It seems quite plausible to me that Australian birds of prey of the species mentioned could learn to do this. Actually demonstrating it experimentally is another
matter, of course.
If a large bird of prey (eg. Lammergeier) can learn to drop rocks from a height to break bones to extract the marrow, fire spreading under favourable circumstances
seems quite straightforward to me, by comparison. I find the Aboriginal endorsement and indirect cultural evidence quite persuasive. It wouldn’t have to be a flaming stick either, a glowing ember at one end of a mostly unburnt stick would serve just as well.
Ian Baird
From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Friday, 12 February 2016 10:18 AM
To: 'COG List'
Subject: [canberrabirds] Birds of prey are starting fires DELIBERATELY
Well it all revolves around the word “DELIBERATELY”......... Of which we can’t know. Sure they could, as “Steve Debus, from the University of New England, an
expert in predatory birds said he believed it would be difficult for researchers to distinguish between birds incidentally grasping burning twigs with prey and those deliberately picking them up.”
But surely once flying with a burning stick the impulse would be to fly away from it and then drop it, as the disadvantage of not dropping a burning stick would
be rather extreme.
Philip
From: Martin Butterfield
Sent: Friday, 12 February 2016 9:14 AM
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Cc: COG List
Subject: Re: FW: [canberrabirds] Birds of prey are starting fires DELIBERATELY
What that link says is something about the Daily Mail. When I grew up in the UK my Dad used to refer to that journal as the "Daily Liar" (which given that he was a Daily Express reader, is a pretty
big call).
On 12 February 2016 at 08:59, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:
The ‘THIS MAY
ALSO INTEREST YOU’ link says something about this item …
From: kym
bradley [
Sent: Friday, 12 February 2016 8:07 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Birds of prey are starting fires DELIBERATELY
