Owl Intelligence, and Respecting Their Way of Thought
For those of you who have followed my (original) blog for some time, my stance on owl intelligence should be clear. I am of the mind that owls are just as intelligent as a hawk or a falcon, and the pervasive reputation of these birds as being βlazyβ and βstupidβ animals is one of my biggest pet peeves.
The Myth of Owl Stupidity
In a cruel twist of fate, this mischaracterization of owls as being βslowβ often comes from those who work with owls professionally because owls do not respond to the same training as their diurnal counterparts, but if you are constantly trying to shove a square peg in a triangular hole, it may not be the peg thatβs unintelligent.
Diurnal raptors are only distantly related to owls, so it should not be a shock the two groups have more differences than similarities. A hawk is straightforward; they react to visual stimuli much like humans do, and they are at their peak confidence during the daylight. A hawk will look around, see no danger, and feel perfectly content to preen or eat from the glove. They burn off a lot more energy than owls as well since they capture prey by chase and have to be very active in searching for visual queues. A hawk will enter a dark room or have a hood slipped over its head and become almost catatonic because a lack of visual stimulus queues the hawk to feel calmed and stay in place much like they would to roost.
Owls see with their ears, not their eyes. An owl is also an ambush hunter rather than pursuit, every part of their instinctual wiring is geared to ensure they are not seen. If they are not seen and if they are not heard, they are safe, and they can be fed and they can relax in their invisibility. Because of their desires to remain unnoticed, they rarely show the same dramatic flight response of their diurnal cousins. Unlike the hawk, a frightened owl will not attempt relentlessly to take flight, a frightened owl sits as still as possible.
If youβre training a hawk and find it standing in place and looking at its surroundings without apparent urgency, it is a sign the hawk is confident; it neednβt watch you as you arenβt a threat, and it neednβt flee because it is safe and you will provide it food sufficiently. It can take time to look around at other things.
If youβre training an owl and it exhibits a similar behavior of standing firm on the glove and turning its head away from you to look at something else, this is a sign the owl is uncomfortable and worried, itβs not looking around out of curiosity, but to find an exit or a better hiding spot since it feels very visible on fist in the open.
Point of View of the Owl
When training hawks, the mutual relationship between man and bird is obvious. You are providing the hawk a secure roost, food, water, and freedom from disease. The hawk is more than willing to humor you in standing on your glove as though it were a tree limb and take time to look curiously upon whatever new sights you have to offer it, or to chase game you flush for it in the field.
Owls are more complex because the idea of being paraded in front of a crowd of humans or hunting game your noisy feet will scare away are very disagreeable to the owl for good reason. As I said, an owl is comfortable when it is not observed. Owls have a slower metabolism as well, meaning they do not hold food in the same esteem as the hawk. There is little urgency in an owlβs need to eat if all it has to feed is itself and itβs finished growing. Therefore, the only benefit a human can provide an owl is security. If you are not keeping the owl safe from scenarios that frighten it, you are not meeting your end of the bargain, and the owl views it as a betrayal because to be seen and to feel unsafe is torturous to these birds.
Owls find being companionship to be disagreeable as well, and do not enjoy physical touch or constantly being around a human or other animals. They only spend a few months of the year with their mate and owlets, the exception being burrowing owls who are more tolerant of company, but do not particularly crave it either in many cases. They simply hold it with indifference rather than displeasure.
Because of the strictly solitary nature of owls, they may become disagreeable in turn if you donβt give them their space. An owl prefers to be alone in its enclosure for most of the day and night undisturbed, and the only parts of the owl that should be touched are the keel (to determine body condition) and the talons (to ensure anklets can be placed in a way that will minimize stress). The face of the adult owl should never be touched unless itβs to briefly help it get something off, like residue from food or dirt that would be more irritating if left caked on the bird. Any touch at all to the bird should only be done for clinical reasons.
All of this is what makes owls incredibly unethical to keep as pets. Invariably, videos of pet owls show the birds being relentlessly stroked like dogs, forced to interact with humans or other pets, and taken to noisy places like a living room with the TV on or a store. Some even go as far as dressing them up in costumes.
Owl behavior and cognition in terms of how they see their world are complex enough that I canβt fully cover it in a tumblr post, but if you take away nothing else understand this much: owls are not cats, they are not dolls, they are not pets. An owl is a wild animal misunderstood even by self-proclaimed experts and many of us in the field are only just recently actually seeing them. There are so many misconceptions about owls that lead to them being abused and traumatized by being treated by something they arenβt.
In many ways, an owl is very much a wise animal because they devote all their time to silently observing. What people mistake as the bird simply βzoning outβ is actually the bird analyzing everything itβs hearing and seeing. They donβt need to look around to observe, their ears see even more than their very keen eyes. They make silent note of everything you do in their presence, and if you misstep and cross them, they will remember it.
Owls may not have a βcomplexβ language humans can quantify, and they may not use tools, but they also donβt need to. These should not be the end all be all of how we measure intelligence in animals. In solitary animals, there is no push for them to develop a language, and in animals as well adapted as an owl, there is no push to learn to use tools. They have every tool they need attached to their bodies as is.
Their way of thinking is alien to humans, as we are diurnal animals which require socialization to survive, but this in no way means they are not intelligent. They are simply different. An owl is very smart at being an owl after all.
