Crows are found on every
continent except antarctica.
Wherever humans live,
they are there.
Their world intimately
intertwines with ours,
yet we know
so little about them.
They,on the other hand,
seem fascinated with us.
The most surprising thing
about crows
has been their ability to
recognize and remember
particular people,
and even just particular faces.
They look, they think,
they eye-ball you,
they really seem to be
sizing up the situation.
You walk outside now with
a whole 'NOTHER perspective --
NoT just that you're moving
through an animal's environment,
but that they're watching you
and learning from you
every step of the way.
Crows have
an exceptional ability
to pick a single face
out of a crowd.
But what's truly extraordinary
is what the crows do
with that knowledge...
At the university of washington
in seattle,
a team of masked researchers
fans out to conduct
an ongoing experiment
with an animal that many people
view as a schemer,
a scavenger,
and a dreaded omen of death --
the crow.
This is
a facial recognition test.
The way we go about
studying facial recognition
is to change our face.
The caveman mask
was our initial trial.
We caught seven birds
wearing the caveman mask
and watched their response
to that mask
as we would just walk casually
through a route
that included
where we had caught them.
[ Cawing 1
initially about 30°/o of the birds
we encountered
would scold us.
As we've done this through time,
now virtually every bird
you see on campus
will swoop down when you're
wearing the caveman mask
and give an alarm call.
[ Cawing 1
it was shocking that these birds
had an incredible ability
to focus on
an individual person --
so really to pick us
out of a crowd.
It's a difficult task
even for people to do.
Scientists are just
beginning to understand
how crows recognize
a single human face,
and how they use
that information.
The adult birds
are showing us
that they're very intelligent.
In essence, they've learned
a harmful face
with one trial exposure.
One catch, and they remember
that face on campus
for over two years.
What was shocking
wasn't just that the crows
could pick the scientists
out of a crowd, but that they
told each other about them.
[ Cawing 1
soon everyone in the group --
known as
"a m*rder of crows" --
knows who their friends
and their enemies are.
The crows who gather near
the small farming community
of CHATHAM, canada,
know that there are
far more enemies here
than friends.
Each fall, hundreds of thousands
of migrating crows
join local flocks to create one
of the biggest roost sites
in the world.
Crows liked what humans did
to north america --
they liked it a lot.
They like what we like --
we like open spaces with trees,
and that's what they like. So we cut
down all the forests in the east,
made them opened up, still a few
trees for nesting and all that,
they like that.
And now they're everywhere.
Crows are always watching,
learning, and remembering. They're
especially attentive on garbage day.
Crows memorize
the garbage truck routes,
learning when the best time is
to scavenge
some succulent treats.
[ Cawing 1
So we're omnivores
and we're social,
and crows are omnivores.
And sometimes we don't like
the animals
that have the same
qualities as us.
We don't like crows,
because crows are opportunistic.
And -- so are humans, though!
Crows are invasive --
crows will do
all sorts of things
that humans do that we are NoT
particularly proud of doing,
like feeding on garbage.
That long cultural
interaction we've had with crows
in a negative way
has seeped into
our modern culture.
Whenever something bad is
going to happen on a movie,
you hear a crow call
in the distance.
[ Cawing 1
The mayor of CHATHAM
tried to rid the city
of their crow infestation
by introducing
a sh**ting competition.
But as soon as
one crow was shot,
the word went out,
and they all learned
just how high to fly
to stay out of the range
of the pellets.
That's when the city turned to
ULRICH WATERMANN
and his hawk, harriet, to try to
drive the crows out of town.
The crows,
being highly intelligent,
they can figure out
a human being,
they can figure out a raptor.
But that the two work together,
that's too much for them.
They cannot comprehend
that their two worst enemies
are working together --
that freaks them out.
Oh yeah, she wants to go.
Let another one so!
[ Laughing 1
the reason that
I let that crow go
is she was NoT much harmed,
and is in good shape
to join her friends there,
and she will tell the story of
what just happened to her.
See them all,
they all are coming up now
and she is joining them now
and telling them
the horrible story.
Crows learn from
each OTHER'S misfortunes.
