How do the young animals know what to do, for example how to beware of crazies and how to get food? Do they learn from their parents or is this knowledge innate? And will a chick that fell out of the nest be able to survive without a mother to teach it to fly?
Written by: Ariel Kers, Young Galileo
We once rescued a chick of a tsetse that fell from the nest or maybe was thrown from it. Some animals tend to destroy their sick chicks so that other chicks have more food and a better chance of survival. But we humans sometimes interfere with the course of nature. The chick we found, named Stanley, was brought to our home, given water and food and began to grow, and within a few weeks he was an adult chick. We took good care of Stanley, and we also asked ourselves how he would learn to fly or pick grains in the absence of a mother from whom he could learn; And how can we teach him this behavior, after all we have no idea about pecking, and certainly not about flight; And we wondered if Stanley could survive if he didn't learn to fly or peck grains.
Stanley's rescue made us think about the independence of animals: how do they grow from living quarters, hatchlings or chicks to adult animals that can survive? And how do animals that grew up in captivity - or those that were injured and people rescued them - manage to return to nature and reintegrate into it?
With Stanley things were clear: within a few days he started pecking at his food, and after a short time he was also flying around the house. I understood that nature does its thing: pecking and flying are genetic traits inherent in him, and he does not need to learn them from his mother. Finally, after he grew and got stronger, we let him go: he flew around a bit, after two days he returned for a short visit, and then left us and went on to his adult life.
A little history
The behavior of animals has always intrigued humans. The great scientist Charles Darwin presented the analysis of animal behavior in his famous book "The Origin of Species" in 1859; He came up with the intriguing idea of evolution, which had tremendous implications for science and our understanding of the animal world. Following Darwin's ideas, scientists began to understand how animals develop, what influences their evolution and how to explain their behavior and even their understanding. Following Darwin's "Origin of Species" and other studies and books, the science of ethology also developed, which deals with the study of the behavior of animals in their natural environment and their response to their environment.
Heredity versus learning
In animals, and also in humans, it is customary to distinguish between inherited behavior and acquired behavior - which we learn, mainly from our parents. Hereditary behavior stems from our genetic origin, for example sucking milk immediately after birth, without which an animal puppy or a human baby would starve. The practice of certain animals to sometimes destroy their sick offspring so that others have a better chance of survival is also hereditary and evolutionarily rewarding. Genetic or other instinctive behaviors of animals can seem unnecessary to us: for example, have you noticed that dogs tend to turn around several times on the carpet before they lie down on it? This is because when they lived in the wild, before they were domesticated, they had to spread the grass they lay in to create a comfortable bed. Both the inherited behaviors and those that are learned are intended to enable the survival of the individual, so that he can detach himself from his parents and function independently as an adult.
In general, the animals whose infancy period is long have a learned behavior; For example, the predators - hunting skills, and the prey - the ability to disguise and hide. Social behavior may also be acquired. The scientists say that the more developed a creature's mind is, the more the creature's behavior will be influenced by learned behaviors, and less by innate instincts. The problem is that many times it is difficult to decide whether a certain behavior of an animal is instinct or learned behavior because it is difficult to prove claims related to motives that were made without thinking first. Is the social behavior of a herd of animals in the African savanna learned or ingrained in the genes of the zebras or the wildebeest in the herd? And what about human social behavior? After all, sometimes it seems that we behave like a herd of animals in the savannah...
"There are animals that don't learn because they don't have parents who raise them," says Keren Or, the safari zoologist in Ramat Gan. "Like those whose mother lays eggs and disappears, for example reptiles like turtles or lizards. Sea turtles, for example, hatch small and vulnerable. They hatch from the egg on the beach, and they have very clear instincts to go towards the sea and start swimming, without any learning process. After all, in order to learn, you need someone to learn, that is, parental care. But even among animals that have parents, scientists are divided on the question of what is learned and what is instinctive."
Late independence
The process of growing up and becoming independent for many large animals, including us, humans, is very long. "It takes about seven years for an orangutan, an ape that is in serious danger of extinction, to leave its mother and become independent," says Keren Or. "This has far-reaching consequences because it determines the rate of reproduction. The mother can become pregnant again only after the puppy is raised. The low reproduction rate is one of the reasons that make it difficult for the orangutans and other animals to survive, although of course this is not the only reason."
What do the puppies learn from the mother? "Pups of predators learn to find food, know what to eat and of course how to hunt," explains Karen Or. "Many times you see a cheetah that hunts a small deer and does not kill it but brings it to her cubs so that they can 'play with the food', that is, try to learn to kill it themselves. But in such a process there are also instincts - learning is not something that is taken for granted, and researchers disagree on many issues. For example, if a monkey imitates what its mother does, for example puts a stick in a termite's nest - can it be called learning or is it simply a repetition of an action?"
Prey cubs, for example antelopes, must stick to their mother and the herd as a whole, otherwise their chances of survival are small. Such a phenomenon and other phenomena indicate the social circumstances for animals to reach maturity and independence. "Perhaps it is not learning as we define it, but in order to be an animal it is necessary to grow up in an environment of animals of the same type", explains Keren Or. "If a person takes a puppy and accustoms it to live with humans, the puppy does not learn the code of conduct and the habits of its own kind. A monkey did not know how to 'be a monkey'." Try to think what would have happened if you had not grown up in the company of other people. Is this even possible?
This made me think more about Stanley the Sun, and I shared Keren Or. "It is likely that it was difficult for him to survive in the wild because he did not grow up with birds like him and did not receive food that he could find in the wild," she said. Still, I hope his instincts helped him find the right food and watch out for cats and birds of prey.
"The approach in zoos today is to avoid letting humans breed animals, even if it means the cub will die. In a safari, natural processes are simulated so that the animals develop a normal development that is separated from humans. For example, we have a Durban girl named Dorit. They found her next to her mother who had been run over on the road, brought her to a safari, and here they fed her a bottle. Porcupine puppies learn from their parents how to look for food tubers, dig and remove them from the ground. But such a Durbanite, which grew up with humans, cannot become independent, and there is no possibility of returning it to nature. Such an animal will remain in the safari, and will not go out to independence for the rest of its life."
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