Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, it all started as a question to researchers in animal scenting... the topic of using carrion birds (because of their well developed sense of smell) to search for lost people came up. I thought I'd query some experts on the little guys (as opposed to vultures and such). The socialbility of the Corvids would help, too.

Do y'all think any of these birds would be good at this "game"? We could get permits to study these birds for their scenting ability, but we're clueless as to the permit process to actually keep them for search and rescue work if this project works. Any ideas in that area?

By the way, we are well aware of the AMOUNT of training time this project would take. We are NOT aware of the techniques or tricks of the trade that are specific to the training of Corvids. Many of the researchers are accomplished trainers of other species, and also raptors.

This would be an awesome project if anyone here would like to get involved. Just be warned - even without trying something new, the training of search animals is time consuming! (I would estimate that it takes two years to get a search dog mission ready to search for folks.)

Hm, a fascinating idea, anyway. I'm not positive that most carrion birds have such a great sense of smell, though. Turkey Vultures do, but even the closely related Black Vultures do not -- they locate carrion by sight only. Old World vultures also seem to rely exclusively on sight. Kiwis have an excellent sense of smell but I can't see them doing search-and-rescue work, LOL. Some of the seabirds have also been shown to have decent senses of smell, but it seems most birds do not. I don't know if perhaps smell just isn't as useful up in the air as it is on the ground. I've heard nothing about Corvids having a well-developed sense of smell and would imagine they also locate things primarily by sight. They are highly trainable, though not eager to please the way dogs are. I have no idea how they'd respond to search-and-rescue training, even if their sense of smell is good enough.

Assuming those hurdles could be jumped, however, you could avoid the problems of permits and legality by using non-native Corvids. There are several species from Africa and Europe that are available in the US, and because they're not native, they're legal in most areas (not all). The Corvid Ranch raises several species, and might be able to answer some of your questions about sense of smell and trainability:

http://www.geocities.com/corvidranch

Really interesting idea.... if anything comes of it, I'd love to hear!

- Lara