When one is k*lled
in a farmer's field,
it's NoT uncommon for them to
change entire migratory patterns
so that no crows
fly over that field
for as long as two years.
There is no doubt about it --
crows talk.
Professor john Marzluff
knows that crows talk.
And that is at the heart of
his groundbreaking new study.
See that nest
up there?
He wants to find out if
crows have the ability
to pass information on,
NoT just from one adult
to another,
but from one generation
to the next.
To study this, he's going to
follow several crows
from hatching
through their first year
to see how they learn.
It won't be easy.
Less than 50°/o of crows
survive their first year.
Right now all we know
is that there's eggs up there,
and it's really a gamble
whether those eggs are going to
turn into young birds
that we are then able to follow
when they leave the nest
and encounter new things
in their environment.
Before the eggs were laid,
Marzluff and his team
caught and banded
adult crows in five different
test locations around seattle.
They wore a different mask
at each location.
Now a handful of crows
at each of those test sites,
including our crow parents,
has learned that
one specific mask means danger.
What Marzluff wants to find out
is whether the parents will
pass on their knowledge
of the dangerous face
to their young,
and will the young
NoT just learn to
recognize this face,
but remember
and use this information
months from now, when their
parents aren't around?
Surprisingly, this kind of
learning in the wild
has only been proven
with primates.
We're trying to see
the fledglings in this nest.
When the team stands
in the park
without their masks on,
the crows' response
appears to be quite normal.
So those are just regular caws
communicating certainly
some excitement,
but NoT
a scolding vocalization.
Now, as part of the experiment,
he puts on the mask, and it is
a whole different story.
[ Crow scolding 1
We're in a critical part
of the study right now
because the young
are just at the point
where they're
learning everything
that they're going to need
to survive
for this next year or two. And we want
them to learn as part of this process
that some people are bad --
in particular, our face with
the mask on it is bad.
[ Cawing 1
we have to sl-low that a trait
is observed,
NoT directly experienced
by an individual,
which is what we're doing
with these young birds
as they see their parents
scold the mask.
Then we have to see if they have
learned from their parent
to respond,
and do they take that learning
and that memory with them
as they establish
in a new place?
That's really
a hallmark of intelligence
that is seen in
very, very few animals.
It's the sort of thing that is
required for culture to evolve.
If Marzluff
is able to show that
each generation of crows
is capable of
building on an earlier
generation's knowledge,
then he will prove
that crows possess a kind of
evolutionary advantage shared by
only a handful of
the world's smartest creatures.
HOW'D you score
that one, dave?
They stayed back
there swarming on me
while we were even waiting.
That was...
It was like, yeah,
that was beautiful.
While Marzluff and his
team are watching the crows,
someone else is watching them --
the u.S. Department of defense
is funding their study
because they think
the crow's ability
to recognize faces
and point out the bad guys
might have applications
beyond the bird world.
For MILLENNIA, humans have
looked upon crows
as highly intelligent creatures,
the wise guy, the trickster.
Only recently have crows become
a focus of major scientific
scrutiny around the world.
Scientists want to know
why crows,
who don't have the biggest
of all the bird brains,
are proving to be the most
intelligent of all the birds.
Crows do NoT have the biggest
brains of all birds, parrots do.
But it's crows that are
by far the top among birds.
Whether it's the american crow,
the european species,
the north american species.
Every continent of the world
has its crow,
f? H ' 'I'll! ' 7-" ' v]
That's at the top
of the rankings
for that particular area
of the world.
The idea that
crow intelligence
was worth studying
came from a tiny french island
off the coast of new ZEALAND,
that's home to arguably
the smartest crow species
in the world.
In 1993, scientists from
the university of auckland
discovered that
new CALEDONIAN crows
had an ability
long thought to be
the domain of humans
and great apes --
the ability to use tools.
It's a bit of puzzle --
why is it that it really is
just this one species of
new CALEDONIAN crow,
stuck on a relatively small
island in the pacific,
that uses these
really complex tools?
Russell gray
is part of the team
that made that first
astonishing discovery,
and he continues to return
to the island
to study these remarkable birds.
Alex taylor has spent
the last two years on the island
living with the crows
and conducting experiments.
