >Yes, you read that right. Like Cinderella, Gabi has bird friends that
> >bring her gifts on a regular basis.
> >
> >It all started quite by accident. As a toddler, Gabi was prone to
> >dropping her food as she walked along. Soon, the crows were keeping an
> >eye on her, and swooping in to pick up the pieces whenever she dropped
> >a morsel. As Gabi got older, she began sharing her school lunch on the
> >way to the bus stop. It didn't take long before the crows lined the
> >street to greet her bus each day.
> >
> >Then, in 2013, Gabi decided to do more than just share the scraps of
> >her lunch. Each morning, she began filling a birdbath with fresh

> >water, and setting out food -- peanuts, dog food and general leftovers
> >-- for the birds to eat. It was then that the gifts from the crows

> >started to appear.
> >
> >Her collection also includes a miniature silver ball, a black button,
> >a faded black piece of foam and a blue Lego piece. She stores the
> >treasures that the crows bring to her in a bead container, with each
> >gift carefully itemized and labeled.
> >
> >What's Gabi's most prized treasure? A pearl-colored heart. Because
> >Gabi says that's the one that shows just how much they love her.
>
> First crow: "You're looking well fed and prosperous lately."
>
> Second crow: "I've got a trained human. I give it whatever worthless
> bauble I happen to find and it provides me with great food and a
> swimming pool."
>
> First crow: "Whoa! What a beautiful scam! Can I join your gang?"
>
> >You can listen to Gabi and hear more about her story on The
> >Bittersweet Life podcast.

Crows are built to recognise design?

[Jimbo]

Like all other creatures they can recognize patterns, and Like P.T.
Barnum, they're able to recognize an easy mark. Do you see theological
implications in this?

[Seymore4Head]

Unless the girl has discarded the items that were brought back that
were not man made, it is a pretty good indication that crows do
recognize design. No?

[Jimbo]

They certainly do - especially if such recognition promotes their own
survival. Crows are both intelligent and opportunistic. But I don't
know why 'someone' asked if they are "built to recognize design."
Perhaps he will explain.

[Jimbo]

Probably I should clarify this. Crows can recognize complex patterns
and seem able to make basic logical deductions, but I don't know what
'someone' meant when he used the term 'design,' and I also don't know
what you mean by the term.

[Seymore4Head]

I said man made. That is what I meant by design.

[Jimbo]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 15:16:33 -0500, Seymore4Head

Okay. I didn't notice that all the mentioned items were man made. This
probably indicates that crows are better than me at recognizing
design.

[jillery]

Apparently crows think a lot like cats.

>>You can listen to Gabi and hear more about her story on The
>>Bittersweet Life podcast.

--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[James Beck]

Maybe. Or maybe the crows are leaving random offerings and little Gabi
only notices the man made ones.

[Jimbo]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 16:41:30 -0700, James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com>

We don't have sufficient information right now to make that
determination, but it seems a plausible enough hypothesis. Little Gabi
may have opened up a new avenue of investigation into both human and
crow behavior!

[Jimbo]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 18:04:47 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

Oddly enough, the cats seem to be more generous in their gifts. When
they bring a dead mouse or bird to their human, it's something they
could eat themselves. On the other hand maybe the crows feel they're
returning something that Gabi has lost. I see a paper in this: "Innate
Gifting Behaviors in Humans, Crows and Cats."

[James Beck]

Maybe, but maybe crows think little Gabi is hot, so the only fruitful
research direction may involve dissection. Alternatively, maybe alien
astronauts told them that Earth girls are easy and the crows think
she's a tease.

[Jimbo]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 18:53:11 -0700, James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com>

My advice is to stick with your original hypothesis: 'Little girl
could have overlooked non-artifactual crow gifts.' The 'crows may be
cross-species pedophiles influenced by aliens' hypothesis looks a bit
unsound.

