A bird who hated a tracking device that he could not remove turned out to be 'a friend removed the tracking device', an example of altruistic behavior that is rare for birds
An Australian research team that conducted a survey to attach tracking devices to bird legs newly reported that 'all attached tracking devices have been removed.' The tracking device was designed to be irremovable on its own, but it turned out to have been removed by an altruistic behavior rarely seen in birds, 'getting it removed by a companion.'
Altruism in birds? Magpies have outwitted scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices
New discoveries about bird altruism were reported by Dominique Potvin and colleagues at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, who teach about animal ecology and environmental science. Mr. Potvin et al. Conducted a survey of 'attaching a tracking device to the legs of the Australian magpie', which also serves as a demonstration experiment of the new tracking device and a survey of the range of action and friendship of the Australian magpie distributed in the field.
The new tracking device prepared by Mr. Potvin et al. Weighs less than 1 g and is equipped with a system that automatically charges the battery and downloads survey data at a dedicated station installed in the feeding area. Although it is impossible to remove it by itself, there is also a mechanism that 'it can be removed by bringing the magnet closer' in anticipation of the completion of the investigation. It was an assumption.
The Australian magpie, which was selected for this study, is one of the most social species of birds. It forms a flock of 2 to 12 birds and maintains the territory of the flock through attacks such as singing songs and swooping. Is known. In addition, it has been confirmed that they cooperate with each other when raising children, and it is said that older siblings may help raising children. The state of the Australian magpie playing with two birds looks like this.
Magpies Just Wanna Have Fun --Richard and Pip Playing --YouTube
When the above-mentioned new tracking device was attached to these five Australian magpies, an unexpected act of 'getting the tracking device removed by a friend' was confirmed. According to reports, tracking devices attached to young individuals were not only removed by older females in just 10 minutes after installation, but most tracking devices took only a few hours to be removed. .. It took a long time for the tracking device attached to the leader of the flock to be removed most, but it was still removed on the third day.
There are two reasons why Potvin et al. Did not anticipate the 'tracking device being removed' situation. First, I didn't think that a tracking device that was just annoying and did no harm would be considered as 'a level that needs to be removed', equivalent to some parasites. The second is that the 'altruistic behavior' seen in the Australian magpie this time has rarely been confirmed in birds. According to the literature by Potvin et al., The only precedent for altruistic behavior of birds like this is the act of 'removing the sticking insect from the body of a companion' reported on the Seychelles warbler , which is endemic to the Seychelles Islands. It wasn't.
Since the Australian magpie is particularly susceptible to heat waves from global warming, the survey planned this time was expected to be particularly meaningful for planning conservation activities, but as mentioned above, it ended in failure. I did. 'As academic scientists, we are accustomed to experiments that fail due to expired objects and equipment failures, sample contamination, and sudden power outages, especially for those of us who study animal behavior. , Unpredictable problems are no longer part of the job. ' Based on this experience, he says he plans to improve the tracking device and conduct another investigation.
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