Box 6.1.

Cooperative gang behavior in young Striated Caracaras and other

raptors
Striated Caracaras are relatively large, stocky, inquisitive, and opportunistically predatory and

scavenging raptors. An island-dweller in southernmost South America, the species nests on the

perimeters of penguin and seabird colonies, where individuals feed on both eggs and chicks, as

well as on dead and dying adult birds. Clumsy predators but aggressive scavengers, caracaras

also sometimes attack healthy nestling and fully grown seabirds and land birds. The species also

competes with and sometimes displaces other birds, including Turkey Vultures, Variable Hawks,

and Subantarctic Skuas, from carcasses. It also routinely feeds on the placentas, feces, and

carcasses of seals, and scavenges the carcasses of sheep and other livestock. To say that the

Striated Caracara is a dietary generalist is something of an understatement.

With a world population estimated at fewer than 2500 mature individuals, this regional

endemic occurs only in Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands, with the latter archipelago

believed to be its stronghold. The Falklands population has been stable since the 1980s, even

though breeding success through fledging indicates that it should have increased. Why this is so

is not certain, although high juvenile winter mortality because of limited food resources has been

suggested.

The large numbers of breeding seabirds that provide Striated Caracaras with abundant

food in summer largely evacuate the islands in autumn for warmer waters to the north, and

winter on the Falklands is no picnic for the non-migratory caracaras that remain. My own

research on 127-km2 (49-mi2) Saunders Islanda nursery island for 90 to 130 mainly juveniles

and subadults that holds no nesting pairsindicates that juveniles and subadults lose about 15%
of their body mass in winter. Individuals feed feverishly at this time of year, and competition for

limited food creates feeding frenzies among individuals. Indeed, in winter, caracaras rarely, if

ever, exhibit signs of satiation or slowing down while eating, with most feeding attempts

ending only once a bird has consumed all of the edible parts of an item, or is chased from it by

another caracara. Most of the birds overwintering on the island do so at a farm settlement, where

human activity provides a nutritional subsidy in the form of farm scraps.

Observations of feeding birds in and around the farming settlement, along with an

analysis of regurgitation pellets collected at a night roost, indicate a winter diet of mainly native

geese (killed either by Red-backed Hawks or by the farmers), beetles and other invertebrates, and

the carcasses of domestic sheep.

The young birds that inhabit Saunders Island apparently do so for two reasons. First, a

lack of breeding pairs on the island means that few competitively superior adults are there.

Second, the family that farms the island does not harass the caracaras, permitting them access to

leftovers and scraps in an around the farm without fear of being shot, something that is not

necessarily true of other settlements on other islands in the archipelago. Unfortunately, there

does not appear to be enough food for all of the birds that congregate at the farm settlement each

winter. And this is where cooperative gang behavior comes into play.

Juveniles and subadult caracaras tend to hang out and feed in avian gangs of up to

several dozen birds, especially when the food in question occurs in large quantities such as

human-butchered sheep remains or the remains of 4-kg (9-lb) Upland Geese killed by 11.5 kg

(3-lb) Variable Hawks. Screaming while in flight as they approach a carcass, gangs of young

caracaras quickly build to mobs of upwards of several dozen individuals which, although far less

predatory than the hawks, often dominate them by sheer numbers, and in so doing are able to
make off with a sizeable share of the food. Importantly, adult caracaras arriving simultaneously

also give way to the ravenous mass of younger birds, as the goose is picked clean in short order.

Much the same occurs when pigs at the farm are fed their daily dose of shot Upland Geese, when

a feeding frenzy at the pigpen negates any age advantage held by adult caracaras, as both young

and old caracaras scramble for a share of the bonanza.

Juvenile and subadult Striated Caracaras are not the only diurnal birds of prey that exhibit

gang behavior in nutritionally stressful times. Other scavenging raptors that might be

disadvantaged by their smaller size also do so in order to compete for what might otherwise be

unattainable food resources. Old World vultures in the genus Gyps engage in gang behavior to

assert dominance at large carcasses. And in South America, the relatively small Black Vulture

uses gang behavior to numerically dominate more massive Andean Condors at food sources.

It is not known if participants involved in gang behavior have friends. Regardless, the

strategy appears to be an effective way for otherwise less competitive raptors to secure

nutritional resources when feeding on bonanza nutritional resources.