Can someone please give a scientific explanation for this?

[abaddon]

...I know they could, but they haven't killed me so far. Maybe there's hope.

It's the way many animals in a veterinary clinic seem to cooperate with the higher being that is trying to help.

How much higher? Does it depend on what the vet’s been smoking compared to what the patient’s been injected with?

You’re imagining the lowly beasts must feel a kind of awe at we ensouled beings, like we might feel towards angels, yeah?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The bird was probably habituated to human presence -- living in a public park and all -- and didn't consider us dangerous. Se might even have been fed by humans. She'd also have observed that we seem to have remarkable powers to do amazing and inexplicable things.

As J842P pointed out, birds intelligence is underrated. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that a distraught mother might take a desperate gamble.

Second this. The bird didn't see humans as a threat. Note, also, that it was a cop--the bird might have observed others in police uniforms helping the young (say, a lost kid.) Faced with a desperate situation it tried the only thing it could think of.

- - - Updated - - -

We had enough time and intelligence to domesticate dogs. Why couldn't Geese evolve by using us to evolve?

Look at any carnivore high on the food chain. They are not constantly hunting. Who knows what we did in the mean time.

You do realize that geese are still being hunted don't you? If seeking humans were an inherited trait it wouldn't be so difficult for hunters to bag one. They are obviously intelligent enough to know that humans in public parks are not dangerous but to avoid humans in the wild. This is learned behavior.

Geese aren't being hunted in the park.

 

[bilby]

Non-human animals not completely stupid shock!

More at five.

 

[fromderinside]

Canadian honkers don't mate and raise young here.

Well there are these two geese roaming our lake the last several days. The first few days both were honking as they roamed the lake. Then about four days ago one quit honking but flew with the mate who was still honking. Yesterday neither goose was honking. They were still flying around the lake. Today the two geese are flying less.

I'm afraid they are lost and in a death spiral.

Maybe someone will find them and nurse them to health.

Or something else will happen.

Can one say they are smart for searching out their flock when the flock is not to be found?

Back to you bilby.

 

[skepticalbip]

You do realize that geese are still being hunted don't you? If seeking humans were an inherited trait it wouldn't be so difficult for hunters to bag one. They are obviously intelligent enough to know that humans in public parks are not dangerous but to avoid humans in the wild. This is learned behavior.

Geese aren't being hunted in the park.

HUH?

 

[Wiploc]

Geese aren't being hunted in the park.

HUH?

Where I live, deer aren't hunted. The wander around in groups of as many as twenty. They are used to people. They cross calmly in front of cars. They stand by the path when people pass by. I've had my two dogs barking and leaping at the ends of their leads, lunging at a deer that was three feet from them. For the longest time, the deer just looked at them.

The point is that, in locations where people aren't a danger, animals can become pretty tame. That's not a matter of evolving to be tame, but just of not being afraid of people because your parents never taught you to be afraid of them.

But, in the case of this duck, I still like the theory that the duck was once somebody's pet.