Pigeons love to gamble
Sep. 6th, 2014 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calzephyrOriginally posted by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
calzephyr77 at Pigeons love to gamble
calzephyr77 at Pigeons love to gambleMy friend found this story about how pigeons treat risk (and it turns out that there's lots of other stories on "gambling pigeons" if you take a Google, like this one).
I really enjoyed the story, but it was something that any bird owner can tell you. I have two budgies and a cockatiel, and they "gamble" all the time, especially Muffin the Cockatiel. He knows when a risk won't pay out, or just decides to place all his chips on landing right on our plates (because he can potentially snag something before being shooed away).
It's always a risk to be told that I'm anthropomorphizing, but animals are just as involved in their local economies as people are - they make decisions regarding risk to survive just like we do IMHO. I hope there are more studies like this - it's true that animals are just different cultures sometimes.
I really enjoyed the story, but it was something that any bird owner can tell you. I have two budgies and a cockatiel, and they "gamble" all the time, especially Muffin the Cockatiel. He knows when a risk won't pay out, or just decides to place all his chips on landing right on our plates (because he can potentially snag something before being shooed away).
It's always a risk to be told that I'm anthropomorphizing, but animals are just as involved in their local economies as people are - they make decisions regarding risk to survive just like we do IMHO. I hope there are more studies like this - it's true that animals are just different cultures sometimes.
