Ravens Don't Follow Wolves, They Predict Their Patterns
When wolves bring down prey in Yellowstone National Park, ravens often appear almost immediately. Long before the predators finish feeding, the birds gather nearby to grab scraps of meat. Their ability to locate fresh kills so quickly has puzzled observers for years, leading many people to assume that ravens simply follow wolves across the landscape.
A new study suggests the real explanation is far more impressive. After tracking ravens and wolves in Yellowstone for more than two years, researchers discovered that ravens rely heavily on memory. Instead of shadowing wolf packs over long distances, the birds remember places where wolves frequently make kills and return to those areas later.
“They can fly six hours non-stop, straight to a kill site,” says Dr. Matthias Loretto, the study’s lead author.
The findings, published in Science, indicate that ravens use spatial memory and navigation skills to search for food spread across large areas. According to Loretto, ravens do not need to stay close to wolves all the time because they can recall where food is most likely to appear. “Ravens can cover large distances by flying, and they seem to have a good memory, so they don’t need to constantly follow wolves in order to profit from the predators,” he says.
The project was led by the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (Germany), along with several international partners, including the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Germany); School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington (USA); and Yellowstone National Park (USA).
Researchers carried out the study in Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were reintroduced in the mid-90s after being absent for 70 years. About one quarter of the park’s wolves wear tracking collars each year, allowing scientists to monitor their movements.