AMERICAN CROW BEHAVIOR
The 2015, 2016, and 2017 PDFs housed here are reports of empirical scientific research. I publish them privately on the WWW instead of in traditional academic journals as a necessity, rather than a preference. These manuscripts are many years in the making, and most of the material has been reviewed for traditional publication at least once in various formats (beginning as a single giant monograph). All of the Results and statistical analyses, and most of the qualitative discussion, have therefore been subjected to peer review (and I have gratefully addressed all of the substantive points raised). However, none of it has enjoyed editorial acceptance. My treatment is too detailed and rich in individual observation and, yes, anecdote, to be publishable in traditional peer-reviewed academic outlets for behavioral ecology and ornithology, I have learned.
I believe, in addition to the birds themselves, it is precisely the detail of individual observation and anecdote that made this work so unique, useful, and interesting. Many hours of painstakingly detailed observation of free-living crows, coupled with genetic estimates of relatedness, have provided an unprecedented, richly detailed glimpse into the complex social lives of these intelligent and flexible animals. The differences in behavior among individuals and among reproductive groups, and windows into the investment strategies of long-lived, sentient organisms are my principal findings, themes, and conclusions. Rather than try to distill it all down into tables of summary statistics (an actual Reviewer's comment), I choose instead to celebrate and fully report the diversity; details, individuals, anecdotes, and all.
While graduate students at UCLA, (coauthor) CCP and I were lucky to have participated in George Bartholomew and Thomas Howell’s famous vertebrate biology seminars. Bart used to say that he felt his most important and proud contributions were not concepts or ideas, that can change with scientific fashion and progress, but rather the high-quality data he had collected and reported, that could be of potential use in testing past, present, and future hypotheses. In that spirit, I present here my data.
I believe, in addition to the birds themselves, it is precisely the detail of individual observation and anecdote that made this work so unique, useful, and interesting. Many hours of painstakingly detailed observation of free-living crows, coupled with genetic estimates of relatedness, have provided an unprecedented, richly detailed glimpse into the complex social lives of these intelligent and flexible animals. The differences in behavior among individuals and among reproductive groups, and windows into the investment strategies of long-lived, sentient organisms are my principal findings, themes, and conclusions. Rather than try to distill it all down into tables of summary statistics (an actual Reviewer's comment), I choose instead to celebrate and fully report the diversity; details, individuals, anecdotes, and all.
While graduate students at UCLA, (coauthor) CCP and I were lucky to have participated in George Bartholomew and Thomas Howell’s famous vertebrate biology seminars. Bart used to say that he felt his most important and proud contributions were not concepts or ideas, that can change with scientific fashion and progress, but rather the high-quality data he had collected and reported, that could be of potential use in testing past, present, and future hypotheses. In that spirit, I present here my data.
clcaffrey at gmail dot com
