Australian Birds of Prey Are Deliberately Setting Forests On Fire (cosmosmagazine.com)

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.

Comments

I hope

[dwywit]

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

[yndrd1984]

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: I hope

[slazzy]

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.

Re: I hope

[vtcodger]

"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.

Re: I hope

[Ol Olsoc]

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.

Time to write Australia off

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

If the animals are giving you an STD you're doing nature watching wrong.

Re:Time to write Australia off

[Evtim]

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.

Firewolves

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Vulture "mathematician"

[dryeo]

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.

Fire in Australia

[thePsychologist]

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.