Crows Don't Forget

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2019

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Crows have gotten a bad rap throughout history. Think about it. A group of them is called a "murder." To get some insight into crows and perhaps set the record straight, we talked to Kaeli Swift. She's a lecturer at the University of Washington and wrote her doctoral thesis on crow "funerals."

In an earlier version of this episode, we used the word "spooky" to describe crows. Because that word has a history of being used as a racial slur, we chose to replace it with the words "scary" and "creepy." Thanks to our listeners who helpfully pointed this out to us, and we apologize. You can learn more about this from our friends at Code Switch.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave.
0:02.0	From NPR.
0:04.0	Hey everybody, Maddie Sophia here.
0:08.0	Crows are one of those animals that have been long associated with creepiness.
0:15.0	I mean, come on.
0:17.0	A group of crows is called a murder.
0:20.0	I find them a little unsettling, but not in the Alfred Hitchcock
0:24.0	they're coming to pick your eyes out way.
0:26.0	Do not make a sound until I tell you to run.
0:29.0	What gets me is just how smart they are.
0:32.0	You know, we have this expression bird brained,
0:35.0	and that comes from a long history of us believing that birds weren't very intelligent.
0:41.0	And it's only been in the last couple of decades that we've come to appreciate
0:45.0	just how incredibly smart crows are.
0:49.0	That's Kaylee Swift from the University of Washington.
0:51.0	She did her PhD on crow behavior in today.
0:54.0	She's dropping some crow knowledge on us.
0:57.0	We are going to talk about how crows can learn and remember human faces,
1:02.0	how they pay attention to their dead,
1:05.0	and how they make and use tools.
1:08.0	It might just change the way you think about them.
1:10.0	Alright, here we go.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.