A common raven may be uncommon way to find lost hikers
Expert trains her pet raven to find lost objects with uncannily accurate results.
By Katherine ButlerThu, Sep 02 2010 at 12:44 PM EST
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Photo: Wikimedia Commons Ravens are known for their jarring “squawk” and a role as Edgar Allen Poe’s diabolical foe, not to mention they're frequent use in pop culture imagery. But NPR reports on another raven that may prove to be more savior than foe. Shade is the pet raven of doctoral student Emily Cory. When Shade showed signs of extreme intelligence, Cory decided to train the bird in the art of hide-and-seek in hopes of assisting search and rescue teams. What Cory learned was that Shade has an uncanny knack for memory, language and even game skills.
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Cory grew up in the canyons of Sedona, Ariz., often listening to helicopters flying over, searching for lost hikers. As an adult, Cory worked with birds at the Arizona-Sonora Museum. A common raven caught her attention. As Cory tells NPR, "She'd [the raven] play horrible tricks on the volunteers, she'd get in so much trouble. She never forgot a thing, never missed a thing [and] that really got my attention."
This prompted Cory to consider training a raven to seek out lost hikers like the ones so common in her childhood. She purchased Shade and began to train her in elaborate games of hide-and-seek, all the while writing her master’s thesis on the project. Shade showed an uncanny knack for finding anything Cory hid from her — even looking in places Cory never thought to hide objects. She even noticed that Shade understood verbal commands. As Cory tells it, "Sometimes she [Shade] responds correctly even when my back is to her. For example, she loves Chapstick. She always steals Chapstick." Cory notes that if Shade even hears the word “Chapstick,” she will immediately fly off and find it.
Cory hopes to train Shade to work in the back country, flying back and forth between hiker and trainer with a GPS attached to her foot. But her attempts have hit a roadblock, as no colleagues or professors will support her research. Nonetheless, Cory is undeterred. She recently started a Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona focusing on ravens and language.
This isn't the first time scientists have successfully taught crows and ravens to accomplish tasks. A tech expert built a crow vending machine which allows the birds to deposit spare change for various items.
A team of researchers from the University of Washington studied the ability of crows and ravens to facially recognize certain human beings. Those researchers wore rubber caveman masks while capturing and tagging wild American crows. When a person wearing the caveman mask approached the crows later, the birds attacked, or “scolded” them loudly. If the same person approached the birds wearing a mask of former Vice President Dick Cheney — whom they had not seen before — the birds didn’t bat an eye.
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Comments
Steve
11/11/2010 15:40 PM
Ravens are very capable and I'm sure they would do well finding hikers. If they percieve a gain of some kind or maybe as a game it will be a success. As a side note...now imagine the same mischevious, hungry, smart ravens being 10 feet tall with teeth.
As for the bad pet / good pet issue...it usually boils down to the human involved. If they are abusive or neglectful it wouldn't matter if the pet was a dog. It will get treated the same.
I've had pets ranging from dogs, cats (strays.... More
Theresa in ontario
10/19/2010 18:41 PM
Me and my husband live in a very rural area and always had raven nests on the property , a baby had fallen out of the nest , hurt its wing , so we began to feed it and petting it , his wing totally recovered , we made him his own nest outside , with full access to the open sky , we just love him so much , he is about a year old and does leave for a couple days at a time but always comes back , his parents still stay around our property also , we wonder if he will be driven off as his parents.... More
Kevin
09/09/2010 13:50 PM
I have had two crows as pets while growing up. I can tell you they were both extremely smart birds. They could even recognize our car from the air and follow us to local areas. They can be trained to retrieve items as well.
Michael
09/08/2010 21:50 PM
A raven took some of our Ritz crackers at a picnic. Yes, we left a few out just for this purpose to see what the ravens would do. Anyway, this raven turned some of the crackers over so they were all the right side up, stacked about four of them neatly, then flew off with the four. It had discovered that it could carry more crackers if they were all oriented the same way.
shawn olsen
09/08/2010 18:10 PM
It is a major shame that none of her professors will support her, and I would bet that most of them are men also, sad.
shawn olsen
09/08/2010 18:10 PM
It is a major shame that none of her professors will support her, and I would bet that most of them are men also, sad.
Anonymous
09/03/2010 20:57 PM
When you say, "But her attempts have hit a roadblock, as no colleagues or professors will support her research"...what do you mean by "support"? Funding? Or they think it's nonsense? Or ??
anonymous42
09/03/2010 12:33 PM
This is a wonderful article and wonderful work being done. However, I volunteer in a Wildlife Care Center where wild animals come in that people have tried to have as pets and it's never a good ending. Often the animals are malnourished, crippled, injured, or worse. I am in Oregon and I know that here it is illegal to have a wild animal as a pet. You must be licensed to even rehab or care for one. I hope that this person has a permit of some kind that allows her to do this work. If so it.... More
Michael
09/08/2010 21:56 PM
Many people have had pet ravens. I remember years ago about a man whose raven would bring his slippers. If there's a downside is apparently they eat quite a lot more than you would suspect from their size (high metabolism) and they are rather willful. the raven will do your bidding if you can trick the raven into thinking it was his idea.
Information about obtaining pet ravens: .... More
