Scientists Confirm Crows Can Hold Grudges and May Seek Revenge Against Humans

People often do something that annoys or even hurts other humans on some level. This might result in us having grudges against them as we remember the person and associate them with our negative experience. However, did you know that tiny but smart birds like crows could also hold a grudge against humans for up to 17 years? You might think that this is instinctual, but it actually speaks more about their intelligence as a species.

Crows Remember Human Faces for Years

A groundbreaking study by Professor John Marzluff at the University of Washington states that crows can remember human faces for up to 17 years when they hold grudges against them. This is usually after humans have done something wrong to the crows. They will learn to associate the negative experience they suffered with a particular person.

Some parts of the experiment included people wearing a specific mask while capturing and tying up the crows. Then, years later, these crows were again exposed to other people but with the same masks, and they exhibited aggressive, revenge-like behavior towards these humans.

This included scolding and dive-bombing, which tells us that they have long-term memory of their negative experiences. This is likely a product of evolution; it is a way for the species of crows to survive over time by remembering threats.

Read more: Research Gate

Passing Down Grudges Through Generations

Did you know crows hold grudges?

One of the most fascinating facts is that they do not just hold grudges against you by themselves. They spread this information about a negative experience associated with a particular person to their whole group.

The way scientists found out about this trait is that when the crows who were not involved in the original first part of the study were tested, they still acted the same aggressive way as the crows who were captured and tied.

This suggests that crows are capable of communicating and forming cultural transmission, passing down their knowledge and experiences to their offspring and other crows part of their flock.

Real-World Implications of Crow Grudges

You might think that this is just useless information that you will never have to use in your life, but if you live in an area where there are a lot of crows, you might think twice before doing something wrong to them, as some instances of crow attacks have already been reported globally.

An example would be in Dulwich, London, where people have to take a different route away from the crows’ territories, after the resident suffered repeated attacks like dive-bombing from a flock of crows.

However, some scientists say that they are doing this not because of a grudge or taking revenge on humans, but because it might be breeding and nesting season, and they want us to stay away from their young. So, it could also act as a warning sign, but the fact that they do that still means we are a perceived threat.

Read more: Earth.com

The Intelligence Behind the Behavior

Many people already know just how smart crows can be. There is a popular children’s story about them where they learned how to drink water from a half-empty glass by throwing rocks at it to raise the water level and make it overflow.

Crows belong to the corvid family, who all are known for their exceptional intelligence. Scientists even confirmed that they have a human amygdala-like structure in their brains. If you are not aware, that is the same part of our mind that manages emotions and memories. This neurological trait is why they are capable of remembering human faces for up to 17 years and can have complex social bonds and problem-solving capabilities.

Crows Can Remember Faces & Plot Revenge!

Author's Final Thoughts

If you learned anything from this short article, we hope it is that we should respect the wildlife more than we ever have. Because most of our research about them concluded in the same way, that the majority of these animals, like the crows, are not only intelligent, but also possess memories and emotions.

Read more: Scientists Trace Humanity’s Roots — And All Humans Might Be Related to the Same Man and Woman