[William Morse]

Please try reading for content. The crows didn't start giving gifts
until after Gabi was doing more than just dropping scraps. This is not
called a scam, it is called gratitude. And I think it is an important
implication and worth further discussion that crows could show gratitude
to humans. Now you may have realized all that and been attempting
humor. I have no problem with that. If that was the case, don't quit
your day job :-)

[J. J. Lodder]

Jimbo <ji...@nospam.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 18:04:47 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 09:36:46 -0800, Jimbo <ji...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> >>On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 11:33:12 -0500, Seymore4Head
> >><Seymor...@Hotmail.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >>>http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/little-girl-feeds-crows-i
n-return-they-bring-her-gifts
> >>>
> >>> Like many kids her age, 8-year-old Gabi Mann from Seattle has an
> >>>interesting collection of treasures. A yellow bead, one blue earring,
> >>>a tiny light bulb, a paperclip and a rusty screw. But unlike many kids
> >>>her age, Gabi didn't collect these treasures herself. They were
> >>>brought to her by crows.
> >>>
> >>><picture>
> >>>
> >>>Yes, you read that right. Like Cinderella, Gabi has bird friends that
> >>>bring her gifts on a regular basis.
> >>>
> >>>It all started quite by accident. As a toddler, Gabi was prone to
> >>>dropping her food as she walked along. Soon, the crows were keeping an
> >>>eye on her, and swooping in to pick up the pieces whenever she dropped
> >>>a morsel. As Gabi got older, she began sharing her school lunch on the
> >>>way to the bus stop. It didn't take long before the crows lined the
> >>>street to greet her bus each day.
> >>>
> >>>Then, in 2013, Gabi decided to do more than just share the scraps of
> >>>her lunch. Each morning, she began filling a birdbath with fresh

> >>>water, and setting out food, peanuts, dog food and general leftovers

> >>> for the birds to eat. It was then that the gifts from the crows
> >>>started to appear.
> >>>
> >>>Her collection also includes a miniature silver ball, a black button,
> >>>a faded black piece of foam and a blue Lego piece. She stores the
> >>>treasures that the crows bring to her in a bead container, with each
> >>>gift carefully itemized and labeled.
> >>>
> >>>What's Gabi's most prized treasure? A pearl-colored heart. Because
> >>>Gabi says that's the one that shows just how much they love her.
> >>
> >>First crow: "You're looking well fed and prosperous lately."
> >>
> >>Second crow: "I've got a trained human. I give it whatever worthless
> >>bauble I happen to find and it provides me with great food and a
> >>swimming pool."
> >>
> >>First crow: "Whoa! What a beautiful scam! Can I join your gang?"
> >
> >
> >Apparently crows think a lot like cats.
>
> Oddly enough, the cats seem to be more generous in their gifts. When
> they bring a dead mouse or bird to their human, it's something they
> could eat themselves. On the other hand maybe the crows feel they're
> returning something that Gabi has lost. I see a paper in this: "Innate
> Gifting Behaviors in Humans, Crows and Cats."

But it is a sacrifice to them too.
Crows are known for decorating their nests with found objects,
preferably glittering ones.
So they are bringing her nesting material
that they could have used for themselves,

Jan

[James Beck]

Killjoy.

Maybe the crow god brought them to trick her into thinking they like
her. Soon, they'll lure her into the woods and eat her eyeballs.

[Jimbo]

You also appear not to be reading for content. My little story of the
prosperous crow takes place after Gabi began to actively provision the
crows and provide a bird bath. You are assuming that they felt
gratitude for these added gifts. I, on the other hand, suspect that
there's an instinctive (and perhaps partly cultural) basis for their
reciprocal altruism.

Interspecies mutualisms may be instinctive extensions of what were
initially intra-species mutualistic behaviors. In intelligent social
species, cultural traditions may develop atop the base of innate
behavioral dispositions. There seem to be instinctive bases for mutual
food sharing, grooming and partitioning of various 'duties' among many
social species. Would you be as certain that 'gratitude' is involved
in cases such as the mutual blood sharing among vampire bats? It's
possible that you are merely projecting human emotions and motives
into non-human creatures.

