Learned about this fascinating cooperation between man and bird in Dan Saladino's book Eating to Extinction. He talks of the process of gathering Hazda honey:
Somehow, over hundreds of thousands of years, the two species, humans and honeyguides, found a way of sharing their different skills. The bird can find the bees’ nests but can’t get to the wax it wants to eat without being stung to death. Humans, meanwhile, struggle to find the nests, but armed with smoke can pacify the bees. Theirs is the most complex and productive of any partnership between humans and wild animals.
This sounds like the stuff of fairytale and mythology. Makes you wonder if it might be possible to build translators that facilitate communication between man and creatures of the wild. How many new dimensions that might open up in our thinking.
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