Sam, an 18-year old African Grey parrot, has helped save the lives of five premature puppies. It is reported that in the middle of the night, Sam flew upstairs to his owner’s bedroom calling “Come on, come on!”, mimicking his owner’s frequent command to her dog, Sally.
In the eight years he had lived at the house, Sam had never before been in the bedroom.
Going downstairs with Sam, the owner looked in the kitchen and found Sally and her newly born premature puppies in distress on the floor.
The story of Sam is remarkable for many reasons! He was aware of the distress of the dogs – animals of a species different to himself. This ‘interspecies awareness’ can be used by animal scientists as an indicator of animal sentience.
The words “come one, come on!” are used to encourage action or a bit more speed from another, and often they imply some urgency. We don’t know in which context Sally’s owner uses these words to her, but the signs are that Sam the parrot chose these words deliberately to get the urgent response needed.
African Grey parrots are well known for their intelligence and quick wit, and here is yet another example of their abilities.
Dr Irene Pepperberg has carried out extensive studies of parrots’ abilities to understand. Reporting on her findings, she notes: “Given the evolutionary distance between birds and mammals, these results have intriguing implications for the evolution of intelligence, the study of comparative intelligence, and the care and maintenance of birds held in captivity in zoos and as companion animals.”
This short film featuring Irene with famous parrots Alex and Griffin gives a very interesting and though-provoking snapshot about these amazing birds.
This wonderful film clip is of chimpanzees who are being released to the freedom of a sanctuary. Most of them have endured many, many years of confinement in a laboratory.
Most were snatched from the wild as infants, and some bred in a laboratory, and used in medical experiments. Their reactions as they venture into the outside world clearly show that chimps are sentient, emotional beings.
It’s well worth visiting the sanctuary’s website for great photos of the chimps and their individual stories. How fantastic that these chimps finally have a life worth living!
There is growing awareness and understanding of the intelligence, understanding and behaviour of whales. Science shows that whales are sentient beings. This means they can suffer fear, pain and other negative states – but that in good circumstances, they also have the ability to enjoy life.
Saving Valentina
Members of the Great Whale Conservancy sighted a young whale who was so entangled in fishing net that she could not move. If they could not free her, she faced certain death.
It must have been nerve-wracking for all parties as the brave rescuers painstakingly hacked away the imprisoning net with the one small knife they had with them. But eventually, they managed to set the whale free and for an hour afterwards, she gave a dramatic display of leaping and diving in what her rescuers felt it was a show of joy. She must have felt wonderful to have been released from the fatal net and she may well have been trying to attract the attention of the rest of the pod of whales, and perhaps her mother.
They named the youngster Valentina and you can see the wonderful film here.
Divers rescue whale … and whale rescues diver
We’ve previously written about the rescue of a humpback whale who had become fatally entangled in crab lines. But happily, she was spotted and freed by divers. When she had been freed, she swam around in circles and then went up to each diver one by one and nudged them. One of the rescuers is reported as saying: “It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you … I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience.”
Mila is a beluga whale in China. Brave Mila rescued a diver who had got into difficulties while practising in the pool. Using her sensitive, dolphin-like nose, Mila guided the diver to the surface. One of the staff is quoted as saying: “Mila noticed the problem before we did. She’s a sensitive animal who works closely with humans and I think this girl owes her her life.”
Hens with chicks are well known to be protective and caring of their offspring. Not only are hens concerned for their chicks’ safety and well-being, but they feel empathy, described by scientists as “the ability to be affected by, and share, the emotional state of another”. Scientists at the University of Bristol, UK, exposed mother hens and their chicks to puffs of air. When the air puff was directed at the hens, they reacted with signs of fear, becoming more alert and preening less, and their eye temperature decreased. When their chicks were exposed to the puffs of air, the hens showed all these signs but in addition, their heart rate increased and they made more clucking calls to their chicks - strong signs of their concern.
Mother hens feel empathy for their chicks
Researcher Jo Edgar said: “We found that adult female birds possess at least one of the essential underpinning attributes of ‘empathy’; the ability to be affected by, and share, the emotional state of another.”
The researchers used chickens for this study because in commercial farming, as they pointed out, “chickens will regularly encounter other chickens showing signs of pain or distress due to routine husbandry practices or because of the high levels of conditions such as bone fractures or leg disorders.”
Scientists have also found that hens can anticipate future events based on previous experience, and make judgements accordingly; they have over 30 different calls for clear communication with each other; and chicks can count! But these abilities and the sentience of hens and chickens are sadly disregarded in commercial farming conditions. Today’s study on hens and empathy gives yet more weight to the urgent need for more humane farming systems, in which animals can carry out their natural behaviours. Animals are sentient beings, and what happens to them, matters to them.
For information about farm animal welfare and how you can help end factory farming, please visit Compassion in World Farming.
Sources: The foundations of empathy are found in the chicken. University of Bristol press release, issued 9 March 2011. http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2011/7525.html
‘Avian maternal response to chick distress’, J L Edgar, J C Lowe, E S Paul, C J Nicol, published online ahead of print Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 9 March 2011
You may have read the earlier blog about ‘Clever Hans’, the horse who was able to answer difficult mathematical questions, not however by working them out himself, but by reading the subtle signals given off his human handlers. Although being able to respond to human signals was an impressive feat in itself, people were disappointed to learn he was not working out the answers himself as they had initially thought. However, new research suggests that although horses may not be able to answer mathematical questions, they can count!
(c) Compassion/Ed Posposil
As reported in the Daily Telegraph, the story of Clever Hans inspired Dr Claudia Uller, of the University of Essex, to investigate whether horses can count.
Dr Claudia Uller and Jennifer Lewis carried out experiments using 57 untrained horses belonging to local private owners and a local riding school. Before the tests, the horses were allowed to nibble a small piece of real apple in to get them interested in the activity. In the experiments, real apples were replaced with fake apples so that the horses would not be influenced by their sense of smell.
In each test, the horses watched plastic apples being dropped out of sight into buckets. In the first test, two plastic apples were placed in one bucket and three in another. The buckets were held up at head level so that horses could choose one. Eleven out of thirteen horses selected the bucket containing three apples, which suggests that the horses understood which bucket had the larger number of apples in it.
The second experiment followed the same pattern, but this time one bucket contained two small apples and the other contained a single large apple with double the surface area. Again the horses chose the bucket with the greater the number of apples – ten out of the twelve horses tested chose the bucket holding the two apples.
The horses were able to keep a tally of how many apples were going into each bucket, and hold this information in their heads before deciding which bucket to investigate. This tendency to opt for containers holding larger numbers of food items has also been seen in non-human primates such as rhesus macaques and lemurs. Baby chicks of only 3 or 4 days old can add and subtract too. Human babies develop this ability at about ten months of age.
Although horses may not be able to count in the same way that humans do, this study demonstrates that they do understand the concept of ‘greater or fewer’, and that horses are certainly more intelligent than people may have previously thought.
