A Murder of Crows
Rarely does the word “fascinating” seem to apply to movies.
Very few animals besides humans use tools: great apes, chimpanzees, elephants.
Crows, it turns out, do more than use tools. They make tools. They do more than pick up a twig to poke and pull inaccessible things they want. They’ll sculpt and shape a hook to make a tool more effective. They’ll even use a tool to acquire another tool. Crows: go figure.
The scientists documented in “A Murder of Crows” study something even more fascinating. It seems that a crow can recognize an individual human face. If that human has done him wrong, the crow can remember it for months and months. The amount of time young crows are nurtured by parents, as well as the social behavior of extended family in a crow’s upbringing, add to understanding crow intelligence.
“A Murder of Crows” exposes you to these and other aspects that humans are learning about these unusually intelligent creatures. It only adds to the allure to watch the behaviors of scientists pursuing knowledge and evolutionary kinship.
Humans and crows have been watching each other for a long time. It may be that crows still know more about us than we do about them.
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