When Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees making tools in 1960, humans lost their self-aggrandizing status as the world’s only tool makers. Now scientists are beginning to realise there may be much more ‘intelligent life’ in the universe than previously thought, but it’s just here: on our planet. Since Goodall’s discovery, researchers have found numerous other mammals displaying high levels of intelligence, including the great apes, elephants, dolphins, orcas and many canine species. But only in the last couple decades has scientists’ attention turned to intelligence in non-mammals, including birds.

“Studies of avian intelligence have been hampered by the old fashioned idea that birds are stupid, and not worth considering in terms of intelligence,” said Nathan Emery, author of the new book, Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence and senior lecturer at Queen Mary: University of London.

An in-depth look at recent research and fascinating lab experiments, the book published by Ivy Press overturns any notion that birds are somehow dumb. Instead, it argues with an overwhelming amount of evidence that a number of bird species should be considered more as “feathered apes.”

No bird brains here

The idea that birds are unintelligent was initially proposed by looking at the brains of birds. Birds lack a cerebral cortex, which allowed scientists for decades to assume they were incapable of any higher thinking. However, researchers now know that a different part of the bird brain – the pallium – has evolved to do many of the same tasks as the cerebral cortex.

“Avian and mammalian brains seem to be functioning the same way, but interestingly their hardware is completely different,” said Emery, who noted that bird brains generally have shorter connections between specific parts of their brains than mammals.

“This structure means that birds might make decisions more rapidly then mammals, but we don’t know what implications this might have for their intelligence.”

But what is intelligence? It’s a question, really, for philosophy. Researchers rarely agree on an exact definition. But for his purposes, Emery described intelligence as “the ability to flexibly solve novel problems using cognition rather than merely instinct or learning.”



If I told you that day old chicks can count...would you think twice about eating chicken? Nathan Emery

In other words, to Emery intelligence goes beyond rote learning to the ability to tackle a problem never before seen by an individual. This strict definition includes attributes usually connected to humans like plasticity and creativity. Still, Emery said that we need to start thinking of intelligence as species-specific and not compare apples to oranges or humans to crows.

“It’s not really appropriate to pit one species against another, as each has evolved different skills or ways of thinking that provide them with an advantage in one test, but a disadvantage in another. There isn’t an IQ test for animals to rank their intelligence.”

For example, lab tests have shown that rooks and crows are better than eight-year-old children at reaching a treat by making a wire hook, but of course there are many things eight-year-old humans can do that rooks and crows can’t.

Tool-making and other kinds of intelligence

Ever since Jane Goodall’s chimp discovery, tool use has been a gold standard for dubbing a species intelligent. In recent decades, scientists have discovered that a number of bird species employ tools in the wild, usually to get at food they can’t reach with their beaks.



But for a long time birds had only one known tool-maker: the New Caledonian crow.

These island crows have become famous for making a wide variety of hook tools out of twigs and leaves. In the laboratory, they are capable of making tools out of objects they’ve never encountered before and even rival primates in their ability to craft tools. But just this year, scientists discovered that the ‘alalā, or Hawaiian crow, is also capable of making and using tools. The ‘alalā is actually extinct in the wild, but 109 individuals survive in captivity today.

If the ‘alalā had gone totally extinct – at one time there were only 30 or so left – we would never have known about its remarkable abilities.

According to the IUCN Red List, we’ve lost 140 species of birds to extinction since the year 1500 (although more probably vanished without our knowledge) – and none of these, of course, were ever studied for their intelligence. Today, five additional species are extinct in the wild – including the ‘alalā – but survive in captivity. Meanwhile, 1,375 birds are currently listed as threatened with extinction (ie vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered) and another 971 species as near threatened. In all, about 14% of the world’s birds are currently threatened with extinction.

Worryingly, only a handful of bird species (out of 10,000-plus) have actually been systematically tested on their intelligence. Even whole bird families have never been tested, including most of the world’s raptors.

“My prediction for other families of avian geniuses are the hornbills, woodpeckers, and falcons, based on their relative size of their brains, and what we know about their natural behaviour,” said Emery. “These are not common birds to keep in the lab or they may be endangered, so the key to success is going to be our creativity in finding populations to be tested in a systematic, controlled manner.”

And of course tool-use isn’t everything. Bird song – and the ability of some birds to even mimic human speech – lends itself to high levels of intelligence as does the extreme sociability seen in many birds, requiring them to keep track of a complex avian hierarchy. Birds can also do incredible things that humans can’t, such as find their way home after migrating thousands of miles or remembering where they hid thousands of pieces of food even after the landscape has been covered in a metre of snow.

Eating and shooting the intelligent

All this means we need to rethink how we treat birds, according to Emery.

“The domestic chicken is the most populous bird in the world, which we consume in massive numbers. But, if I told you that day old chicks can count or they can tell if two objects are the same or different, a so-called abstract concept, would you think twice about eating chicken?”

African grey parrots are known for their incredible ability to mimic human speech. However, this has placed them in grave danger. The parrots are being pushed toward extinction in the wild to feed the pet trade. Photograph: Nathan Emery

Emery said the least we could do is consider a chicken’s quality of life before it’s served.



In his home country of England, Emery said, revelations about bird intelligence (not to mention emotional acuity) should have people reflecting on pheasant and grouse shooting as well as the killing of raptors to keep game bird numbers artificially high.

Another bird that is often persecuted: the super-smart crow.

“Crows are routinely killed by farmers who erroneously think they are destroying their crops, yet crows have been found to be as intelligent as apes,” he said. “I’m sure you’d think the price worth paying for a more expensive loaf rather than advocate the wholesale destruction of chimpanzees if they destroyed crops. If so chimps, why not crows?”

The problem may be one of likeness: we look at chimpanzees and it’s like viewing ourselves in a slightly crooked mirror. But seeing a crow and recognising a fellow clever, sentient and creative being means further diminishing our own superiority and considering life differently. It means recognising that smarts comes in all shapes, sizes and species.