In terms of biodiversity,
it's on the kind of top ten
hot spots of the world.
There's just so much stuff here
that doesn't live anywhere else.
And especially with
the insects and plants,
there's tons that's
NoT even been documented.
So it's kind of
a really special place.
What's truly remarkable
is that new CALEDONIAN crows
don't just use tools,
they make them, as well.
It was really amazing to see
that they'd go through
this long,
complex sequences of actions.
It wasn't just one step,
like, rip off a stick,
and it wasn't even two steps.
It was breaking off
at a difficult place
the branch below a fork,
trimming off the side branches,
and then crafting away
at the base of the fork
to get a really functional
hook tool.
And that was really amazing
to see an animal,
knowing there's some food there,
putting all this effort
into getting its tool
just right for the job.
There's really
three species that make tools --
elephants, chimpanzees,
and new CALEDONIAN crows.
So just three out of, like,
you know,
six million or whatever
there is on the planet.
People went wild
when jane goodall found
that chimps could actually
use tools at all,
and the chimpanzees have never
been found to use hooks
in any kind of way,
so to find a crow species
that's using tool use
and making tools
in a much more sophisticated way
than the chimps,
really, I think
it hit everyone's radars.
Sometimes you see
really complex things,
but there's some
simple trick to it,
some lower level behavior
that underlies it.
Well, any behavior you see
like that in the wild
makes you think,
it makes you think,
"I really need to do
an experiment."
First we put the meat
into the hole,
then we put the long stick
in the tool box,
right at the back,
out of reach of the crow,
and we put a short tool
in front of the box.
It's one thing
to use a tool to get food,
but to use a tool
to get another tool
to get food requires much more
complex cognitive powers.
This "meta tool use,"
as it's called, is considered
to be crucial
in the evolution of humans.
Well, the thing that sparked
the technical evolution
in humans
was when we started using rocks
NoT to crack nuts or bones
or other bits of food,
but used them to crack
other rocks.
So it's really interesting
to find that
a crow species can actually do
this meta tool use,
because then we start having
some kind of idea
of the kind of
cognitive abilities
that, you know, our early
ancestors might have had.
Just how smart are
these crows?
In an experiment that has
never been tried before,
this crow will be challenged
to push its abilities
to the next level.
We're looking to see if the crow
can act out a three-step plan,
think, like, three chess moves
into the future,
and pull up the string
to get the short tool,
take the short tool
to get the long tool,
and then take the long tool
to get the food.
This should be really --
I'm really fascinated by this.
I really, I really want to see
if they're able to do it
because, I hope they can,
but they may just,
it may just be too --
be, like, too long a distance
between their first action
with the string
and the time they're getting
THEFOOD,
so they're going to kind of
forget what they're doing
once they're up
and string pulling,
so, yeah, I'm really curious to
see how this is going to go.
This is the first time
this experiment
has ever been attempted,
and our cameras are there
to record what happens.
The crows have done
amazingly well,
really surprisingly well.
We didn't expect them to be this
good at these kind of problems.
They've performed
at the highest levels
with tasks requiring
technical intelligence
out of pretty much any animal
on the planet.
Crows are very intelligent
for animals.
Their brain size
relative to their body size
is of the same caliber
as many primates.
So it really is appropriate
to think of these animals
as feathered apes.
Back in seattle,
john MARZLUFF'S test crows,
who hatched two weeks ago,
are growing up fast.
Marzluff checks the nests daily.
One nest catches his eye
because it's home to a baby crow
unlike all the other nestlings.
With a distinct band of white
on her wings,
she's immediately given the name
"white wing."
Their ever-attentive parents
are kept busy feeding them,
but they're NoT the only ones...
Some pairs of crows have what
we call helpers at the nest.
Those might be a young male
or perhaps a female
that remains in
the natal territory
for a year or two,
and they help their siblings.
Having so many family members
providing food and protection
allows the baby birds
to concentrate on growing
and learning --
and this, scientists believe,
leads to an acceleration
in brain development.
Crows have
very interesting social systems,
and it's actually probably more
like western human civilization
than any other animal
on the planet.
There are no primates that have
what we have
in western civilization,
which is essentially
a mated pair, right?
