Underestimate the Reasoning Potential of Animals

A wild wolf on BC’s coast. Credit: Heiltsuk First Nation and Kyle Artelle

 

"I couldn't believe my eyes when we opened up that camera."

"This wolf showed  up and she just saw a float and she knew the float was attached to a trap. [It was] incredible behaviour."

"She knew how to pull the trap up. She knew if she pulled the trap onto the beach, she could get food...

"Really intelligent, really incredible, sophisticated behaviour. Bears and wolves do swim, but as far as we know, they don’t dive."

"We ultimately don't know, but the two most likely explanations in our minds, one would be that the wolves started doing this with traps that were exposed at a low tide because that's really easy."

"There might've been this incremental learning that started with the trap fully onshore to traps partly submerged, to then associating the line with the trap and then the buoy with the line … It would make a lot of sense, and that's often how we learn."

"Some really special things are happening here, and we want to understand more about that. What else is happening on the ground? What else do these wolves have to teach us? And so that's a focus for the next decades as we explore more about wolves here."

"This is really just the tip of the iceberg." 

Kyle Artelle, environmental biologist, State University of New York   

 

Researchers in British Columbia have discovered wild wolf behaviour that has taken them aback in its unexpectedness. A lesson in how even animal behaviourists and other biologists studying the behaviour of animals in the wild underappreciate in their understanding of the level of intelligence and capable maneuvering of various species in the interests of survival and their never-ending search for sources of food. An episode that revealed itself to researchers recently serves to illustrate the point.

 

The invasive species of European green crabs in the waters off British Columbia occasioned traps being put out, submerged deeply in the coastal water located in a remote area of British Columbia for years. The eradication program saw an intervening and puzzling episode when traps that were placed deep offshore began appearing on the shore, seriously tampered with, bait removed, their living contents absent. Who or what had dragged those traps ashore was a mystery.

 

Interference with the project with which the local Heiltsuk First Nation was involved, was a puzzler. The researchers and the First Nation were faced with a dilemma; traps that had been positioned in deep water, never exposed during low tide were being vandalized and the thought of a marine predator being the perpetrator -- however unimaginable -- was uppermost in mind. They resorted to an obvious solution with the purpose of observing a suspected scenario in action by setting out a closed circuit camera which soon revealed the source of the mystery.

 

A video resulted that more than adequately explained that the culprit (or culprits) involved was a female wolf committing  herself to dive into the water to retrieve the traps with their caught cargo of tasty green crabs. What the scientists saw astonished them; a wolf making use of tools and a sophisticated set of reasoned actions to retrieve the traps and feast on their contents. The female wolf was seen swimming to the buoy's located and dragging it along with the trap attached to it, to shore. 

"What it is is very sophisticated behaviour. What we see is a wolf who is bringing a float to shore, she can’t see the traps there, but she brings the float to shore, she knows that float is attached to a rope, she pulls on the rope, it’s attached to a trap, if she pulls that in sequence she can bring the trap to within her reach, then she can bring the trap to shore and then based on that she can access the bait within."

"It’s the kind of behaviour that is really familiar to us. She is solving the problem the same way that we would."

Kyle Artelle 

The line attached to the trap was tugged until it brought the trap to shore and once there, she purposefully chewed through the netting to take possession of the bait, and presumably the crabs for which the bait was intended. Geographer Paul Paquet of the University of Victoria, involved with the research team, marvelled at the wild wolf's feat of intelligent reasoning and follow-up activities, while admitting they had no idea how common such reasoning feats might be in the wild.

 

But having studied the incident as closely as they could and surmising that area wolves in that remote region had the leisure to make experiments of that nature, with no natural enemies to restrict and distract them -- including hunters -- wrote  up a paper which saw publication in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The wolf, they noted, likely attempted a variety of approaches to avail itself of the coveted prize, and through trial and error found the winning formula in a practised series of reasoned steps. 

 

This image from the researchers' videos shows how exactly the wolves pulled up the traps. (Submitted by Kyle Artelle and Paul Paquet)

 

"Our crews came in and said that, you know, something had been pulling our crab traps and taking the bait."

"You normally picture a human being with two hands pulling a crab trap, but we couldn’t figure out exactly what had the ability to be able to do that until we put a camera up and saw, well, there’s other intelligent beings out there that are able to do this, which is very remarkable."

"Our crew have gone through hundreds of bait traps, you know, trying to catch these green crabs and getting intercepted by this pack of wolves, so it’s quite remarkable that they’ve been able to pick up on and be able to do it."

William Housty, director, Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department, Bella Bella  

 

A Higher Order Of Intelligence

"A magpie that didn’t have a tracker on came up to one of the individuals that did and started pecking at it."

