An additional story related to ducks and alarm calls: Several years ago, I previewed one of Ken Goddard’s wonderful animal forensics adventure/thrillers. In this he used the code word “merganser”, the name applied to fish-eating ducks who belong to the genus Mergus as an alarm call. When one of the members of his undercover team used the word, this would set into motion a complex human response. Unfortunately when I reach the part of the story where the “Merganser!” call was given, my immediate response was, “Duck!” Alas, that completely inappropriate response under those particular circumstances would have guaranteed my demise at the hands of some very unsavory characters!
This experience made me realize how deeply embedded alarm calls are in human and nonhuman animals. The good news is that this enables us to respond to those calls given by members of other species as well as our own. The bad news is that this also may cause us to automatically, but erroneously, connect something with an entirely different meaning to an alarm call and react as if threatened. Those owners who react to every little yip or yowl from their dogs or cats as if the world has ended are one example of this.
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