European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 23, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Osprey Woik to get scientists Are learning that some predatory Birds attack in groups by William k. Stevens the new York times he Majestic image of the Lone Eagle May often hold True. But scientists Are also beginning to piece together a More Complex picture of eagles Hawks and Falcons As team players whose Hunting tactics and cunning intelligence invite comparison with the Wolf and the Fox. Eagles in fact not Only mount concerted and successful attacks on the Fox itself they also deceive monkeys humans close relatives in the deadly game of predator versus prey. By acting together they Are even Able to bring Down big animals like Deer antelopes and african Bushbuck. Diving swooping and executing barrel Rolls Peregrine Falcons double team rapidly darting swifts Birds that no single Falcon could possibly outman Euver. As. The Swift veers right and left in a horizontal plane both male and female come at it from above. The male smaller and More agile reverses course once it is below the Swift and attacks a second time from beneath. The multiple assaults. Drive swifts to such distraction that they Fly into obstructions or plunge into water becoming easy pickings. And in the Southwest family groups of i Larris Hawks assemble each Winter morning Divide into platoons and scour the Countryside for rabbits. When one is found the platoons converge and go on the attack. If necessary one platoon flushes the prey from Brush directly into the talons of the other. If a speedy Jack Rabbit leads them on a Chase the Hawks pursue in relays that keep the Quarry running till it drops. These Hawks Are not one Whit behind a Wolf pack in their Hunting behaviour said or. David h. Ellis an animal Behaviourist and Raptor expert at the a Tuxen wildlife research Center of the . Fish and wildlife service at Laurel Mel. As the grimly fascinating evidence accumulates it is forcing scientists to reassess their longstanding treatment of raptors As solitary predators. Often the Birds do Hunt alone and the difficulty of observing them at work has made it hard to discover other kinds of Hunting behaviour. A but now according to a study in the current Issue of the journal Bio science there Are enough observations to suggest that eagles and their cousins command a wide repertory of predatory actions including the most sophisticated. This command May be essential to the species Long term evolutionary survival strategy. Raptors newly appreciated prowess reveals a High degree of intelligence said or. Ellis the primary author of the paper in Bio science. The other authors Are or. James c. Bednarz a behavioural ecologist at Boise state University in Idaho or. Dwight. Smith a vertebrate ecologist at Southern Connecticut state University and or. Stephen p. Flemming an ecologist in Sackville new Brunswick. Just How Bright raptors Are relative to the intelligent mammals they kill is unclear and a subject of future research. But in any Case the catalogue of behaviour culled by or. Ellis and his colleagues from the scientific literature adds up to a chilling picture of Raptor craftiness. Some Hunting Hawks travel with similar Birds like vultures to disguise their presence from the prey. A number of raptors follow the leading edges of fires rising flood Waters moving trains and even people to capture prey flushed by the disturbances. Peregrine Falcons have accompanied a moving train for up to six Miles for this purpose. Cyr Falcons in Alaska often followed a trapper to catch Ptarmigan Birds that he flushed while tending his traps. In an extreme example a Northern harrier prowled an Active bombing Range to Nab animals and Birds scattered by the. Exploding bombs. In Venezuela or. Ellis observed a White Hawk travelling with a troop of team Hunting in the air a group of Harris Hawks poised for a relay attack on a Jack Rabbit. Not monkeys acting As de Facto beaters much As humans beat game to the Hunters. Some species like ospreys learn of food sources from their flock mates in the colonies where they live and All the ospreys then go search for prey. And Golden eagles in the american West have been known to pounce in 18 the stars and stripes attacks on mule Deer and Antelope killing them in the Winter m10w. But none of this behaviour constitutes True cooperative Hunting. As used by Ellis and his colleagues the term requires that tlu1 lodging pair or group be a stable Bot us unit that some members in a Cli i f n of labor sacrifice their own february 23, 1993 prospects for a direct kill in deference to the group interest and that group members share in the spoils. In the most Complex forms raptors Exchange signals to coordinate the Hunt and cooperate in Hunting ubide the Breeding season. Many instances suggesting this level of behaviour have been observed. Pollution threatens Arctic Polar bears  the associated press scientists worry that Polar bears on Remote Arctic islands Are giving birth to fewer cubs because Industrial toxins from North America and Europe Are poisoning their favorite food Seal blubber causing particular concern Are poly chlorinated biphenyl or pcs. The cancer causing compounds once widely used in plastics and electrical insulation were banned in the United states in the 1970s and Are restricted under International agreements like the North sea agreement mandating destruction of All materials containing pcs by 1999. Pcs which Don t dissolve in soil or water also build up in animal fat and have been blamed for infertility in some species. Now the toxins have been recorded in disturbing Quantity in Polar bears said Oystein Wiig a Polar Bear specialist at the norwegian Polar Institute in Oslo. Wiig tracked 14 Likely Mother bears expecting 11 or 12 to give birth this past Spring. Only five did. It will take several years to determine whether the High Levels of pcs were to blame he said but when you see it together with Low reproduction there is reason to be  some 20,000 to 40,000 Polar bears inhabit the Arctic and at least 2,000 roam the windswept fjords mountains and Tundra of Norway s Arctic Svalbard archipelago Wiig said. Tests showed much higher Levels of the toxins in Svalbard s Polar bears than in their North american cousins said Janniche Skaare a Lexicology is who tests samples taken by Wiig. We could t understand Why the Polar bears at Svalbard would be More affected than those in Canada which is a More polluted area Skaare said. But Svalbard is the Center for air and water currents from the United states and Europe As Well As Eastern Europe via Russia said Skaare who Heads the toxicology and chemistry department at the norwegian College of veterinary Medicine and the National veterinary Institute. Wind and water currents including a Branch of the warm cuff Stream and flows from polluted Rivers in Northern Russia bring toxic pollutants to the out of the Way islands. Even Low concentrations like those found near Svalbard build up in the food Chain. Pcs dissolve readily in animal fat such As blubber and stay there Skaare said. And she said if a Polar Bear has a Choice it will eat the blubber of seals. It must eat Large amounts of Seal  fat samples Skaare tested from Svalbard s Polar bears averaged 30 parts per million of pc or 10 times the average reported by researchers who examined Alaska s Polar bears and five times that found in Canadian bears. Some of the individual Polar bears on Svalbard had 80 or 90 parts per million she said. We reckon anything Over 50 causes  such Levels in seals weaken their immune systems and cause sterility by deforming the uterus or fallopian tubes which prevent eggs from descending Wiig said. We can Hope that we Are wrong but the information we have from other animals shows an effect Skaare said. Wiig tracks Polar bears by helicopter and each year stills and studies about 40 of the off White giants on the Svalbard islands by shooting them with tranquil Izer darts. While the 440-to 880-Pound bears snooze he collects fat samples with an instrument that resembles an Apple corer. He also tags some with radio collars. The collars placed this year on 25 Polar bears transmit signals by satellite to the zoologist s Oslo office that Alert him to such developments As a Bear s impending motherhood. Only pregnant females go into hibernation Wiig explained. If they move they Are not in hibernation. If they Are in hibernation they Are going to have a  usually solitary and with a life Span of about 30 years the animals mate in the Spring and dig Dens several feet deep into the Snow in late november. Trie females give birth around new year s Day emerge in the Spring and tend their cubs for 2 i years. Weather ice conditions food supplies and overpopulation also can affect the birthrate of course Wiig said. But Low reproduction could be connected to High pollution he said. Not Arctic contamination from pcs and other toxins could be affecting Polar Bear reproduction rates especially in the norwegian far North where pollution collects. The stars and stripes a 19