There are plenty of anecdotes concerning gifting behavior among social
species, and crow gifting stories are common. Anecdotes don't
constitute solid evidence about animal behavior or motivations, but
may provide ideas for developing new experimental protocols. How would
you frame your intuition as a testable hypothesis that eliminates
unconscious emotional biases on the part of the researchers? You can't
just assume that your intuitions about crow 'gratitude' are correct.
For example, I feel an intuition that you must lack a sense of humor
if you didn't find my little crow fable both funny and insightful.
But, without further testing, that intuition wouldn't have much of a
scientific basis.

Crows exhibit intelligence, opportunism and social behavior, including
reciprocal altruism, that generally redounds to their own benefit.
Mutual gifting would have evolved originally as intra-specific
behavior, but inter-species mutualisms aren't particularly rare and
neither are avian traditions among intelligent social species. As John
Marzluff says in _The Gift of the Crow_, "Gifting is an effective
strategy for a noisy, brash and often reviled pest of a bird to charm
its way into our society."

I'm not saying that crows can't feel gratitude of a sort toward
humans. I'm pretty sure that dogs can, and cats as well to a lesser
degree. Young birds of some species can imprint on humans when exposed
to them during their 'critical' period, and form what seem to be
emotional attachments. But some people tend to get all sappy about
perceived similarities to human emotions and overlook the
species-specific foundations of animal behavior.

[Jimbo]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 08:34:29 -0700, James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com>

Did you plagiarize this one from the Brothers Grimm?

[James Beck]

Not as far as I remember, but paranoid elaborations are all somewhat
derivative.

[Mike Duffy]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 09:41:54 -0800, Jimbo wrote:

> but inter-species mutualisms aren't particularly rare

My favorite is coyotes that team up with badgers. This happens enough that
I saw it documented on one of those nature shows. (Mutual of Omaha Wild
Kingdom?).

The badger would chase a prairie dog into his burrow, forcing it to
re-emerge from another exit. The coyote would then dispatch the prarie dog.
The badger would then emerge from the burrow, take the dead prey from the
coyote, eat his fill, and the coyote would clean up the leftovers.

Likely, the scenario had happened by chance the first time, and the coyote
had reflexively yielded the kill to a stronger social member, or simply was
not quick enough to run off with the kill before the badger emerged.

Badgers are not social, but they are not stupid. And of course, everyone
knows how wiley coyotes are. Together, they give the prey nowhere to
escape. A "badger and coyote" web search will give several more detailed
explanations.

[Jimbo]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 22:16:29 -0500, Mike Duffy <inv...@videotron.ca>
wrote:

Yep, an arrangement that benefits both sides. Other examples are birds
who ride on large mammals and pick off and eat their ecto-parasites.
Both creatures benefit. Or shrimps which have regular 'cleaning
stations' that are visited by large fish. In the case of coyotes and
badgers there may be something akin to actual friendship involved in
some cases, or at least personal alliances, but it seems likely that
the relationship between cleaning shrimps and large fish must be
largely instinctive in both animals.

As for crows, they are wily too, and I'm pretty sure there's some
element of calculation in their gifting behaviors, but apparently they
can make good and even affectionate pets, like parrots. So maybe
there's some gratitude involved too.

[Jimbo]

It's true that the arrangement is costing both the Gabi and the crows
something, and that both parties are getting something out of it.
Perhaps she's getting more out of it than them. She'll probably fondly
remember her friendship with the crows for the rest of her life. But
if she grows up to be an animal behaviorist she may have to somewhat
reassess their emotions and motivations.

