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One of the saddest things I saw many years ago was on
the Boorowa to Frogmore Road where in pouring (and I mean really pouring rain) a
thoroughly bedraggled galah was sitting perfectly still beside its dead mate on
the edge of the road.
Ann Howarth
From:
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 6:51 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Suicide?
I don't think we should dismiss this out of hand either. Corvids, and other
birds, have strong pair bonds, and if this bird saw its mate being hit by a car,
and was sufficiently distraught, I don't see why it wouldn't step in front of a
car.
I have seen Rosellas standing by the body of a dead mate beside the road,
presumably grieving, John Leonard
On 31 Mar 2014, at 6:34 pm, Maurits Zwankhuizen <>
wrote:
I believe that the observation should not be dismissed
out-of-hand. We do tend to anthropomorphise the world around us and
impute actions onto other creatures which are highly unlikely or even
impossible. If this observation had involved any other type of
bird, the answer would be a categorical 'no'. Corvids,
however, have managed to surprise us on many occasions with their
intelligence (and it's unfortunate that suicide is the domain of the
intelligent). There are many animals which, when they feel
that their time is nigh, remove themselves from their pack or herd to
die quietly somewhere. Elephants are known to mourn and grieve
their dead relatives, and dogs have starved themselves to death when
their owners die. So it is not crazy to suggest that an intelligent
creature like a raven would be aware that it is ailing and that it
is 'time to go' without that instinct requiring that it knows what death
is. It would, however, set a precedent, as suicide is practically
unknown outside the realm of humanity. Lemmings don't rush off cliffs,
pilot whales don't beach themselves in an concerted effort to end their lives,
and the aforementioned dogs don't starve themselves so that they can be
reunited with their owners in heaven. Ravens are also extremely
savvy when it comes to motor vehicles. They are the least likely of
all birds to be run over, even though they love to hang around on the
edge of roads for the prospect of road-kill. They would have seen many
other animals fall victim to cars, so would know what would happen
if they got in the way of one. Finally, we have
the (naturally subjective) opinion of the observer, although the raven
must have been acting unusually in the first instance for it to have
gained the observer's attention. Taking all of this into
consideration, we could be conditioned and say that it was a young
and inexperienced, short-sighted
or hungry raven, but maybe, just maybe, this was one
which knew that it was time to die and knew that getting hit
by a big beastly car was a quick way to go. After all, a bird
can hardly end its life by jumping off a high-rise
building! The accuracy of the observation is the key. Like
the case of the dog in the night, it hinges on how the raven reacted in
the final instant before the car bore down on it. If there
was no last hurried flapping of wings, then it knew what it was
doing. If there was, then it was all just a bad
mistake. Maurits Zwankhuizen
From:
To: CC: m("canberrabirds.org.au","canberrabirds");">;
; m("gmail.com","muriel.story");">Date: Mon,
31 Mar 2014 17:08:26 +1100 Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Suicide?
I
think the raven just got momentarily distracted by a tasty morsel or something
else.
A
friend of mine told me she saw a Kookaburra pounce on a Willie Wagtail that
had been harassing it for years. The Wiilie dropped down onto the ground for a
tasty morsel and the kooka dropped down straight after it, took it back up
onto a branch, pounded it against the branch and swallowed it. Was the Willie
tired of living? I don’t think so.
Peter
From: John Brown
Sent: Sunday, 30 March 2014 5:15 PM
To: muriel
story
Cc: Brian Thorp; COG-L
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds]
Suicide?
While quite intelligent, Birds are a bit far down the
evolutionary tree to have the brain structures required for the kind of
emotions, self-reflection and world view associated with the kind of
self-planned suicides that humans sometimes demonstrate. At the level of birds
we have a range of associative learning styles, from trial and error,
associative and (in bigger birds at least) imitation. This bird appears to
have taken the Avian Darwin Award for this year, bring an end to whatever
association had developed in its neural network which initiated this
particular action. Other birds which use walking out into traffic as a way of
successfully cracking nuts are clearly on a more adaptive evolutionary
track!
On 30 Mar 2014, at 4:18 pm, "muriel story" <>
wrote:
Sounds quite significant behaviour considering a
pub out Yanco way had a standing prize of a slab of ale for anyone who ran
over what all would call a Crow. I understand the prize has never been
claimed.
On Saturday, March 29, 2014, Brian Thorp
<>
wrote:
My daughter-in-law told me of a strange incident last
week in a busy part of Civic.
There was a raven standing close to the
side of the road who spent about five minutes carefully and intently
watching every car go by.
Eventually it walked calmly out just as a car
came up, timing it such that the driver could not avoid killing
it.
Does anyone have any likely explanation?
Thanks,
Brian
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