Animal Parents as Teachers

You will be surprised what animals said when questioned by researchers! Wolf pups learn to howl from the members of their pack.

So that in time they can join in the rally call for the pack to meet up....let others know their location...or even warn other packs to stay out of their territory.

A wolf pup will begin to mimic howling as young as 20 days old. The calls will be shorter in length and higher in pitch just because of their smaller little lungs.

The songs that birds sing are learned, not inherited: Songbirds don’t know how to sing like their parents until they learn that song. Songbirds practise by trying to repeat what they’ve heard from their parents...usually once they are fledglings that can fly out of the nest. By the time they can fly, fledglings have developed a subsong. With a lot of practice, that subsong grows into a song like the one their parents sing.

Can We Have a Snack as questioned by the animals. Since animals don’t have a fridge to open when they are hungry, it’s important for the little ones to learn how to get food for themselves. Otters eat while floating on their backs. Another otter will dive in the water to find shellfish...then come up and place a rock on her own stomach so that she can crack the shellfish against the rock to open it. She will do this repeatedly to show her young this technique until they learn it.

To show her young how to catch fish and shrimp, a dolphin’s mom will intentionally stretch out the time it takes...by as much as eight times longer! The young dolphin will watch the parent capture, then let go of their food ...and then recapture...let go of their food...and then let go of it again to show different ways of grabbing lunch!

Foxes teach their young how to forage for earthworms by finding a worm in the ground and showing their pups how to bite it .Next, the mother will find a worm...pull it loose...and stretch it out ...but let her pup take it. She will repeat this exercise until the pup learns the right amount of pressure needed to get the entire worm from the ground without breaking it.

Staying Healthy and Safe: Moose spend a lot of time standing in the water. It reduces the weight of their bones and joints...and the water cools them off on hot days. Most importantly for a moose family ...being in the water discourages predators like wolves and mountain lions from sneaking up on them! It’s much harder to sneak up on something surrounded by water.

Bison usually run when they sense danger. But, if there isn’t time to get away, the mothers will form a circle around their young...and the males will form a circle around the mothers. From an early age, this species learns that ‘family has your back’ literally.

After their first few steps into the water, loon chicks can bob around and float. They spend lots of time, however, on their parents’ backs during trips out in the lake to rest...conserve heat...and avoiding predators. Young loons are extremely buoyant and pop up like corks after their first attempts at diving.

Up until the young chicks are eight weeks old, the adults are with them most of the time...providing most of the food...and showing them how to dive again and again. By 11 or 12 weeks of age, the chicks are getting better at diving...and will be getting almost all their own food.

Empty Nesters: No bird is truly born with the ability to fly from birth because it takes practice. Baby birds are trained by their parents...who encourage them to try and try again! The main incentive for trying to fly, seems to be food. When it’s time to fly, mother birds start dropping food a little farther away from the young...encouraging the little ones to move out. Chances are, the first few times, the baby will fall to the ground...but eventually, the young learn they can cease their fall by flapping their wings. The family is happy to see them leave the nest, because fledglings are less likely to be preyed on by predators when they are out of the nest.

The foregoing, I foraged from the recent
Canadian Wildlife Federation’s recent publication.

Comments most welcome:
MBK...assembled December 8, 2020