Holy Shit, Aussie Birds Are Deliberately Starting Fires So They Can Murder Their Dinner
Another reason to respect and fear Aussie birds.
Well, bird news in Australia continues to be fucking terrifying. A new report confirms some Aussie birds of prey have learned how to control fire to vanquish their enemies flush out their prey.
As in, raptors in northern parts of Australia swoop down to pick up burning sticks at the edge of bushfires, and then dump them in dry grass or bush somewhere else to start new fires.
The fires flush out the lizards, snakes, and other prey the birds feed on. As one Twitter user put it, “Australian birds are basically having barbecue cookouts”, except scarier.
So Australian birds are basically having barbecue cookouts. pic.twitter.com/t9EaqwRWa4
— Marlon Weems ??? (@GeekTrader) January 8, 2018
can't come in to work today, my body was destroyed almost entirely by an osprey with pyrokinesis pic.twitter.com/HMQXBC77lg
— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) January 9, 2018
What’s more, this isn’t even new — Indigenous communities in northern parts of Australia have known about birds doing this for centuries, and incorporated this knowledge in ritual and song. The Dalabon language, spoken by one of the Indigenous groups in Arnhem land, has a specific word for these birds: karrkkanj, or “firehawks”, terms that can refer to Black Kites, Peregrine Falcons or Brown Falcons, all of which have been seen starting fires.
In fact, that Indigenous knowledge is actually the only reason we know about these arsonist birds at all. Researchers decided to look into it after repeatedly hearing stories from Aboriginal people, and just recently published a study collecting the many reports of fire-starting birds they uncovered between 2011 and 2017.
As one of the study’s co-authors Mark Bonta told National Geographic, “we’re not discovering anything”. Rather, he said, “most of the data that we’ve worked with is collaborative with Aboriginal peoples… They’ve known this for probably 40,000 years or more.”
reason 123323462 why you should not fuck with birds: they've figured out how to light their enemies on fire https://t.co/9PvHwlgOPm
— rae paoletta (@PAYOLETTER) January 8, 2018
Bob Gosford, another of the researchers who worked on the paper, has also previously told the Washington Post that his work is motivated by a pressing need to take Aboriginal knowledge more seriously.
“There’s an immense amount of Aboriginal knowledge of the birds in this country,” he said. “I firmly believe that for science and land management, if there was greater recognition of it, we’d be a much better place.”
Anyway, there are a few lessons to be learned from this: namely, listen to Indigenous people, and respect and fear Australia’s birds. Hopefully you’re already doing both of those things, but if not, here’s another wakeup call.
If you’d like to read more about this, Gosford runs a blog on his work over at Crikey. You can find the study on fire-spreading birds here.