Bumming Critters.

[thurps]

CATransplant reminded me of a seagull that my wife and I were watching at an overlook on a trip by Bodega Bay, Ca.. He would walk up to a car, droop his wing, start limping and look absolutely pathetic. When he stopped getting handouts he would straighten himself out walk up to the next vehicle, droop his wing, start limping, and look absolutely pathetic etc., etc..
I'm quite sure he learned this behavior after actually being injured at one time and associating it with more or better handouts. It's amazing to me how far some birds, squirrels etc. will go to get treats. Some people also.
Any stories?

 

[Mn Warrior]

Re: Bumming Critters.

Fish can learn the same things, a few years ago I was able to go to a resort owned by one of my parts suppliers. Every morning at 5:00 three muskies would swim up and sit by the boat house and wait for handouts, one of them had a blind eye. They could tell if the sucker you were throwing them was alive or dead before it hit the water, if it was dead they would not move an inch, if it was alive they caught it the second it hit the water surface. In shock by this, I sat there for two hours tossing in the bait we were going to use that day. before that, I did not think fish could be trained..

 

[winenut]

Re: Bumming Critters.

We were out in the river a few weeks ago, in an area where it was fairly wide (the river averages around 2 miles wide where we fish). Suddenly a bumblebee started buzzing around me. After several minutes of this, I finally cast my line...the bee took off after the bait. The bee came right back, buzzing back and forth in front of me. I reeled in my line after a bit, and re-cast. The bee zoomed off after the bait again. It did this over and over again, at least a dozen times, maybe more. It was like he was trying to play fetch! We had a sudden downpour and that drove the bee away.