Prey-lithium aversions. III: Buteo hawks

Acquisition, generalization, and extinction data indicated that hawks, like the coyote, can acquire pronounced aversions for prey, and while visual cues were sufficient to inhibit attack directed at the prey, taste cues were much more effective in inhibiting consumption.

Abstract

While mammalian predators, such as the coyote, follow an olfactory spoor in hunting, hawks rely primarily on visual information. Also, mammalian predators kill with their teeth, whereas hawks kill with taloned feet and so do not taste their prey immediately. In this experiment, captive Buteo hawks were studied to determine (1) if hawks can learn to avoid prey that have been paired with illness as effectively as the coyote, and (2) if distal visual cues are more significant than proximal taste cues in the conditioning of such aversions. Lithium chloride illness followed consumption of “poison” mice that differed from alternative “safe” mice in taste and/or color. Acquisition, generalization, and extinction data indicated that (1) hawks, like the coyote, can acquire pronounced aversions for prey, and (2) while visual cues were sufficient to inhibit attack directed at the prey, taste cues were much more effective in inhibiting consumption.