Behavioral responses of crows to anthropogenic cues for food (Experiment 1 & 2)

Behavioral flexibility and the ability to respond appropriately to anthropogenic cues that signal potential threats or rewards may promote success of wild animals in the urban environment. Here, we examine the behavioral responses to anthropogenic cues of free-living American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), an opportunistic scavenger and common urban exploiter. Specifically, we tested the hypotheses that crows would more readily approach (1) novel objects and anthropogenic food when in close proximity to trash cans, and (2) paper bags with hidden food rewards when closer to a McDonald’s restaurant, due to their associations of food with these cues. In addition, we examined the preference of crows for bags marked with a McDonald’s logo versus unmarked bags, hypothesizing that crows closer to McDonald’s would be more likely to approach the labeled bag because of its familiarity. Consistent with our expectations, crows exhibited a lower approach latency to anthropogenic food and novel objec..., Experiment 1: Foraging behavior, urbanization, and presence of trash cans
 
Behavioral responses to novel food and objects were recorded along an urbanization gradient at sites in Utica, Kirkland, New Hartford, and Rome, New York (USA) between October 2014 and March 2015 and September 2020 and April 2021 (Fig. 1). Sites were selected in parking lots in urban centers and on roadsides along agricultural fields in rural areas. Agricultural roadsides had minimal traffic; no cars drove past for the entire duration of most roadside trials (e.g., Supplementary materials, Video S1). To characterize the degree of urbanization, we created buffers with a 50-meter radius surrounding each data collection site in QGIS 3.16. We calculated the percent impervious surface cover based on data from the 2016 National Land Cover Database (Percent Urban Imperviousness dataset), using the Zonal Statistics tool in QGIS to quantify the percentage of pixels covered by impervious surfaces within each buffer. We ch..., , # Behavioral responses of crows to anthropogenic cues for food (Experiment 1 & 2)

Data for Corvus brachrhynchos behavioral responses to food and anthropogenic objects/ cues. Experiments were conducted along an urban-rural gradient in Oneida County, NY, USA.

Contact Andrea Townsend ([[[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])] with any questions. This manuscript has been accepted for publication

Merz, M. R., S. Cote, R. Weinberg, T. Malley and A. K. Townsend. \"Can I have fries with that? Context-dependent foraging behavior in urban and rural American crows.\" Behavioral Ecology, Volume 36, Issue 1, January/February 2025, arae098, [https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arae098](https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arae098)

Data files include:

Data files include:

## File: experiment1_ImperviousSurface_TrashBin.csv

Variables

Treatment_Type: whether or not a trash can is present (Y/N)

Percent_impervious_50m: The percentage of impervious surface within a 50m radius around each test ...