"We were thinking, ‘what’s going on? Are they trying to get it off? And then we were thinking, ‘Oh, it’s really hard to get these things off. There’s no way it’ll be able to do it’."

"The motions they were doing, it was clear, targeted, like, ‘I’m going to take this giant thing off you’."

"If they were fooling around with the tracker, at the top, they would never have gotten it off."

"They either had to show tremendous tenacity or problem-solving by doing a range of different behaviours, and snipping at different points, to be able to get it off."{

"We found there wasn’t anything in the literature. This was actually a completely new behaviour in a completely new situation, which was kind of cool."

Queensland-based animal ecologist Dominique Potvin

The birds gathered together to work on removing the harnesses Alamy

We err in underestimating the intelligence of other animals in the belief that only humans have defining emotions such as empathy, or the capacity to assess situations then act according to their intentions. A research project being conducted in Australia went somewhat off the rails unexpectedly with the animal subjects -- highly intelligent birds -- failing to cooperate. The scientists set out to study magpies by fitting tiny harnesses with GPS trackers on the birds.

The purpose was routine enough, and is often carried through by scientists intending to measure the movements of animals and follow their travels for research purposes. In this instance where the intention was to find out more about the flying habits and social dynamics of magpies, the birds decided to take matters into their own claws and beaks. In the process actually teaching the researchers a good deal about the social dynamics of magpies.

The researchers deliberately placed the harnesses in such a way as to prevent them from accidentally falling off or being pried away, by placing the weakest part carefully positioned under the birds' breast to ensure they couldn't be pecked away by the birds using their beaks to free themselves from the harnesses. One of the researchers noticed an unharnessed bird paying close attention to one of the five magpies that had been fitted with a harness.

And it took but minutes before the magpies tended to one another in identifying the weak point then applying direct, targeted force to free each of the birds from the presence of the irritating harness. None of the birds was able to free itself; it was a cooperative effort on the part of the group itself, one bird ministering to another until all were freed.

Without themselves observing four of the birds actively removing the devices, it would have been a stretch of the imagination to foresee these birds assessing the situation in such a manner that they would understand what would be required to enact the rescue between themselves. Intelligent animals they certainly are. As are crows and ravens and parrots, among avian species known for their high intelligence.

"When we attached tiny tracking devices to five magpies for a pilot study, we didn't expect to discover a social behaviour rarely seen in birds."

"Our goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds."

"Instead, the birds outsmarted us."

Dr.Dominique Potvin, lecturer in animal ecology, Sunshine Coast University, Australia

The Elusive Search for Definitive Answers to Questions of Animal Behaviour

"I think that collaboration [between researchers with different specialities — including ants, birds, fish, and humans] was really fruitful because we had so many different perspectives about this topic."

"If you were going to the grocery store right now, and someone sneezes right next to you, you’ll probably take a step back [just as do birds, mice and lobsters, such that if an individual is identified as being sick, others actively go out of their way to avoid them]."

"How do other individuals sense that there’s an exposed individual around? We have the media and so on, but how do these ants know that there’s a threat going on?"

"It’s not surprising to see animals doing these things. Animals are encountering pathogens every day too, so we’re not the only ones being affected by infectious diseases. It’s just fascinating to see that there are certain behaviours that have evolved in certain animals that serve that purpose."

"For some people it’s hard to pinpoint the benefits, like why do they do it, why does it evolutionarily make sense to do this. There might be delayed benefits, and there’s all these things that you can’t get a grasp on that play a role in there that you might not have going on in animal societies."

Lead author Sebastian Stockmaier, PhD candidate, University of Texas’ Integrative Biology Department

Some species of ants actually practice social-distancing measures when an infection breaks out.

"Non-human animal systems, particularly those with social structures similar to those of humans, present unique opportunities to inform relevant public health questions, such as the effectiveness, variability  and required duration of social distancing measures."

Authors, Social Distancing in Animals Avoiding Infections

Social distancing in humans and nonhuman animals.

(A) Pathogen-exposed forager ants self-isolate and their nestmates increase social distance to each other (image: Timothée Brütsch). (B) People social distance during COVID-19 (image: Forest Simon). (C) Sick vampire bats reduce grooming non-close kin (image: Gerald Carter). (D and E) Under certain conditions, Trinidadian guppies avoid parasitized individuals (D), (image: Sean Earnshaw, University of St. Andrews) and house finches avoid sick conspecifics (E) (image: Jeremy Stanley).

Science Journal

Human animals are not all that different from other animal species in many respects. Research into animal and insect behaviour has revealed that among them many species react similarly to human species when faced with an epidemic of infectious diseases; in taking steps to isolate the ill from the well for the purpose of protecting those that have not been infected from the effects of highly infectious and often deadly pathogens. In the instance of this research the appearance of the global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 was the impetus to look again and make comparisons.

