Birds have concept of death, hold funeral

ISTANBUL

AFP Photo

Some birds, it seems, hold funerals for their dead, the BBC has reported. When western scrub jays encounter a dead bird, they call out to one another and stop foraging. The jays then often fly down to the dead body and gather around it, scientists have discovered.

The behavior may have evolved to warn other birds of nearby danger, report researchers in California, who have published the findings in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The revelation comes from a study by Teresa Iglesias and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, in the United States. They conducted experiments, placing a series of objects in residential backyards and observing how western scrub jays in the area reacted.

The objects included different colored pieces of wood, dead jays, as well as mounted, stuffed jays and great horned owls, simulating the presence of live jays and predators.

The jays reacted indifferently to the wooden objects. But when they spied a dead bird, they started making alarm calls, warning others long distances away.

The jays then gathered around the dead body, forming large cacophonous aggregations. The calls they made, known as “zeeps,” “scolds” and “zeep-scolds,” encouraged new jays to attend to the dead.
Other animals are known to take notice of their dead. Giraffes and elephants, for example, have been recorded loitering around the body of a recently deceased close relative, raising the idea that animals have a mental concept of death.