‘The’ raven is a bird that
outwardly enjoys life
Oct. 26, 2017 9:30 a.m.
There is no doubt that ravens —
those most cunning, audacious and outspoken of birds — hold a place of honour
in the Yukon. The raven is the territorial bird, ubiquitous in the North, and
the symbol of one of the five clans of the Tlingit. Every Yukoner has a raven
story: a particular game a certain pair of birds play, a clever trick performed
at the perfect moment, an unsettlingly watchful individual bird.
This reputation for intelligence
and charm is well deserved, says Environment Yukon conservation biologist
Cameron Eckert. They are, he says, “the smartest of birds with a complex social
structure.”
“Both recent and First Nations
cultures have a reverence for ravens in the North.”
Ravens are unusually astute
problem solvers, capable of taking cues from humans, he says. For example, if
there is a bird’s nest — a possible food source for ravens, who love the eggs
of other bird species, as any chicken farmer will tell you — and a person stops
to look up at it, a raven is capable of noting this interest and will come back
when the person is gone to check it out, Eckert says.
No comments:
Post a Comment