Date: June 18, 2018
Source: University of Wyoming
You have probably encountered a
raccoon raiding the trash in your neighborhood, seen a rat scurrying through
the subway or tried to shoo away birds from your picnic. But have you ever
wondered what makes these animals so good at living in suburbs and cities, and
whether these same traits also make them such a nuisance?
A new paper in the
journal Animal Behaviour written by Lisa P. Barrett, Lauren Stanton
and Sarah Benson-Amram, of the University of Wyoming's Animal Behavior and
Cognition Lab, takes an in-depth look at these questions.
The authors examine whether
smarter animals might be better at learning to live in cities -- but, at the
same time, also may come into more conflict with humans. For example, crows'
memories allow them to predict and capitalize on sources of food, such as trash
collection routines, but their memories also can bring them into conflict with
humans when the birds strew trash on the street or congregate in agricultural
fields or on buildings.
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