BACKGROUND: I am rereading The Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich, an eminent biologist and naturalist. Edward O. Wilson gave this book an excellent review.
Based on his many observations of wild ravens and ravens he raised from chickhood in Maine and Vermont, plus his non-invasive experiments in raven problem solving, Bernd concludes that "...ravens are able to manipulate mental images for solving problems and .... [see] with their minds at least some of what they have seen with their eyes." This is a cautious way of saying that ravens are spookily intelligent.
THE QUESTION: Heinrich reports several instances of people reporting that ravens have helped them. For example, one woman reported noticing a cougar lying in wait for her because of a raven's movement that caught her eye. "That raven saved my life" she declared. BUT, Heinrich postulates that it is more likely that the raven led the cougar to her, in order to share in the kill.
He bases this postulate on widespread evidence that ravens and wolves share wolf kills, the ravens descending almost instantly on a wolf kill. He cites Odin, the Norse god as portrayed with two wolves at his side, and a raven perched on each shoulder. He implied that Norse raids, bloody affairs, provided good eating for ravens. Heinrich postulates that wolves and ravens evolved to cooperate with each other over many tens (hundreds ?) of thousands of years, and that ravens recognize that other predators also provide food, notably human hunters, at whose kills they quickly arrive.
Heinrich's book was published in 1999. So the question is: how have these postulates of ravens (a) helping and/or (b) exploiting humans developed in since this book was published? Or is Heinrich still on the cutting edge?
Note: The behavior of ravens varies somewhat with geography. but I am not going to specify ravens of a particular continent, country or locality.
