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--- some_thoughts_about_animal_learning_and_imprinting [2025/11/02 15:53] – administrator
+++ some_thoughts_about_animal_learning_and_imprinting [2025/11/07 13:23] (current) – administrator
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 ===== Introduction =====
-Imprinting of rescue bird is an often hotly debated topic amongst bird lovers, wildlife rehabilitators and rescuers, where voiced opinions range considerably. One extreme approach to this topic suggests that imprinted birds are principally unreleasable, and that once a bird is imprinted that this situation cannot be reversed. The other extreme opinion considers all imprinted birds as releasable and implies that these birds have similar survival chances in the wild compared to birds who have not been imprinted. However, own experiences and those of fellow rehabbers have shown that, and this should actually not be unexpected, the truth lies neither in the middle nor is it to find in one or the other extreme. To find an answer, it seems worth to explore some basic underlying processes, like imprinting, learning, conditioning and habituation.
+{{ :2016-11-08_1979.jpeg?200|}}Imprinting of rescue bird is an often hotly debated topic amongst bird lovers, wildlife rehabilitators and rescuers, where voiced opinions range considerably. One extreme approach to this topic suggests that imprinted birds are principally unreleasable, and that once a bird is imprinted that this situation cannot be reversed. The other extreme opinion considers all imprinted birds as releasable and implies that these birds have similar survival chances in the wild compared to birds who have not been imprinted. However, own experiences and those of fellow rehabbers have shown that, and this should actually not be unexpected, the truth lies neither in the middle nor is it to find in one or the other extreme. To find an answer, it seems worth to explore some basic underlying processes, like imprinting, learning, conditioning and habituation.
 ===== What Is Learning? =====
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 Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. The phenomenon of filial imprinting ensures that, in normal circumstances, the precocial infant forms an attachment to its mother and never moves too far away. ((Nicholas John Mackintosh, Animal learning, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 17 November 2015, www.britannica.com/topic/animal-learning/Imprinting, 12 January 2018.))
-Konrad Lorenz pointed out for the first time that if imprinting is to occur, the young animal must be exposed to its object during a critical period early in its life. Lorenz found that a young duckling or gosling learns to follow the first conspicuous moving object he or she sees within the first few hours or days after hatching. 99Lorenz, K. Z. 1935 Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels. Journal fuer Ornithologie 83:137-213, 289-413.))
+Konrad Lorenz pointed out for the first time that if imprinting is to occur, the young animal must be exposed to its object during a critical period early in its life. Lorenz found that a young duckling or gosling learns to follow the first conspicuous moving object he or she sees within the first few hours or days after hatching. ((Lorenz, K. Z. 1935 Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels. Journal fuer Ornithologie 83:137-213, 289-413.))
 Imprinting, so it has been suggested, was different from most forms of learning. It appeared irreversible and confined to a critical period, and seemed not to require reinforcement or a reward. However, later research suggested that imprinting may in fact be reversible and may also extend beyond the critical period originally identified by Lorenz and Hess. ((Cathy Faye, Time Capsule, Lessons from bird brains, Eckhard Hess’s research on imprinting helped to popularize an emerging field of research—one that that explored genetic and learned aspects of early behavior. December 2011, vol 42, no. 11, page 30.))