Re: SMART CROWS!

[ornstn@inforamp.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

>Apparently, there's a bit in a recent (very recent?) Nature on tool-using
in New
>Caledonian crows. I have here a newspaper article on the whole thing, published
>in Daily Mail of 18-1-96. Ecologist Gavin Hunt observed the crows making, using
>and carrying around twig and leaf tools (some specially fashioned to serve as
>hooks or blades), which they used to get bugs out of trees and in other little
>crannies. All kinds of inferences made about how these activities bring the
>birds a few notches up in intelligence, that kind of thing.
>

Just to blow my own horn for a moment - I think I was the first person to
notice this.  It was the subject of my first paper in a major journal
(Tool-use by the New Caledonian Crow.  Auk 89: 674-676 (1972)).  I have not
seen Prof. Hunt's paper - if anyone has could they check to see if my note
was cited?  Pure vanity, of course...
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116 (home)
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