Thoughts on Manning, from a Behaviorism Perspective

[Dillon]

Thoughts on Imprints and Imprinting

Hi all,

I've been incredibly busy-- sorry about abandoning this thread for the last few days! I thought I'd share some thoughts on imprinting.

First, let me say that I have ALMOST ZERO experience with imprints and falconry. Until very recently, I always preferred the passage hawk; as I'm getting older and my understanding of behavior has become a bit more lucid, that has changed. There are true masters of the imprint here on this list and in literature. Kent Christopher and Vic Hardaswick's book really nails it, IMO. My best imprint was a goshawk that was raised via the McDermott method that was insanely great on game, but was a screamer. I have my own thoughts on how I would do things differently, but I won't go into that because I don't have enough experience in that facet of falconry yet.

I do, however, have a ton of experience comparing imprinted and non-imprinted birds in zoo and show situations. I've raised a good number of raptors, corvids, psittacines, gruiforms, softbills, etc., and have worked with the parent-reared counterparts of almost all of these taxa. Mind you, these were all for free-flight bird shows or aviaries in zoos.

First, my personal opinion of an "imprint" is that it cannot show any fear response when first taken; it has to be a bobble-headed ball of white fuzz. Anything after that age and the falconer will be dealing with other complications. For example, I ordered an "imprint" tiercel gos years ago from a breeder (I know, lazy), that came to me at 21 days old. The breeder supposedly pulled him early enough to imprint, but when he came to me he already showed fear of the hands and avoided the hood. The same thing happened to me with a gyr/peregrine tiercel. It's important to realize that raptors are altricial, and do not truly "imprint" like precocial birds, such as ducks. Even though "imprinted" raptors will act very tame and will go on to copulate with humans, this doesn't mean too much, considering human fetishes and the way they are thought to develop.

Anyway, back to the topic. First, remember that stimuli that are reinforcing and stimuli that are punishing are subjective and learned. For instance, one house cat might detest being held, yet another purrs in the arms of the owner. For me, sushi is one of my highest reinforcers; for others, it would be incredibly punishing to force them to eat a piece of sashimi maguro. Why is this? Well, behaviorists-- and those who subscribe to behaviorism like myself-- attribute it to early learning. While some of our inherent tastes and predisposition might be genetically linked, there is an incredibly amount of scientific studies supporting that early learning and initial exposures play a far more influential role than genetic predisposition. Consider the hand-raised eyas that learns to like chasing a tennis ball or enjoys falling asleep in the falconer's lap, and compare that to the other hand-raised eyas that is simply never given the opportunity to chase a ball or fall asleep in the lap of the falconer. It will likely not occur once the bird is older, especially the nap time part.

Now, let's speak briefly about reinforcers. There are two types: Primary-- or unconditioned, and secondary-- or conditioned. I'll refer to them as UR (unconditioned reinforcer) and CR (conditioned reinforcer) from here on out. UC's are things that are inherently rewarding, regardless of learning, and are REQUIRED for survival: food, water, shelter, and sex (sex is required for survival of the species, not the individual, though I could debate otherwise XD). Behaviorists are also making a strong case for control over one's environment as being an UR, but I've addressed much of that already. In contrast, CR's are learned. That means that every single other thing in an animal's life other than those 4 primary reinforcers are learned; in other words, they are reinforcing because they have been associated with some primary reinforcer. The converse also exists for this-- there are primary punishers as well: things like pain, excessive heat, cold, and loud noises. Likewise, there are secondary punishers-- stimuli that have a conditioned punishing effect (punishment decreases behavior) due to the association with a primary punisher. Telling a child (or an animal, for that matter) "No!" is a conditioned punisher: It decreases behavior because the animal learns that if it does not comply, then some sort of positive punishment (pain, for those of you who hit your kids or animals) or negative punishment (restriction, time-out in their room, no allowance, etc.) will be a consequence.

Where I am going with all of this is that the manner in which an animal is exposed to a certain stimuli early on will affect its reaction to it later-- imprint or not. With an imprint, there is a period of time when the bird can be exposed to stimuli before the fear response develops, causing "response blocking." The stimuli will never elicit any sort of negative reaction. This can be the case with certain imprints-- say a gyrfalcon-- that is put in isolation for years without seeing people, but the falconer finally enters the mews years later and no reaction (other than maybe some chupping) occurs. Now consider the imprint accipiter. Most austringers familiar with shortwings, even imprints, wisely advise that the hawk be relatively constantly exposed to certain stimuli in order to ensure that a fear response-- whether it be fear aggression or escape-avoidance-- does not occur. Imagine tethering an imprint cooper's in the weathering yard, and every two weeks you mow the lawn right around the yard with no reaction. Then winter hits, and there's a good 5 months of no lawn mowing. Spring arrives, and the mower is pulled out again, but this time the cooper's goes bat$#!+ crazy, as if it has never seen the lawnmower before! Why is this? Some might say, "because it's a cooper's hawk," and they are in some ways correct. As myself and others pointed out, sensitivity is not always needed with more congenial species like certain red-tails and Harris' hawks, but other species-- such as accipiters, prairies, and the like-- have a much higher chance of not working out do to small transgressions in training. So, beside the fact that cooper's tend to be more reactionary than other species, what else is going on? Long-term habituation. By raising an imprint and exposing it to certain stimuli whilst young, the habituation process has effectively and powerfully been implemented. The fear response has yet to develop, and even if a slight reaction occurs initially (a hiss, for instance, of a falcon pulled just a bit too young) the bird is immobile and cannot rehearse escape-avoidance behavior. This is the exact same parallel with our passage bird: by minimizing escape behavior through use of the hood, you are preventing phobic behaviors and negative associations from becoming ingrained. For the imprint, the "hood" is just the developmental phase of being young and fearless.

Some stimuli are difficult to habituate an animal to, regardless of how early on the exposure begins. For instance, the good advice of many-- if not all-- experienced falconers is to avoid lifting an eyas by the body. This is because young hawks have an instinctual fear of falling out of the nest, and if repeated, this can cause negative associations with the hands. Aversive associations cause fear and/ or aggression, and it's the falconer's goal to avoid this. It's the same reason why accipiters in particular are so difficult to make to the hood, even when imprinted. Hooding is an inherently aversive stimuli, and sooner or later, most begin to fight it, unless they are a particularly easy-going bird or the falconer is damned skilled. At this point, some force through it, others abandon the hood. With a skilled balance of pairing the hood with positive consequences and a desensitization process, skilled falconers can work through and continue to hood these birds; for others falconers, however, it's really not worth the potential negative side effects, and the hood is smartly abandoned.

One final thing about imprints, is that the "miracle" of the tame-hack is the direct dividend gained from giving these young animals countercontrol over their environment at a young age. This countercontrol develops an inordinate confidence and positive relationship with the falconer, that in my mind, is worth the risk. Tame hacking doesn't teach pole-sitting or laziness-- the falconer does.

Hopefully this incites some discussion and comments. I'm back to the grind!

Cheers,