>Jan

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, November 29, 2015 at 11:38:38 AM UTC-5, Seymore4Head wrote:
> http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/little-girl-feeds-crows-in-return-they-bring-her-gifts
>
> Like many kids her age, 8-year-old Gabi Mann from Seattle has an
> interesting collection of treasures. A yellow bead, one blue earring,
> a tiny light bulb, a paperclip and a rusty screw. But unlike many kids
> her age, Gabi didn't collect these treasures herself. They were
> brought to her by crows.
>
> <picture>
>
> Yes, you read that right. Like Cinderella, Gabi has bird friends that
> bring her gifts on a regular basis.
>
> It all started quite by accident. As a toddler, Gabi was prone to
> dropping her food as she walked along. Soon, the crows were keeping an
> eye on her, and swooping in to pick up the pieces whenever she dropped
> a morsel. As Gabi got older, she began sharing her school lunch on the
> way to the bus stop. It didn't take long before the crows lined the
> street to greet her bus each day.
>
> Then, in 2013, Gabi decided to do more than just share the scraps of
> her lunch. Each morning, she began filling a birdbath with fresh

> water, and setting out food -- peanuts, dog food and general leftovers
> -- for the birds to eat. It was then that the gifts from the crows
> started to appear.

A key question that has been aired, but I want to give it more body:
what is the ratio of these gifts to the food that is taken?

I ask because the behavior of the crows reminds me of "pack rats"
that are (were?) referred to also as "trade rats." People
camping out where these rats abounded would sometimes find some
of their things gone and see an unfamiliar item replacing the
missing item.

The term "trade rats" came from the belief that the rats were
deliberately bringing items in exchange for the ones they took
away. But the prosaic explanation is that the rats happened to
be carrying something in their mouths that had grabbed their
fancy and dropped it in order to pick up this new item.

If the taken-to-left ratio is high in the case of the crows,
the natural hypothesis is that this prosaic explanation
is the correct one in their case as well.

And there are grounds to suspect that it *is* high, unless the
list of things mentioned here is a minuscule fraction of
her total inventory of crow-brought treasures. But then, why
even mention "a black button"?

> Her collection also includes a miniature silver ball, a black button,
> a faded black piece of foam and a blue Lego piece. She stores the
> treasures that the crows bring to her in a bead container, with each
> gift carefully itemized and labeled.

Crows are fond of trinkets, are they not? Not in the same way as
bowerbirds but...have crows' nests been studied to see whether
they, too, contain trinkets like these?

> What's Gabi's most prized treasure? A pearl-colored heart. Because
> Gabi says that's the one that shows just how much they love her.
>
> You can listen to Gabi and hear more about her story on The
> Bittersweet Life podcast.

A heartwarming story. I may feel like a heel later on for bringing up
the prosaic explanation.

But then, talk.origins is science-oriented, is it not?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

I suppose my "prosaic explanation" hypothesis that I posted about
half an hour ago also makes me a "killjoy" in your eyes. [Yeah, I
know you were indulging in good-natured ribbing.]

As long as we are dipping into folklore, I note that my
"prosaic explanation" goes all the way back to the (Aesop's?)
fable of the dog who was carrying a bone and saw his reflection
in the water, bone and all.

To his untrained eye, the reflected bone seemed to be a bigger
prize than the one he was carrying, so he dropped the real bone
to try to grab the reflection, with consequences that are a
well known part of folklore.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

PS. The dog-and-reflection fable appears in many "Aesop's fables"
anthologies,but I take that with a tiny grain of salt. Background:
I've read in a huge, scholarly collection of "Arabian nights"
stories that the two most famous "Arabian nights," the one about
Aladdin and the one about Ali Baba, were added to then-existing
collections of Arabian nights tales long after the fact,
and IIRC they have been traced to quite different sources.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

William Morse <wdNOSP...@verizon.net> wrote in
news:n3giu...@news6.newsguy.com:

It's an interesting story, but it seems to me that the main implication is
not so much that crows can show gratitude to people but that they have a
concept of 'crow-ness' that they can project onto other species - you could
say they corvomorphize us. Gabi projects the human concept of love onto the
crows: the crows seem to be projecting the corvine concept of reciprocal
gift-giving onto Gabi. She thinks they're like people because of the way
they act, and they think she's like a crow because of the way she acts -
and neither is necessarily wrong.

