Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 10:02:02 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Maurice Barnhill Subject: Re: Human intervention MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gerald & Laura Tarbell wrote: >All points taken with interest. However, wasn't some of the research >that Lorenz and others did with geese evidence that migration is >learned behavior, possibly not genetic, as you claim? If it is learned, >then it might even be possible to teach them to fly north for the >winter. Of course, they might starve as a result, but the point I am >making is that your genetic origin seems to be more assumed than >proven. Any other thoughts out there on this? > Jerry > > Geese migrate in family groups, so it is possible that some or even all migration behavior is learned. However, in many and probably most species the young migrate separately from the adults, so it is hard to see how their behavior could be learned. I agree that my comments do not apply to geese and that there may be other species whose migratory behavior is learned. -- Maurice Barnhill mvb@udel.edu [Use ReplyTo, not From] [bellatlantic.net is reserved for spam only] Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================