Monogamous male and female,
more or less,
with their kids --
offspring from a bunch of years
and extended families,
where you know your relatives.
The basic social unit
is the family.
The whole family spends hours
standing guard
in nearby trees
and keeping an eye out
for predators
who might want to harm
their defenseless young.
At three weeks old,
the baby crows
are almost ready
to leave their nests.
Kind of
a tight spot here!
Now it's the time
in the experiment
to put leg bands
and radio tags on them.
The team is ready on the ground
to catch any crows
who might decide to
make a break for it.
All right, dave,
get ready!
O kay.
Get ready, heather!
There he goes,
dave, right at you!
We got him!
I'm coming down.
These guys are so calm.
Probably the best way
to understand
the development of intelligence
is to follow a young bird
as it's gathering
its intelligence.
How was your climb, john?
Either the trees
are getting taller
or I'm getting older,
or a little of both...
Really without a radio tag
where you can reliably,
every day,
find that individual,
see what it's doing, compare to
what it did yesterday,
understand its experiences
for accumulating life --
without that,
you really can't understand
its development of cognition.
They band eight birds
from five different nests.
There he goes!
There, you got him,
good job.
That one's got the white wings,
that's awesome.
Oh, wow!
White wing,
welcome to science!
All right, we need to get these
kids back to their family.
These young birds
are about to experience
a lot of new things
in a relatively short
period of time.
Crows have shown a great ability
to adapt to change
in some unusual ways.
[ Cawing 1
as tokyo has grown into
the world's largest city,
humans and crows
are thrust
closer and closer together.
It's NoT been an easy
accommodation -- for humans.
Crows and humans
are at w*r with one another.
The crows' resourcefulness
comes from their intelligence.
Their adaptability
is their strength.
A japanese species of
crow known as jungle crows
is one of nature's best
construction workers.
Inventive scavengers,
these jungle crows are
constantly on the lookout
for new building materials
for their nests.
In japan, where laundry is done
almost daily,
it's a common sight
to find clothes
drying outdoors
on metal hangers.
For crows,
this 1s an opportunity
far too tempting to pass up.
For crows,
th ese are ideal thickness
for nesting material.
This is too thin
for their beaks.
This is too thick.
This is the perfect thickness.
It is exactly the thickness
of a wire hanger.
Jungle crows
shape their nests
to fit the female's body --
the crow manipulates the hangers
to create her own
made-to-measure nest.
Using hangers
as nesting material might be
a clever adaptation to life
in an urban jungle,
but when the crows opt to locate
their nests in some place
other than a tree,
it can lead to
shocking consequences.
Nun.
Have stopped high-speed trains
in their tracks,
and caused blackouts
in entire neighborhoods.
So the japanese have come up
with their own clever response.
Preventing power interruptions
is the patrol's first priority.
Number one.
The crow patrol
of the kyushu
electric power company
fans out with a single mission,
to find and destroy the homes of
destructive squatters.
They outsmart us humans.
We remove their nests
as we find them,
but they see this
and circle above,
waiting to build a new one.
It's tough to outwit crows.
When we work hard to develop
a strategy against them,
crows develop counter-strategies
to foil it.
All we can do
is to look for new methods
based on our experiences,
apply them, and deal with
the outcomes.
That's the only way
we can manage.
I think the crows
are as smart as we are,
so we feel challenged,
we think we have to
fight against them.
We are competing with the crows,
th ese smart birds,
as our intellectual equals
in this fight.
NoT long after
Marzluff and his team
have returned the newly banded
test babies to their nest,
they're ready to head out
on their own.
Young crows don't leave the nest
because they know how to fly,
they leave because
it's too dangerous to stay.
Life on the ground
is only marginally safer.
[ Cawing 1
the most important lesson
a young crow learns
is when to move
and when to stay still.
This parent's verbal signals
could mean the difference
between life and death.
[ Cawing 1
crows have
different warning calls --
one for cats,
and one for hawks,
and another for humans.
Scientists have identified
over 250 distinct crow calls.
In addition,
each crow has
an individual voice
with at least
two different dialects.
One loud version
for the general crow community,
and a separate quiet dialect
for talk just within the family.
