Crows

To better understand the potential environmental health risk presented by West Nile virus (WNV)-contaminated feces, we quantified the amount of WNV present in the feces of experimentally infected American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and fish crows (Corvus ossifragus). Peak fecal titers ranged from 10(3.5) to 10(8.8) plaque-forming units (PFU)/g for 10 American crows and from 10(2.3) to 10(6.4) PFU/g for 10 fish crows. The presence of infectious WNV in bird feces indicates a potential for direct transmission of WNV. Thus, handlers of sick or dead birds should take appropriate precautions to avoid exposure to fecal material.

As usual since the first edition VICENTE, Mário Caeiro’s text establishes the bridge between the authors’ different perspectives, exploring the implicit insight in this year’s theme: ‘On the silence of the Crows, Animal Vicente’. Among the proposed articulations one is to be highlighted: the message of (Saint) Vincent will only make sense if, today, we conscientiously integrate the animal in our lives without subordinating it to the logic of control and utilitarianism. If the animal is constantly present in our discourses and languages, in our daily life symbols, in our emotional behaviours and naturally in our meals, we need to morally ask how we can read the silence of these and other creatures of God. In the text the reader is confronted with animal manifestations in symbols and myths, traditions and fairy tales, literature and contemporary ecosophy.

In 'Vicente '17 – Do Silêncio dos Corvos, Animal Vicente / Vicente '17 – Of the Silence of the Crows, Animal Vicente /

ISBN 978-989-8277-56-5

Como habitualmente desde a primeira edição do VICENTE, o texto de Mário Caeiro estabelece pontes entre as perspectivas enunciadas pelos restantes autores, explorando o insight implícito no tema deste ano: ‘Do silêncio dos Corvos, Animal Vicente’. Entre as articulações propostas, destaque para uma essencial: a mensagem de (São) Vicente só fará sentido se, hoje, integrarmos conscientemente o animal nas nossas vidas, não o subjugando à óptica do utilitarismo e do controlo. Pois que se o animal é uma constante dos nossos discursos e da nossa linguagem, dos nossos símbolos mais quotidianos, dos nossos hábitos afectivos e naturalmente até da nossa alimentação, há que colocar-se a questão ética de como podemos ler o silêncio destas outras criaturas de deus. O texto evoca figurações animais em símbolos e mitos, tradições e contos de fadas, na literatura e na ecosofia contemporânea.

Although they have brains roughly the size of an average human thumb, scientists have been learning that crows and ravens rank amongst the most intelligent of birds. Once disregarded in the world of animal intelligence studies, many crow and raven species are now ranked near primates in terms of cognitive abilities. Studies revealing that crows have advanced intelligence would not be particularly surprising to many cultural groups around the world that have long recognized crows and ravens as amongst the most intelligent of animal species. A cross-cultural survey focused on nonagricultural societies (agriculturalists are apt to see birds as pests), shows us that crows are often regarded as intelligent allies and sacred beings. Although the specific relationships with crows and ravens differ widely from culture to culture, many beliefs and myths about crows in other societies involve their unique cognitive abilities and therefore indicate that people recognize their high animal intelligence.

Corvids are often viewed as efficient predators capable of limiting prey species populations.
Despite this widely held belief, a comprehensive review quantifying the effect of
corvids on the demography of prey species is lacking. We examine the impacts of crows,
ravens Corvus spp. and Eurasian Magpies Pica pica on the population parameters of
other bird species. We summarize results from 42 studies, which included 326 explicit
evaluations of relationships between a corvid and a potential prey species. Population
parameters of studied prey species were categorized as abundance-related (numbers, nest
density) or productivity-related (nest success, brood size). Information from both experimental
removal studies and correlative studies was examined. Combining all studies, no
negative influence of corvids on either abundance or productivity of prey species was
found in 81% of cases. Negative impacts were significantly more likely in cases examining
productivity rather than abundance (46 vs. 10%). Experimental studies that removed
only corvid species were significantly less likely to show a positive impact on productivity
than those removing corvids alongside other predators (16 vs. 60%). This suggests that
the impact of corvids is smaller than that of other predators, or that compensatory predation
occurs. The impact of corvids was similar between diverse avian groups (such as
gamebirds, passerines and waders; or ground-nesting and other species). Crows were
found to be significantly more likely to have a negative impact on prey species productivity
than were Magpies (62 vs. 12%), but no differences were found in relation to prey
abundance. We conclude that while corvids can have a negative impact on bird species,
their impact is small overall, and nearly five times more frequent for productivity than
for abundance. These results suggest that in most cases bird populations are unlikely to
be limited by corvid predation and that conservation measures may generally be better
targeted at other limiting factors. However, negative impacts were found in a minority
of cases, and those may require further investigation to develop management tools to
mitigate such impacts where they are of economic or conservation concern.