 

A research team led by Sebastian Stockmaier, a doctoral candidate at the Integrative Biology Department of University of Texas who deviated from his original field research into vampire bats' reaction to pathogens, to study the effects of the novel coronavirus and how it affected the human world. To that end he assembled a group of researchers whose specialities fed into the research; those who studied ants, birds, fish and humans.

The team of researchers identified five common methodologies frequently made use of by certain wildlife in protecting themselves against infectious diseases. Avoidance came in first; once an individual is identified as ill, others of the species tend to go out of their way to actively avoid the presence of their sick members. This is a phenomenon that has been identified as common to birds, mice and lobsters.

The following two methods -- passive and active self-isolation, with the first identified when an animal's infection shows distinct symptoms impelling them to move away from the pack. A comparison is humans' tendency to remain at home rather then venture out in public when ill. There are some animals that become lethargic, less involved in social interactions; states of conditions that tend to distance them from their group. Infected bees share less food, sick vampire bats avoid grooming others within their intimate group. 

 

This form of self-isolation is considered to be accidental in nature, but is recognized as a condition that helps to prevent future infections, whereas active self-isolation occurs most often in animals with strong social bonds. Animals identify they are ill and of their own volition and deliberately, separate from their group. Some ants, as an example, will choose to vacate their colonies and die alone in a form of "altruistic suicide" should they become infected.

What the global human community is now experiencing and practising at the moment is considered to reflect a fourth method where health experts, having advised that infected or not, everyone in society should maintain a social distance from others in preventive infection mode. In so doing, we are minimizing the opportunity for infection to spread. 

 Co-author Nathalie Stroeymeyt had discovered some species of ants initiated a separation of distance when several in a colony of ants become infected with a fungal pathogen. Social distancing was observed to be extremely effective in preventing the spread of such pathogens. Researchers had assumed that this type of prevention was specific to humans, realizing the efficacy of separating themselves physically from the contagious ill among them. A practise which far predates the present situation of the novel coronavirus in human history.

There is a final identified method in prevention of infectious disease spread noted by the review and that is exclusion. Whereby the infected individual is prevented forcibly from mingling with those not ill; alternately sent into exile to prevent infection from spreading. Insects in particular practise this type of isolation, the researchers found, but it is not exclusive to insects since such behaviour has also been identified in primates which have been seen behaving aggressively to the ill among them.

Lead author Stockmaier considers that additional research is required to determine how an animal's behaviours evolve in reaction to certain types of infections, as well as how it is that the pathogens evolve in adapting to the animals. Just as humans became the target of the novel coronavirus held to have crossed the species barrier from bats to humans.

 

While it appeared somewhat simpler to the researchers to reason why it is that an animal might evince some of the self-protective behaviours against infectious diseases, it's more problematical to understand why humans behave the way they tend to. For example, caretaking resists the natural instincts in preventing viruses, since it places the caretaker at risk of infection. And that's where the elusive altruistic gene makes its entrance; compassion and care for others at risk to oneself, competing with the instinct for survival.

 

 

"Studies in eusocial insect societies have been especially productive because these animals practice seemingly altruistic behaviors such as active self-isolation and caregiving, which decrease the risk of outbreaks through the colony. These social networks share many characteristics with those of human societies and have evolved properties to prevent pathogen transmission. As a result, their social distancing strategies may prove key to investigating the epidemiological effects of such behaviors and thus their potential public health utility. There are, however, important differences in interpreting how social network structures evolve in response to pathogenic threats. In eusocial insects, the behavioral repertoire known as “social immunity” most likely represents group-level adaptive behaviors that evolve in response to high relatedness in the group and result in collective properties. By comparison, pathogen-induced changes in social networks of other animals including humans often do not have the same properties, such as high relatedness levels, and can create conflicts of interest that incentivize selfish behaviors."

"Public health measures experienced during past and current pandemics have raised awareness for social distancing, and epidemiological studies are actively evaluating their effectiveness and required duration. Humans are by no means alone in using social distancing to mitigate risk of infection. The widespread occurrence of pathogen-induced changes to social behaviors across animals in diverse taxa represents a valuable opportunity to investigate underlying mechanisms, epidemiological consequences such as effectiveness and required duration, and host-parasite coevolution. Nonhuman animals’ social distancing strategies may be experimentally tractable, enabling manipulative experiments or multigeneration observations that are impossible with humans. These systems represent a valuable guide to understanding how contagious pathogens spread through social networks, how networks change in response to pathogens, and how these bidirectional feedbacks alter pathogen dynamics and evolution."

Science Journal   Social distancing in humans and nonhuman animals