CSIRO study suggests sheep intelligence is misunderstood.
Published August 30, 2005 by News in Science (ABC Science)
Excerpt taken from article by Judy Skatssoon
Sheep aren't as dumb as many people think, says a researcher who has put a group of Australian merinos to the test and found they can learn and remember.
PhD student Caroline Lee, who works with CSIRO Livestock Industries, found sheep can not only work out how to get through a complicated maze but they get better every time they do it.
"We basically showed that sheep are smarter than people think," she says.
"There's this common myth that sheep are dumb ... but they've actually got quite high level cognition and learning abilities, especially in relation to spatial memory."
Lee tested 60 sheep by putting them at the start of maze about 18 metres by 8 metres, from which they could see their companions at the other end through open-bar fences.
Because of their strong flocking instinct, which is largely responsible for their brainless reputation, the sheep tried to make it to their flock mates.
The test, done over three days and repeated after six weeks, assessed how quickly the sheep made it through the maze and how much time they spent at dead ends.
On day one the sheep made it to the end of the maze in an average of 90 seconds, Lee says, but by day three they'd cut the time down by two-thirds and were taking fewer wrong turns.
After six weeks they were still navigating their way through the maze in 30 seconds.
To show this was the result of cognition as opposed to instinct some of the sheep were drugged with (a) memory-impairing drug…….
The drugged sheep couldn't match the performance of their drug-free flock mates.
Not all sheep are equal
But the research suggests some sheep are smarter than others, says Lee, whose work is being used to sort out the bright sparks from the more cognitively challenged.
CSIRO is currently screening a group of 600 sheep to see if it can find a smart sheep gene or genes.
More information can be found here: Sheep smarter than we think › News in Science (ABC Science)
