Humans may not be the only species to deliberately control fire. Birds of prey have been observed picking up burning sticks from wildfires, then using them to ignite new fires so they can feast on the animals that flee.
The behaviour has been witnessed in the Northern Territory of Australia, where indigenous people have known about it for centuries. Stories of so-called ‘firehawks’ have been incorporated into their ceremonies and written about in books.
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- ‘Firehawk’ behaviour – strategic pack hunting or just birds clutching at (burnt) straws?
In his 1962 autobiography “I, the Aboriginal,” Waipuldanya Phillip Roberts wrote, “I have seen a hawk pick up a smouldering stick in its claws and drop it in a fresh patch of dry grass half a mile away, then wait with its mates for the mad exodus of scorched and frightened rodents and reptiles.’
Raptors, it seems, deliberately manipulate fire to improve their hunting success.
A 2017 study, published in the Journal of Ethnobiology, describes more than a dozen similar incidents, involving black kites (Milvus migrans), whistling kites (Haliastur sphenurus) and brown falcons (Falco berigora). On one occasion, a group of firefighters witnessed a group of raptors intentionally spreading fire as they tried to put out a blaze.
This raises a problem. Australia endures tens of thousands of bushfires every year, previously attributed to two key causes, lightning and people. Raptors could be an additional source of wildfires, responsible for seeding new outbreaks and making the fires hard to contain.
