Posted on 09/14/2016 2:30:13 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
When Jane Goodall first encountered chimpanzees using twigs as tools in 1960 — something that scientists had assumed only humans could do — she wrote an excited telegram to her colleague Louis Leakey:
"Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans,"
"That strongly suggests that the species has genetic predispositions that lead to development of functional tool use,"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Go on Youtube and watch the crow go through like a 3 or 4 step process to get the tool necessary to get food out of a box. They ain’t stupid.
The Raven is keen.......
I read something like this before,
Crows can rig up some sort of hook or stick to grab food with. Clever creatures.
In the winter, there is this one office building I know of and in the parking lot, about 4:00 PM, it seems there is an endless number that are flying over to the North; and I’d look up and say, this happens every day at this time, where in the world are they going.
Lots of animals actually use tools, but only man uses tools to create other tools.
The Raven or Crow can also mimic sounds I understand kind of like parrots.
Excellent post.
Also crows do a great impression of hitlary.
A friend hunts crows, and has always made claims about how smart they are!
I used to drive along a street lined with black walnut trees. Those nuts are extremely hard to break; you need to take a hammer to them. The crows would carry the nuts up into the air and drop them in the road in front of cars so the cars would run over and crush the nuts. It was a little scary to have a nut suddenly plummeting to the ground feet in front of my car, when I was going 35 mph.
We have a pair of ravens at my local sporting clays range (their nest is behind station 2, nobody bothers them) and have been there for 3-4 years. They are the most amazing talkers, and have a huge range of sounds. They’ll sit in trees a couple hundred yards apart and chat for hours.
The local hunters here say crows can tell the difference between a rifle and a shotgun and always sit JUST out of range.
Exactly
It isn’t surprising that nest builders might use twigs and sticks to solve problems. They’re familiar with these objects, and experienced at manipulating them.
When all you have is a hammer, everything’s a nail. When all you know how to use is a twig, you tend to bring it to every problem.
It’s been known for years that some birds are quite smart. Parrots and Cockatoos for example.
Not only that, only man can kill from a distance.
At the shipyard where I worked last year, every day I would see gangs of crows and herds of seagulls going after the lunch remains in the dumpster. The seagulls would bash the styrophoam clamshells through and eat the contents. The crows opened them pushing the lid back so that the bump disengaged from the slot and the lid came up.
Have to agree ..... as well Colonel Jeff Cooper chose the Raven for same reason as his logo for Gunsite Academy !!
My daughter claims that crows in NJ know the day of the week. No crows in sight all week long, until people put out the garbage on Monday morning, and then the crows gather to rip open the garbage and to consume what they can.
Yeah as Tijeras Slim stated in his post they can yack it up.....
NEVER point at a bird's nest in a tree if crows are nearby! If a crow sees you doing this, they will wait for you to leave then investigate, then raid the nest and kill and devour the babies.
I was showing a hummingbird's nest to neighbor, pointing so he could see the babies inside. Shortly after I left, I turned to see a crow land at the nest and take one of the babies. Never again will I do that.
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