Considerations on the cognitive capacity of birds and their scaring away
Technical note of edition 10 on considerations on the cognitive capacity of birds and their scaring away, with a focus on diagnosis, prevention and criteria applicable to professional pest management.
Among others, the domestic pigeon Columba livia is a bird introduced to America, which is characterized by its adaptation to urban areas, where it obtains the resources it requires to survive such as water, food, in addition to taking advantage of places that serve as shelter. The high proliferation makes it considered an urban pest with a negative impact on health.
public, as well as for the environment of cities. Currently, there are countless tools and strategies available to scare it away, including the use of mesh, drones, sound equipment, ultra sound, complex waves close to radio frequency, tactile and visual repellents, repellents, chemosterilizers, agents.
chemical – frightening and falconry. Even so, bird scaring programs have difficulties in terms of their effectiveness over time and this is linked to their abilities that allow them to adapt, get used to and avoid the tools that are used, which is why it is relevant to know and understand their capabilities.
Various research has shown that birds can make and use tools, use information to solve problems, as well as other cognitive skills that were previously considered typical of mammals. For example, causal reasoning is considered one of the most important human skills for understanding the
environment, studies have experimentally shown that crows can also reason about hidden mechanisms or causal agents. Birds lack a cerebral cortex, however, they have the pallium a structure considered analogous, if not homologous. A peculiarity of the mammalian cortex is its layered architecture. In a detailed anatomical study of the bird pallium, Stacho et al. They describe a similar layered architecture. As additional data, other authors find that birds generally have more neurons per unit of brain mass than mammals and even primates of the same size. Considering that birds exhibit amazing cognitive abilities, comparable to those of mammals, it is presumed that some abilities are related to a common ancestor from about 320 million years ago, even though the brains of mammals and birds are said to have evolved differently, it is striking how similar both groups still are in their cognitive and perceptual abilities.
Martin Stacho, a neuroanatomist at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, decided to investigate the avian forebrain, which controls perception, by examining microscopic sections of three carrier pigeon brains using 3D polarized light images, seeking to compare the images of the birds' pallium with those of the cortices of rats, monkeys and humans. Their analysis revealed that fibers in the pallium of birds are organized in a strikingly similar way to fibers in the cortex of mammals. The researchers also visualized connections between neurons in the brains of two distantly related bird species, pigeons and owls, discovering circuits in sensory regions that were similar to those found in the mammalian neocortex. Consequently, it is neuroarchitecture that explains why birds are as cognitively talented as mammals. Andreas Nieder, neurophysiologist at the University of Tübingen, Germany, to define
If birds are aware of what they are doing, he observed the brains of crows as they responded to signals and stimuli, considering that it has already been shown that they can reason causally. To do this, they used a test similar to the one used to investigate primates for signs of consciousness, training two laboratory-bred crows to move or stay.
still in response to a signal displayed on a monitor. When the reaction was correct, the birds were rewarded. Electrodes were implanted in their brains to record their neural signals as they responded. When the crows reacted, their neurons activated, suggesting that they had consciously perceived the signal, however, when they did not, their neurons were inactive. The neurons that were activated were located in the pallium, and can be considered a marker of sensory consciousness in the brain of birds, similar to that observed in primates. In short, birds have more cognitive abilities than we know and often think, being able to intentionally evade and avoid many of the tools we use to discourage them from settling in areas we seek to protect.