I wonder if the crows and Gabi have an easier time 'reading' each other
because of the physical differences between crows and human beings: it may
be that there's less potential for crossed wires than there is with
physically similar species such as chimpanzees - people have an unfortunate
tendency to imagine that chimpanzees are grinning when they bare their
teeth at you, and chimpanzees have an unfortunate tendency to imagine that
people are baring their teeth at them when they're grinning. Since crows
have no facial expressions that a person can understand, they also have
none that a person can misunderstand.

>>> You can listen to Gabi and hear more about her story on The
>>> Bittersweet Life podcast.

--
S.O.P.

[Mike Duffy]

On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 08:40:20 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos wrote:

> The term "trade rats" came from the belief that the rats were
> deliberately bringing items in exchange for the ones they took
> away. But the prosaic explanation is that the rats happened to
> be carrying something in their mouths that had grabbed their
> fancy and dropped it in order to pick up this new item.

You don't think a pine cone is worth a gold ring? C'mon, you can't eat a
gold ring.

[Peter Nyikos]

Sure, to a crow or rat a pine cone is worth more than a gold ring,
under ordinary circumstances, but that doesn't undermine anything I
wrote. The issue is one of intent and motivation.

Did they pick up the gold ring with the intent to trade at a
place they knew of, and headed for?

Did they decide somehow that, by trading something for food,
they would then encourage the human to keep putting out goodies
for them?

Did the crows decide to decorate the birdbath the way a bowerbird
decorates its bower?

Do they have instincts that somehow dispose them to this kind
of behavior even if they didn't make conscious, deliberate
decisions like the three I've just outlined?

Or is it sheer coincidence that they were carrying a bauble that
just happened to interest them at a recent moment? did they drop it
simply to be able to eat the food item on the spot, and then
didn't bother to retrieve it afterwards? or did they carry the
food item away, while carrying the bauble away as well would
have been too cumbersome?

Did the little girl ever observe one in the act of leaving a bauble
behind? That would at least help us to choose between the two
alternative hypotheses in the preceding paragraph.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

nyikos "at" math.sc.edu

[William Morse]

On 11/30/2015 12:41 PM, Jimbo wrote:

Thanks for such a comprehensive and interesting response. Of course that
doesn't mean I agree with you (see below) :-)

I could counter that your characterization of the crows as deliberately
perpetrating a scam is the projection of human emotions, although I am
not sure I would put perpetrating a scam past crows. But as I
understand it, emotions arise in an area of the brain that is quite
old, so I would argue that "gratitude" is the method evolution has used
to implement reciprocal altruism, including mutual blood sharing among
vampire bats. In other words, I am rejecting the hypothesis that humans
are "special".

> There are plenty of anecdotes concerning gifting behavior among social
> species, and crow gifting stories are common. Anecdotes don't
> constitute solid evidence about animal behavior or motivations, but
> may provide ideas for developing new experimental protocols. How would
> you frame your intuition as a testable hypothesis that eliminates
> unconscious emotional biases on the part of the researchers? You can't
> just assume that your intuitions about crow 'gratitude' are correct.
> For example, I feel an intuition that you must lack a sense of humor
> if you didn't find my little crow fable both funny and insightful.
> But, without further testing, that intuition wouldn't have much of a
> scientific basis.

Good question. A start would be to see if crows value the "trinkets"
apart from human interactions.

> Crows exhibit intelligence, opportunism and social behavior, including
> reciprocal altruism, that generally redounds to their own benefit.
> Mutual gifting would have evolved originally as intra-specific
> behavior, but inter-species mutualisms aren't particularly rare and
> neither are avian traditions among intelligent social species. As John
> Marzluff says in _The Gift of the Crow_, "Gifting is an effective
> strategy for a noisy, brash and often reviled pest of a bird to charm
> its way into our society."