These types of
sophisticated language skills
are found only among
the most intelligent of species.
White wing and her brother have
managed to survive their first month.
They might look fully grown,
but they're at the equivalent
stage of a toddler.
Their blue eyes
have yet to turn black,
and their beaks have
the telltale red skin
of a young crow.
They're at the very beginning of
learning what it takes
to be a crow.
Nobody's really studied
the acquisition
or the learning process
at this initial stage
out of the nest,
but it's got to be phenomenal.
They're encountering all sorts
of things at that time --
new foods, new dangers.
They're learning all about
their world
in a very short,
hectic time.
When they are NoT
very coordinated,
so they're also learning
how to hold themselves
and move through this
three-dimensional world.
Even once white wing
she continues to beg and rely on
her family for food.
Crows can spend up to five years
with their parents --
the longest natal period
amongst bird species.
Like humans,
the proper nurturing
and education of their young
takes time
and gives youngsters more time
to observe and learn.
This luxury of time is a huge
contributing factor
to a crow's
cognitive development.
The family provides for
almost every need --
food, grooming,
and perhaps even affection.
By the time white wing
is three months old,
she's starting to
really test her wings.
And yet she still clings to
her mother's side.
Crows seem to need to be
close to each other,
especially their parents.
By the time white wing
is four months old
she's starting to find food
on her own.
She, like all crows,
quickly develops an appetite for
a wide variety of foods.
And this kind of diverse diet
has a direct impact
on brain development.
A lifestyle
that's more complicated
because you're eating
a wider diversity of foods
is something that explains
part of
the intelligence of
some primates,
and also part of
the intelligence of some birds,
so it's the same principle,
the fact that
you're an omnivore,
that seems to be pushing
the brain towards having
bigger areas to cope with
the extra amount of information.
If an animal only eats fruit,
then it only has to
learn about one food group.
Crows eat
fruits, vegetables, and meat,
so they have to be able to identify and
learn how to work with all th ese foods.
Walnuts, for example,
are a bit of a challenge,
but crows have figured out
NoT just how to
get the husk off them,
th EY'VE mastered the art of
how to crack a tough nut.
As they fly, they gauge
the weight of each nut
and drop it from
just the right height
to have it crack but NoT shatter
as it hits the pavement.
Then they follow the nut down
to make sure no one steals it.
They've even refined this
remarkable talent further --
they make sure that
the walnuts hit the road
just when the traffic signals
turn red,
eliminating the risk
that either they,
or their walnuts,
fall victim to
the passing traffic.
White wing is starting to master
some of the skills of
being an omnivore.
Clearly, it's a big
learning curve.
Our test crow's worlds
are expanding.
White wing is leaving
the safety of her parents
to go off
and play with others.
Like a teenager, she is eager
to seek adventure with friends
but reassured that,
come evening,
she can return to
the safety of family.
Social animals
are typically
some of the most intelligent
animals, and it makes sense --
being social has a lot of
demands on you
that require your ability
to learn and remember things.
You have to
learn and remember
the relation of the other
to yourself,
plus it would be very good
if you also learn and remember
or even infer the relations
among others,
that exist among others.
So the more the group
is structured by
different types of
relationships,
the more brainpower you need
to calculate all those different
types of interactions.
Scientists at
the konrad lorenz institute
in the austrian alps
have for more than
half a century
studied the social behavior
of a variety of birds.
Now they're turning
their attention to crows.
They're so destructive birds.
I hate you.
Anna BRAUN is working
on an experiment
to test crows'
reasoning abilities.
This kind of test has been used
on children, apes, and dogs.
Th ese are the first trials
to be conducted on crows.
This is a touch screen,
which we are just starting to
work with the carrion crows,
and here you see
a two choice procedure
in which the birds get
the option between
two different icons --
one is positively rewarded,
and one negatively rewarded.
Th e wash bucket?
They learn through experience,
they just peck on it,
and on one they get food,
and on the other they don't,
they get a red screen.
So this is the right one
in this case...
No, that's the wrong one.
And then
a picture combination
appears on the screen
with an image the crow has
never seen before.
It now has to infer which image
will bring the reward.
