Fledgling Double-crested Cormorants Rehearse a Food Manipulation Technique with Woody Debris, Algae, and Shells

Chastant, Jennifer E.; Fioranelli, Paul B.; King, D. Tommy

doi:10.1675/1524-4695(2008)31[147:fdcraf]2.0.co;2

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Turning to Higuchi’s second observation of age‐related effects; improvement in prey capture using the same bait or lure suggests an improvement in fishing technique. Improvement in foraging technique with age is known from other birds (see Wunderle 1991 and Chastant et al. 2008 for examples from seven species of fish‐eating birds) and, although improvement in catching fish using a bait or lure may involve a specialized technique, it needs to be demonstrated that this is more cognitively demanding than say an oyster catcher becoming more skilled at opening mussels to claim that cognitive constraint limits the number of species (and indeed the number of individuals within a species) able to achieve bait fishing.…”

Section: How Cognitively Challenging Is Bait Fishing?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fishing with a Bait or Lure: A Brief Review of the Cognitive Issues

Ruxton

Hansell

2010

Ethology

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Bait fishing is a behaviour described in only 12 species of birds, seven of which belong to the family Ardeidae (herons), the remaining five are scattered among four other bird families. This behaviour is defined as having the following characteristics: (1) Objects placed by the bait fisher on the water are buoyant and within a radius at which the fisher can strike at prey. (2) The objects attract or distract the fisher’s prey, with the effect that the fisher enhances its chances of prey capture. A review of the literature indicates that bait items are both selected from and placed within the environment to achieve enhanced prey capture success. It is concluded that bait fishing is a real and distinctive behaviour. The evolutionary route to bait fishing has most likely been through an association between particular floating objects and the occurrence of fish prey. The repositioning of these floating objects and the collection of objects of similar character would have then been sufficient to achieve the bait fishing behaviour now seen. Bait fishing falls within a commonly used definition of tool use. However, it is argued that, as with tool use and tool making in general, this does not necessarily imply special cognitive ability. The rare occurrence of bait fishing both within and across species as could be an indication of cognitive constraint; but this remains undemonstrated. Alternatively, this rarity could be explained if fishing is rarely more profitable than alternative foraging tactics.

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Section: How Cognitively Challenging Is Bait Fishing?mentioning

confidence: 99%