Haven't read it, but it sounds like I should put in on my reading list.
I can add that mutualisms often seems to me to be overlooked in
evolution. I think the economic explanations of Ricardo may be useful in
understanding why mutualism is so common.

>
> I'm not saying that crows can't feel gratitude of a sort toward
> humans. I'm pretty sure that dogs can, and cats as well to a lesser
> degree. Young birds of some species can imprint on humans when exposed
> to them during their 'critical' period, and form what seem to be
> emotional attachments. But some people tend to get all sappy about
> perceived similarities to human emotions and overlook the
> species-specific foundations of animal behavior.
>

As I said above, I think that emotions are a useful way to understand
animal (which includes human) behavior. But I agree that one has to be
very careful about attributing behavior to emotion. I don't avoid poison
ivy because I have a personal animosity towards it.

[Burkhard]

I love this, but wonder whether to think of crows as corvomorphizing is
a second-level anthropomorphizing

[Robert Camp]

Anthropocorvomorphizocentrism?

[Jimbo]

On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 22:47:52 -0500, William Morse

That's plausible and is potentially a testable hypothesis. I thought
you were just being overly sentimental.

>> There are plenty of anecdotes concerning gifting behavior among social
>> species, and crow gifting stories are common. Anecdotes don't
>> constitute solid evidence about animal behavior or motivations, but
>> may provide ideas for developing new experimental protocols. How would
>> you frame your intuition as a testable hypothesis that eliminates
>> unconscious emotional biases on the part of the researchers? You can't
>> just assume that your intuitions about crow 'gratitude' are correct.
>> For example, I feel an intuition that you must lack a sense of humor
>> if you didn't find my little crow fable both funny and insightful.
>> But, without further testing, that intuition wouldn't have much of a
>> scientific basis.
>
>Good question. A start would be to see if crows value the "trinkets"
>apart from human interactions.

Yep. And whether they only gift human beings with man-made trinkets as
opposed to shiny stones, feathers etc. That might indicate something
about their ability to detect design and abilities to plan and think
ahead.

>> Crows exhibit intelligence, opportunism and social behavior, including
>> reciprocal altruism, that generally redounds to their own benefit.
>> Mutual gifting would have evolved originally as intra-specific
>> behavior, but inter-species mutualisms aren't particularly rare and
>> neither are avian traditions among intelligent social species. As John
>> Marzluff says in _The Gift of the Crow_, "Gifting is an effective
>> strategy for a noisy, brash and often reviled pest of a bird to charm
>> its way into our society."
>
>Haven't read it, but it sounds like I should put in on my reading list.
>I can add that mutualisms often seems to me to be overlooked in
>evolution. I think the economic explanations of Ricardo may be useful in
>understanding why mutualism is so common.

Actually I haven't read it either, though I've ordered it. I found the
quote through a Google search for "crow gifting." I just put it in to
impress you with my superior knowledge of crow behavior. I guess I
shouldn't be disparaging the ethics of crows when I'm engaging in such
scam-like behavior myself ;0)

I agree that Ricardo's ideas might shed some light on patterns of
exchange of goods and services among non human creatures. Cooperation
between creatures such as coyotes and badgers involves each taking
advantage of the specialized abilities of the partner - the coyote's
speed and the badger's digging abilities. It's a bit like nations
benefiting from the specializations of their trading partners.

>> I'm not saying that crows can't feel gratitude of a sort toward
>> humans. I'm pretty sure that dogs can, and cats as well to a lesser
>> degree. Young birds of some species can imprint on humans when exposed
>> to them during their 'critical' period, and form what seem to be
>> emotional attachments. But some people tend to get all sappy about
>> perceived similarities to human emotions and overlook the
>> species-specific foundations of animal behavior.
>>
>
>As I said above, I think that emotions are a useful way to understand
>animal (which includes human) behavior. But I agree that one has to be
>very careful about attributing behavior to emotion. I don't avoid poison
>ivy because I have a personal animosity towards it.