When this task
was presented to children,
they mastered it
after just a few tries.
Dogs took as many as 7O attempts
to solve the puzzle.
Crows surprisingly figured out
this experiment
almost as quickly as children.
But they already come very far,
and that's the big surprise
for all of us.
They come from a behavioral
point in the cognitive tasks,
they come on the level that is
reached by some ape species,
Thomas
BUGNYAR has previously worked with apes.
His current interest in crows
is focused on something
psychologists call
"theory of mind,"
a creature's ability to
recognize that other creatures
might have differing ideas
from their own.
Theory of mind is a huge step
of NoT only thinking about yourself,
what you yourself know,
what you yourself feel,
what you yourself experience,
but also just to extrapolate
and think about others
as being their own creatures
with their own kind of
mental life.
Crows clearly demonstrate
this kind of agile thinking when
it comes to storing their food.
First, they hide it.
Scientists call this
food caching.
When they cache,
they are on the look out
for any clues
that another crow
might be spying on them.
Over there,
he just did a food cache,
very close to the others,
but then he recovered it again
and moved up the hill,
and now he's caching again.
He left the cache site,
and now he is sitting
over there,
as proud as he could be,
watching, paying attention
to what's going to happen,
if the birds will approach.
If they suspect
they've been seen,
crows will move their cache,
defend it, or they may even
fake cache --
keep food in their pouch
and ONLYPRETENDTO bury it.
These are all highly complex
cognitive behaviors.
So a kind of cognitive
arms race
is starting between those that
try to prevent pilfering
and prevent the others
from watching,
and those that have to watch
for pilfering.
And we are talking now NoT only
about behaviors,
but we are talking also about
the mental state.
At five months,
white wing is reaching
the end of her adolescence.
She appears to have
an understanding of caching,
and she's venturing further
and further from home
and testing her wings.
One behavior that intelligent
animals appear to all share
is play.
Play allows the mind to learn
unexpected things,
and young crows love to play.
These flights of fancy
are more than
just fun seeking, though.
White wing and her pals
are building up strength
with these cannonball rolls,
and these loop-de-loops
are the perfect way
to evade a hawk in hot pursuit.
They also provide a pretty good
way to IM press a mate.
Attracting a mate is perhaps
the most important event
in white wing's life,
because crows mate for life --
a life that might last
as long as 2O years.
It looks as though white wing
has found herself
a promising candidate.
Marzluff is having trouble
finding one of his young crows
at another of the test sites.
[ Static 1
well, we're
getting closer.
So it's still NoT that close,
I got the gain up fairly high.
Yeah, this doesn't
look good to me.
Like the sort of place somebody
would come to eat somebody.
Oh, there's the culprit.
Cooper's hawk.
Cooper's hawk?
Laughing, there it is,
right there.
Yeah, it could be eating
that crow right now.
Hope it chokes on it.
With this young
test crow dead,
only three crows remain
in the study.
He knew from the start
it wasn't going to be easy to
follow young crows for a year.
And it's NoT just the young
who perish.
One of the parents was found
shot NoT far from the nest.
Death is NoT insignificant
in the crow world.
People have witnessed
a mysterious scene
that they can only describe
as a crow funeral,
where crows gather together
en MASSE
to mark the site where
one of their own has died. They
sit silently for a few minutes,
and then they take off
without a sound.
"Eerie" is how
it has been described.
Animals seem to feel pain. Social
animals seem to feel social pain,
they seem to grieve for a while
when their partners die.
And that's NoT surprising,
you know,
that's evolutionarily
the same tools.
The same evolutionary tools
are working for people
as it is for animals.
Few crows make it
out of adolescence,
and unfortunately, that was
the case for white wing.
When she was 6 months old, she was
hit by a car NoT far from home.
With white wing dead,
there's only one crow left
in MARZLUFF'S experiment.
The success or failure
of the experiment
now hinges on a single crow.
But first
he has to find his subject,
“tn m? '.1! F. I.
This bird is extremely
difficult to find.
It's in an area
that has lots of places
it can hide from
a ground-walking person.