Recently, two corvid species, food-caching ravens and non-caching jackdaws, have been tested in an exclusion performance (EP) task. While the ravens chose by exclusion, the jackdaws did not. Thus, foraging behaviour may affect EP abilities. To investigate this possibility, another food-caching corvid species, the carrion crow (Corvus corone corone), was tested in the same exclusion task. We hid food under

This article reviews some of the recent work on the remarkable cognitive capacities of food-caching corvids. The focus will be on their ability to think about other minds and other times, and tool-using tests of physical problem solving. Research on developmental cognition suggests that young children do not pass similar tests until they are at least four years of age in the case of the social cognition experiments, and eight years of age in the case of the tasks that tap into physical cognition. This developmental trajectory seems surprising. Intuitively, one might have thought that the social and planning tasks required more complex forms of cognitive process, namely Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind. Perhaps the fact that children pass these tasks earlier than the physical problem-solving tasks is a reflection of cultural influences. Future research will hope to identify these cognitive milestones by starting to develop tasks that might go some way towards understanding the m...

The jungle crow (Corvus macrorhynchos) belongs to the order Passeriformes of bird species and is important for avian ecological and evolutionary genetics studies. However, there is limited information on the transcriptome data of this species. In the present study, we report the characterization of the lung transcriptome of the jungle crow using GS FLX Titanium XLR70. Altogether, 1 510 303 high-quality sequence reads with 581 198 230 bases was de novo assembled into 22 169 isotigs (isotig represents an individual transcript) and 784 009 singletons. Using these isotigs and 581 681 length-filtered (greater than 300 bp) singletons, 20 010 unique protein-coding genes were identified by BLASTx comparison against a nonredundant (nr) protein sequence database. Comparative analysis revealed that 46 604 (70.29%) and 51 642 (72.48%) of the assembled transcripts have significant similarity to zebra finch and chicken RefSeq proteins, respectively. As determined by GO annotation and KEGG pathway...

The extent to which animals other than humans can reason about physical problems is contentious. The benchmark test for this ability has been the trap-tube task. We presented New Caledonian crows with a series of two-trap versions of this problem. Three out of six crows solved the initial trap-tube. These crows continued to avoid the trap when the arbitrary features that had previously been associated with successful performances were removed. However, they did not avoid the trap when a hole and a functional trap ...

(On the crow road
There is a river of sound
That runs from myth to mountain
A prophecy
Of provision
Guiding battles through the flood)
The Crow Road is a deep map. Produced initially as a performative presentation, it interweaves academic criticism with poetry and art around the relationships between non-human and human beings, reflecting upon the related issues of place, presence and absence.

In so doing, Erin Kavanagh’s poem and images evoke imaginal projections that both converge with and counterpoint Iain Biggs’ long-term research concerns with an animism ‘hidden in plain sight’ in traditions of Scottish vernacular culture. This provides the productive tension that animates their collaboration.

This chapter presents snippets of that resonant constellation, along with some critique of the process and experience, reflecting upon why limitations inherent in current notions of cross, multi, inter and trans-disciplinarity are inadequate to our current psychosocial and environmental situations.

KEYWORDS: Birds, environmental humanities, deep mapping, animism, ecopoetry, interdisciplinarity

Prevalence of thermophilic Campylobacter infections in humans, chickens and crows was determined in a cross-sectional study that was carried out in urban and rural areas of Morogoro region, Tanzania during the period of January 2003 to December 2004. A total of 632 human stool samples, 536 cloacal swabs from local and broiler chickens and 22 intestinal contents from crows were screened for presence of thermophilic campylobacters using Skirrow's protocol. Representative Campylobacter jejuni isolates from human and chicken samples were also analysed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as a definitive identification method. The overall prevalence of thermophilic campylobacters was 9.3% (95% CI: 7.2–11.9), 69.8% (95% CI: 65.7–73.6) and 72.7% (95% CI: 49.8–89.3) in humans, chickens and crows respectively. In humans, 59 thermophilic campylobacters were isolated of which 96.6% were C. jejuni and 3.4%Campylobacter coli. There was a significantly (P < 0.001) higher prevalence in young individuals (16%) than in adults (7%). Of 341 isolates from chickens, 91.2% were C. jejuni and 8.8% were C. coli. A significantly (P < 0.05) higher infection rate was observed in rural local chicken (76%) than in broilers (60%). In crows, of 16 isolates, 93.8% were C. jejuni and 6.2% were C. coli. Definitive identification of C. jejuni by PCR revealed positive results in 74.1% of 243 analysed isolates. Findings in this study indicate high prevalence of thermophilic campylobacters in humans, chickens and crows in Morogoro, and a higher infection rate of C. jejuni than that of C. coli in different animal species. Age of humans and location of chickens were identified as risk factors for thermophilic Campylobacter infections. Positive isolates to biochemical tests that indicated negative results on PCR indicates the additional value of PCR for definitive diagnosis of C. jejuni.

We analyze a radius bone fragment of a raven (Corvus corax) from Zaskalnaya VI rock shelter, Crimea. The object bears seven notches and comes from an archaeological level attributed to a Micoquian industry dated to between 38 and 43 cal kyr BP. Our study aims to examine the degree of regularity and intentionality of this set of notches through their technological and morphometric analysis, complemented by comparative experimental work. Microscopic analysis of the notches indicate that they were produced by the to-and-fro movement of a lithic cutting edge and that two notches were added to fill in the gap left between previously cut notches, probably to increase the visual consistency of the pattern. Multivariate analysis of morphometric data recorded on the archaeological notches and sets of notches cut by nine modern experimenters on radii of domestic turkeys shows that the variations recorded on the Zaskalnaya set are comparable to experimental sets made with the aim of producing ...