Hacker News Reader

Comment by duncan_bayne | Hacker News Reader

"Journal of Ethnobiology"

"Though Aboriginal rangers and others who deal with bushfires take into account the risks posed by raptors that cause controlled burns to jump across firebreaks, official skepticism about the reality of avian fire-spreading hampers effective planning for landscape management and restoration. Via ethno-ornithological workshops and controlled field experiments with land managers, our collaborative research aims to situate fire-spreading as an important factor in fire management and fire ecology."

I'll believe this when I see video proof, thanks. In the meantime I'm going to mentally file it with UFOs that are alien spacecraft, and reptilian overlords.

View on HN

Basically, I'd trust Bob Gosford. And the folks out bush tend to have a fairly keen understanding of their local ecosystems.

This may be a personal failing on my part - argument from personal incredulity as Dawkins puts it - but the idea of a bird intentionally carrying fire instead of fleeing it seems a bit odd.

> Mr Gosford said he had never actually seen a bird at a fire front, intentionally spreading the fire.

> So he said he decided to appeal to people to come forward if they had seen birds behaving in that way.

> Mr Gosford said he received 16 firsthand accounts from people who said they had witnessed birds spreading bushfires to flush out prey.

> ...

> He said he hoped by filming birds spreading fires, others would see how valuable Aboriginal knowledge could be to the broader community.

It seems Mr. Gosford shares my desire to see a video of the birds in action. And hasn't been able to produce one yet.

> the idea of a bird intentionally carrying fire instead of fleeing it seems a bit odd.

Fire-stick farming has probably been practiced for tens of thousands of years, which gives a lot of time for birds to evolve in response. Most bushfires in the top end attract raptors as-is (especially Wedge-Tailed Eagles), because there are strong thermals to ride and lots of prey is forced to move, making it easier to hunt.

> It seems Mr. Gosford shares my desire to see a video of the birds in action. And hasn't been able to produce one yet.

The remote parts of the NT are not a suburban or downtown environment. They are not drenched with folks carrying smart phones who are looking for such behaviour. It's vast, mostly empty and when a bushfire is coming what you're meant to be doing is getting the hell away from it before it catches up and kills you.

I appreciate the skepticism, but I wouldn't put bush lore on the same footing as UFOs. One requires a plausible thesis consistent with our knowledge of physics and plausible within the increasingly large scope of observed animal behaviour. The other requires civilisations with FTL travel but no X-ray machines.

Okay, that's fair - it's more likely to be true than UFOs being aliens ;)

Personally, I'd be excited for this to be true for a number of reasons:

* I'm Australian. Any advance in the understanding of how fires spread is of material benefit to me and people I care about.

* I love animals. It'd be amazing if another species used fire, and may open up whole areas of research.

* I'm Australian, which means I take a bizarre pride in our image of having the most dangerous wildlife in the world. The existence of fire-wielding raptors would turn this knob to 11 :)

But I'm afraid I'm still betting "bush legend inspired by old Aboriginal myths" on this one.

It's true that most people flee fires, but a lot of people observe them closely, these days with some very shiny equipment (including IR cameras on helis, to see thermal sources clearly through smoke).

I'm fairly (but not entirely) sure that this behaviour would have been observed already if it were true.

I don't disagree that it would be better to have video evidence and that it might be a side effect of breathing too much campfire smoke.

But there really is a lot of understudied country out there. Hopefully curious ornithologists and others will start to head out bush during the Dry. If it's a bush legend -- though I hardly put this on par with yowies and bunyips -- then the picture will probably become firmer either way.

FWIW I'm Australian too. Darwinite turned New Yorker.

>I'm Australian.

Probably explains why you have a disparaging attitude towards indigenous knowledge.

Nice ad-hominem there ;-P

I'm actually first-generation Australian, grew up in New Zealand, and spent a lot of time immersed in the indigenous culture, learning the language, etc. One of the highlights of my school years was participating in the dramatization of the Maori creation myth. So I know quite a bit about indigenous myths and legends (albeit not many Australian ones), and the way they're used and interpreted in contemporary indigenous society.

But the thing about myths and legends - indigenous or otherwise - is that they're mostly bollocks. Sure they can have social value. But it behooves us to be _very_ cautious about how we interpret those myths and legends.

Some are basically true, and it can be frustrating when that's ignored. "No-one knows how the Moai at Easter Island were erected! It must have been aliens!" "Errr, we're local, we can show you if you'd like. Would've been nice if you'd asked."

But many _aren't_. And it annoys me to see people who should know better - actual scientists - treating them with altogether too much credulity.

I suspect that the idea that birds actively seed bushfires falls into this category.

But we'll see. As I say, I'd love to see actual proof of this behaviour. But I know which way I'd bet (see, gambling, I must be Australian ;) ).

the idea of a bird intentionally carrying fire instead of fleeing it seems a bit odd

Small prey flees fire -> raptor associates fire with food -> raptor is attracted to fire -> raptor picks up stick with fire -> raptor drops stick since it isn't actually food -> small prey flees new fire -> raptor associates dropping fire stick with food.

technically, raptors don't need to intend anything in this instance. they merely need to be attracted to burning sticks long enough to carry them some distance away. in that case, no adaptive justification is really required (aside from that pertaining to the attraction itself (curiosity, or whatever).

still, one can come up with at least a few stories that might "explain" it. outing prey to where they can be caught might be one.

Yes, this story definitely has a certain WE WUZ feel to it.

Why don't you explain what you mean by that?

Can you explain what this means?

He's referring to the "WE WUZ KANGZ" meme, in that he sees the research as not believable.

Sorry there may be a cultural gap here. I'm not familiar with that phrase at all.

It's a racist trope in which a questionable/exaggerated historical claim is conflated with any suggestion of knowledge/innovation originating outside a eurocentric historical paradigm.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-wuz-kings

Reply on news.ycombinator.com