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From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-03/smart-bushfire-birds/7216934 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-03/smart-bushfire-birds/7...: > Mr Gosford said he h
by duncan_bayne 9y ago
From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-03/smart-bushfire-birds/7216934 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-03/smart-bushfire-birds/7...:
> Mr Gosford said he had never actually seen a bird at a fire front, intentionally spreading the fire.
> So he said he decided to appeal to people to come forward if they had seen birds behaving in that way.
> Mr Gosford said he received 16 firsthand accounts from people who said they had witnessed birds spreading bushfires to flush out prey.
> ...
> He said he hoped by filming birds spreading fires, others would see how valuable Aboriginal knowledge could be to the broader community.
This is a much more speculative thing than a reading of that abstract makes it out to be. It's not impossible, but there's no hard evidence of it as yet. Certainly, there's no video.
- gus_massa 9y agoI think that the abstract is clear, and probably they are using the correct terminology in their field. But the first time I read it I didn't notice that they are documenting first hand stories about the events, but not the events themselves (aka videos). > We document Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and non-Indigenous observations of intentional fire-spreading by the fire-foraging raptors Black Kite, Whistling Kite, and Brown Falcon in tropical Australian savannas. Observers report both solo and cooperative attempts, often successful, to spread wildfires intentionally via single-occasion or repeated transport of burning sticks in talons or beaks.* [..]