A paper presenting research by several Hamilton alumnae and Associate Professor of Biology Andrea Townsend appears in the current issue of the journal Behavioral Ecology, published by Oxford Academic.
Margaret (Maisie) Merz ’21 led “Can I have fries with that? Context-dependent foraging behavior in urban and rural American crows” and was joined by fellow researchers Sophie Cote ’21, Rachel Weinberg ’15, and Timary Malley ’20, along with Townsend. The paper presents the results of research conducted in Townsend’s lab about how “urban-exploiting” animals, such as crows, raccoons, rats, and squirrels, may adjust their behavior in response to man-made cues that could signal food resources.
To better understand reactions to those cues, the group used specific human cues as signals for where these foods are likely to be. Observing the response of free-living American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) to novel objects in the presence of different potential cues, such as trash dumpsters or bags (with and without logos), the researchers found the crows “highly tuned in to human signals for food.” They also found the crows to be less fearful of such objects in urban environments and faster to approach human food near “scary” new human objects closer to trash cans, “probably because they are used to safely encountering both food and other litter near trash cans.”
And, though the crows were faster to approach paper bags containing cheeseburgers when the bags were set out in closer proximity to a McDonald’s restaurant, the research showed they were no more likely to approach a bag with the McDonald’s logo than they were to approach a blank bag.
According to Townsend, “this study provides evidence that some animals that do well in the city, like crows, are paying close attention to what humans do.”