If we could fly, it'd be a lot
easier here,
but this bird
is all over the place,
it's expanding its range,
and it moves very quickly
out of our sight
and out of our telemetry range.
Yeah, it's a needle in
a haystack.
VVE have a little better line
on the bird
because we have a radio on it,
but it's an awful lot of luck.
We had a signal
coming out this way.
I don't know,
it could be anywhere in here.
I got nothing here.
Let's try it this way.
Do you guys hear birds at all?
No?
I hear 'em in my dreams now.
Nothing.
These observations are extremely
difficult and rare to get
where we have the bird in
a place where we can see it.
This is the only one of
the seven or eight we had tagged
that was exposed to a mask
with its parents
that is now still alive,
and so what we're hoping to see
is a clear response to us
with that mask,
and we're still hoping this bird
will do what we expect,
but it may NoT.
Oh! It's stronger over here.
Let's just see from this corner
where we get it.
That's exciting?
That's a million-dollar crow.
Why?
Well, we've just put a lot of
effort into finding him.
Oh, okay, well,
I'm glad you found him.
He looks great,
the antenna looks good.
Well, there he just flew now,
he's perched right there.
I think if we walk from here
it'd be pretty good.
The final stage of
MARZLUFF'S experiment begins.
As he walks back and forth
within sight of the last crow,
the subject's reaction
is one of benign indifference.
I'll go back by
with the mask on,
and see if we can see
any difference.
As he was growing up,
this young crow
repeatedly saw his parents
scold researchers
wearing a particular mask. Now
Marzluff puts that same mask on.
He's NoT expecting
the same reaction
he got with the crow's parents.
This is a young bird --
naive and inexperienced,
and trying to learn to cope
on his own.
If he makes any call at all,
it would be significant.
But MARZLUFF'S fear is
he might just fly away.
For a moment, it seems like he
has done just that,
but then the bird
takes another perch higher up,
keeping a close eye on
Marzluff and his mask.
[ Cawing 1
and then, there it is.
To many, just the tentative
scold of one young crow...
[ Cawing 1
but to john Marzluff,
it's a major milestone.
That was PRETl'Y exciting.
You'll never get
a better exposure than that,
I don't think --
that was clean.
To me what it indicates is that
that bird clearly recognized
this face,
which the only way it could have
learned about this face
as being anything unique was
from its parents' behavior.
So I think that shows the first
step of social learning.
There he's really
looking down at me, yeah.
There he's scolding.
This is the first
scientific evidence
that crows are able to
learn, remember,
and put to use information
gained
months earlier
from their parents.
This is a huge
evolutionary advantage
that until now
has only been proven
in a RARIFIED group of
the smartest creatures
on earth.
This year has been
really full of discoveries,
I would say, for us --
we have learned that crows are
able to recognize
and distinguish
many different people
and remember the deeds
we've done to them,
be they good or bad,
for a long period of time.
And now we're learning
something about
how they share information
with their young,
which has been something
that we really haven't
understood at all.
And with this radio-tagged crow
that we've been following,
coming to the roost
here tonight,
that bird has taught us
a tremendous amount,
that, indeed, just hanging out
with your parents,
a young crow soaks up
a lot of information,
and they learn that
very rapidly.
I feel great that this bird
has survived
long enough to join
the full community of crows.
It's NoT surprising that
animals have some of
the same abilities as us,
because we're built from
the same building blocks.
And we as people,
we tend to think that,
"oh, well, only people do this."
Well, we haven't found
anything like that yet.
We may be unique in having
the whole cluster of
things that we can do,
but what we got to find out
is if other animals
out there can do some of that.
And, if we figure out
the way to ask the questions,
we might be surprised at
the responses we get.
[ Crows cawing 1
Crows share a lifestyle with us.
If we can understand the link
between that lifestyle
and the evolution
of intelligence,
and the evolution of brains,
we've advanced in our
understanding of brains,
intelligence in general,
which includes us.
Crows have been WATCHINGUS
for a very, very long time.
Only recently have scientists
begun to watch back,
and what they're finding
is a creature
that's far more complex,
more intelligent,
and more like us, than we could
have ever imagined.
To learn more about
what you've seen
on this "nature" program,
visit pbs.Org.
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