Editor:
I was distressed to see in your article about the Wildlife Care Center (“Oh, Mercy,” July 20) that the Director Monte Merrick does not have a clue about what animal imprinting means. He states that animals don’t imprint on us from birth and his justification for that opinion is that we don’t even know “the inner psychology of our own spouses.” That knowing a spouse’s inner psychology (whatever that may mean) has nothing whatsoever to do with imprinting he apparently does not grasp.
Imprinting in birds has long been studied and recognized. Many birds imprint on the first moving object they see within the first 12 to 16 hours after hatching and will follow that object and will ‘know’ that the object they are following is what they are. The famous ethologist Konrad Lorenz was often photographed with a gaggle of geese following him everywhere.
Objects that are imprinted on can vary from a moving toy train to any animal or human. There is a YouTube video called “My Life as a Turkey” that is a fun and interesting watch.
Anyone who is working with wildlife rescue should know that imprinting is a real phenomenon and it’s critical to know what animals will imprint. One working in that field should, I would think, be studying the work of ethologists like Lorenz in order to best care for their charges.
Sylvia De Rooy, Eureka
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This article appears in Goodbye, Chief.
Actually, the ideas of imprinting, habituation, their definitions and the differences between them are something we take very seriously in our work, as do all wildlife rehabilitators. These definitions exist, not as commandments but as tools that change with time. Ideas about the consciousness of animals are as subject to revision and review as anything else and at the moment, there aren’t hard and fast ideas about what imprinting means, or even if that idea is particularly useful. No disrespect to Konrad Lorenz intended, but the fields of animal psychology have moved on since his time.
I am sorry to have to say that Merricks’ response simply validates my contention that he does not understand what imprinting means. The study of animal behavior is ethology, not animal psychology and while it certainly has ‘moved on’ in the sense that new knowledge has been acquired since Lorenz time the work he did on imprinting is still as simply valid today as it was then because animal behavior in that respect has not changed. A goose hatchling will still imprint on the first moving being or object it sees and will still follow that object/being and believe that is what they are. It’s just nonsensical to say that is not a hard and fast idea. It is built in animal behavior that does not change over the 40 plus years since Lorenz died. It is not a “tool” that changes with time, that’s just foolish to say. It is a hard and fast FACT and is essential to understand if dealing with animal behavior. I had the rare privilege of meeting with and visiting Lorenz in my home in Cambridge, Mass. on his only brief visit to the US in the 60’s and he was an amazing and knowledgeable man. Unfortunately his legacy is besmirched by the stands he took during WW2.