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Ravens Waited for Wild Boars Before Approaching Food

Common raven on Utsira, Norway
Research · Behaviour

Free-ranging common ravens (Corvus corax) at Cumberland Wildpark in Austria used both the park’s captive wild boar (Sus scrofa) and other ravens as sources of information when food appeared in unfamiliar or unpredictable situations. The study was published in Behavioral Ecology in July 2026.

Ravens waited for wild boars before entering an unfamiliar feeding site

In one experiment, the ravens could choose between a familiar feeding site and a newly introduced site. In a second, researchers placed a bicycle beside one of two feeding sites. The ravens were probably familiar with bicycles in the park, but not with one appearing beside the wild-boar feeding site. In both experiments, the ravens delayed their first approach to the food until the wild boars had arrived and started feeding.

At the unfamiliar site, ravens took longer to approach, arrived in larger numbers and stole food from other ravens more often than at the familiar site. The researchers interpret these behaviours as different ways of reducing uncertainty around a new food source: the birds could wait for another species to approach first, move in as part of a larger group, or obtain food from another raven instead of entering the unfamiliar site directly. The experiment shows that ravens used the boars as a cue when assessing risk; it did not test whether the boars objectively made the feeding site safer.

An unexpected bicycle mattered more at the normally familiar site

In the bicycle experiment, the object had a stronger deterrent effect when it appeared beside the normally familiar feeding site than beside the newer site. The authors suggest that an unexpected change may be especially conspicuous in a setting where the birds already have established expectations.

Sources and image credit

  1. Damini, S., Lindeman, A., Bapat, A., Sumasgutner, P., & Bugnyar, T. (2026). Ravens (Corvus corax) use conspecifics and heterospecifics to navigate risky foraging scenarios. Behavioral Ecology, 37(5), arag093. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arag093Primary open-access study published 30 July 2026. Experiments at Cumberland Wildpark in Austria tested free-ranging ravens at a familiar versus newly introduced feeding site and then with a bicycle placed unpredictably beside one of the feeding sites. In both experiments ravens delayed their first approach until the park's wild boars reached the food. At the new site ravens approached more slowly, visited in larger numbers and stole food from conspecifics more often.

Image: Common raven (Corvus corax) on Utsira, Rogaland, Norway, 6 August 2021. Photo: Ryan Hodnett / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. Representative species image; not a raven from the Austrian study. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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Behaviour

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Common Raven Corvus corax Explore species Wild Boar Sus scrofa Explore species

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