23 Jan 2018

Fire: Not just a human tool

From The Panel, 4:34 pm on 23 January 2018
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Photo: Supplied / Bob Gosford

A new paper has collected accounts from witnesses in Australia of birds using fire to hunt prey. It's the first recorded phenomenon of non-humans using fire this way, but has been lore among Aboriginal people for decades. Author and ornithologist Bob Gosford joins us from Australia to discuss how the birds use fire and what this means for our understanding of the animals' intelligence.