If You Think You Can Hold a Grudge, Consider the Crow

The brainy birds carry big chips on their shoulders, scientists say. And some people who become subjects of their ire may be victims of mistaken identity.

Renowned for their intelligence, crows can mimic human speech, use tools and gather for what seem to be funeral rites when a member of their murder, as groups of crows are known, dies or is killed. They can identify and remember faces, even among large crowds.

They also tenaciously hold grudges. When a murder of crows singles out a person as dangerous, its wrath can be alarming, and can be passed along beyond an individual crow’s life span of up to a dozen or so years, creating multigenerational grudges.

Attacks by aggrieved crows can become the stuff of horror films, with lives being seemingly transformed into the Hitchcockian nightmare of “The Birds.”

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How long do crows hold a grudge? Dr. Marzluff believes he has now answered the question: around 17 years.

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