Richard Collins: Playing mind games with birds

How immigration is a driver of cultural change in great tits

A study has show that immigration is a driver of cultural change in great tits.

IN THE Animal Mind, Canadian philosopher Kristin Andrews devotes a chapter to “culture”. She uses the term as an anthropologist might, aware that the idea of animals exhibiting culture “might sound funny at first”. 

“It’s the study of what sorts of differences there are between animals of the same species,” she says. She cites the example of Keiko the orca star of the film Free Willy. Attempts to return Keiko to the wild, costing $20m, failed. Unable to readapt to the orca culture of his childhood, he was rebuffed by his wild peers. Having lost the ability to hunt, he starved. Keiko died in a Norwegian fjord in 2003.