Crows remember faces of people who trap them

Biologist John Marzluff and his team at the University of Washington conducted research showing that American crows can recognize and remember the faces of people who have trapped them. The study, published in 2011 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that crows can distinguish between individuals who have harmed them and those who have not.

Study used masks to test crows’ recognition

The research team captured and tagged wild crows wearing rubber masks, including one resembling a prehistoric man and another resembling a political figure. The same individuals later returned without masks or with neutral masks to serve as a comparison. The operation lasted five years across several neighborhoods in Seattle.

Crows reacted aggressively to familiar faces

The results showed that when a person returned wearing the mask of someone who had trapped them, the crows would scold them and attack in groups, accompanied by alarm calls. The neutral mask did not trigger any reaction, indicating that the crows were responding specifically to the face of the person who had trapped them, not to a general threatening silhouette.

Crows share information about threats

The study also found that this distrust spreads among crows, with many attacking the mask even if they had never encountered the person before. This suggests that crows can communicate information about potential threats to other members of their flock.