“Fire season” is an unfortunate part of Australian summers. During this time, low soil moisture, a lack of rain, and dry vegetation allows small flames to become rapidly-spreading wildfires. Once ignited by lightning or discarded cigarettes, the inferno is difficult to contain and extinguish. Sometimes the fires begin from arsonists. And they may be human or bird. A new study describes “firehawk” raptors who intentionally spread wildfires by carrying burning sticks in their beaks or talons.
What are firehawks?

This new research delved into the traditional Indigenous Australian ecological knowledge of a widely unknown bird behavior. Three species fall under the label of firehawk, the brown falcon (Falco berigora), black kite (Milvus migrans), and whistling kite (Haliastur sphenurus). Fascinatingly, these birds were known as arsonists to local Indigenous communities but not much anywhere else.
Wildfire raptors

This barely-documented behavior is critical for future wildfire prevention. “Though Aboriginal rangers and others who deal with wildfires take into account the risks posed by raptors that cause controlled burns to jump across firebreaks, official skepticism about the reality of avian fire-spreading hampers effective planning for landscape management and restoration,” the authors write in the study published in the Journal of Ethnobiology.
“They’ve known for over 40,000 years”

Although this “firehawk” behavior is news to many people, the researchers emphatically dispute the idea that they have discovered it. “We’re not discovering anything,” said geographer Mark Bonta from Penn State Altoona, to National Geographic. “Most of the data that we’ve worked with is collaborative with Aboriginal peoples… They’ve known this for probably 40,000 years or more.”
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Deliberate arson

Many news outlets relay the wildfires’ damaging effects on animal habitats. So it may seem counterintuitive for birds to worsen the flames. However, that is actually the goal of these firehawks. They use fire to literally smoke out prey from their burrows, such as insects and small animals. As they run, the birds can swoop down and capture them. Firehawks often hunt in flocks, where one bird drops a smoldering twig while the others catch fleeing prey. This level of coordination indicates the fire-spreading is intentional.
“A feeding frenzy”

For that reason, these predators thrive during wildfires in Australia. “Black kites and brown falcons come to these fronts because it is just literally a killing frenzy,” said co-author Bob Gosford, an Australian indigenous-rights lawyer and ornithologist in a 2016 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “It’s a feeding frenzy, because out of these grasslands come small birds, lizards, insects, everything fleeing the front of the fire.”
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Seeing wildfire spreaders in action

Although Gosford hasn’t seen this frenzy firsthand, other co-authors have — namely the firefighters. That hasn’t stopped local animal experts from being skeptical about winged arsonists. “If [hawks] have missed the prey and perhaps grabbed a stick… they will then drop that stick or rock,” wrote Anthony Molyneux for the Alice Springs Desert Park in 2011. “If the stick is smoldering or on fire, it will then start another fire.”
Capturing the behavior on film

In the meantime, this 2017 study consolidates all of the information about firehawks so far. The authors had collected photos and videos of these birds at work, but there hasn’t been any usable footage as of yet. However, they hope to document this behavior and learn more about these raptor species.
Protection and prevention

“There’s loads to find out,” Bonta said to Penn State Altoona. “We just learned in 2016 that birds’ neurons are packed differently. They’re way smarter than we thought. We’re just beginning to understand avian memory. Crows’ problem-solving ability is amazing. There are a lot of tool-using behaviors.”
Moreover, this research can further understand how Australian wildfires are spread. And hopefully, how to manage, contain, and prevent them in the future.
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