A new research reveals an incredible adaptation of a hawk to life in the city, taking advantage of the help of traffic lights to hunt.
Cities can be hostile environments for wild animals, but some species develop their own strategies to survive in urban space. This is the case of a cooper hawkwhich was the target of a thorough analysis for using traffic lights as a hunting tool.
In a survey on May 22 in the scientific journal Frontiers in Ethology, the zoologist Vladimir Dinests revealed that the bird of prey is Take advantage of the cars line formed in a traffic light to attack their prey.
“When I found out what was happening, I was really impressed. I didn’t expect it. On the other hand, each time I study some animal species, it is smarter than I expected,” Dinests told The Guardian.
Keeping an eye on strategy
The University of Tennessee scientist began to observe the behavior of a young hawk in the mornings where He took his daughter to school through the streets of West Orange, a city in the American state of New Jersey.
Dinests realized that the bird of prey seemed synchronize your hunt with the pace of opening and closing the traffic lights of a cross. The bird used a tree as a point of observation to come into action as soon as the sound signal sounded and pedestrians began to cross the street.
When the car line was formed, the cooper hawk Flying among the vehicles to attack their prey across the street. The pattern of behavior was verified after the zoologist performs 12 hours of observations over 18 days, in the winter of 2021 and 2022.
“This behavior required have a mental map of the area And understand the connection between the beeps and the change in traffic standard – a remarkable intellectual feat for a young bird who had probably just moved to the city, ”said the expert.
A year later …
The scientist returned to the scene of the bird attacks a year later To observe his behavior and managed to see an adult hawk – possibly the same bird as the previous winter – hunting the same way.
The following summer, however, the sound signals of traffic lights stopped workingand no hawk was observed after that at the intersection of the streets in West Orange.