Me either, but I avoid poison oak because I know it has a personal
animosity toward me.

[Jimbo]

On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 22:47:52 -0500, William Morse

That's plausible and potentially could be developed into a testable

hypothesis. I thought you were just being overly sentimental.

>> There are plenty of anecdotes concerning gifting behavior among social
>> species, and crow gifting stories are common. Anecdotes don't
>> constitute solid evidence about animal behavior or motivations, but
>> may provide ideas for developing new experimental protocols. How would
>> you frame your intuition as a testable hypothesis that eliminates
>> unconscious emotional biases on the part of the researchers? You can't
>> just assume that your intuitions about crow 'gratitude' are correct.
>> For example, I feel an intuition that you must lack a sense of humor
>> if you didn't find my little crow fable both funny and insightful.
>> But, without further testing, that intuition wouldn't have much of a
>> scientific basis.
>
>Good question. A start would be to see if crows value the "trinkets"
>apart from human interactions.

That wouldn't necessarily establish anything about gratitude. People
value money, but may not feel any particular gratitude toward the
merchants who take it in exchange for goods or services.

>> Crows exhibit intelligence, opportunism and social behavior, including
>> reciprocal altruism, that generally redounds to their own benefit.
>> Mutual gifting would have evolved originally as intra-specific
>> behavior, but inter-species mutualisms aren't particularly rare and
>> neither are avian traditions among intelligent social species. As John
>> Marzluff says in _The Gift of the Crow_, "Gifting is an effective
>> strategy for a noisy, brash and often reviled pest of a bird to charm
>> its way into our society."
>
>Haven't read it, but it sounds like I should put in on my reading list.
>I can add that mutualisms often seems to me to be overlooked in
>evolution. I think the economic explanations of Ricardo may be useful in
>understanding why mutualism is so common.

Actually I haven't read it either, though I've ordered it. I found the
quote through a Google search for "crow gifting." I just put it in to
impress you with my superior knowledge of crow behavior. I guess I

shouldn't be disparaging the ethics of crows when I engaged in such

scam-like behavior myself ;0)

I agree that Ricardo's ideas might shed some light on patterns of

exchange of goods and services among non human creatures. For example,
the cooperation between coyotes and badgers involves each taking

advantage of the specialized abilities of the partner - the coyote's

speed and the badger's digging abilities. The prairie dogs apparently
are more likely not to flee from their burrows if a coyote is lurking
outside, so the badger profits. When they do make a run for it, the
coyote profits. It's a bit like nations benefiting from the

specializations of their trading partners.

>> I'm not saying that crows can't feel gratitude of a sort toward
>> humans. I'm pretty sure that dogs can, and cats as well to a lesser
>> degree. Young birds of some species can imprint on humans when exposed
>> to them during their 'critical' period, and form what seem to be
>> emotional attachments. But some people tend to get all sappy about
>> perceived similarities to human emotions and overlook the
>> species-specific foundations of animal behavior.
>>
>
>As I said above, I think that emotions are a useful way to understand
>animal (which includes human) behavior. But I agree that one has to be
>very careful about attributing behavior to emotion. I don't avoid poison
>ivy because I have a personal animosity towards it.

Sure, you're just being rationally cautious. On the other hand many
people have an irrational fear of spiders and snakes. Even if they
know a particular spider or snake is harmless, the fear remains.
Children may be innately predisposed to form such phobias, since it
doesn't seem to take much to get them started.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote in news:n3mcdj$4u2$1...@dont-email.me:

That has occurred to me. On the other hand, I wonder whether it would be
anthropocentric to suppose that we're the only species capable of
developing a sense of its own traits and projecting that sense onto other
species.
--
S.O.P.

[William Morse]

It's morphizing all the way down.

But more seriously, Sneaky has a good point. I have recently seen (as
usual I can't remember where) some research that indicates that people
are more apt to misinterpret colleagues than strangers, because they
assume they know what the colleague is saying while they actually listen
more closely to what the stranger is saying.