Be cautious in Ostrich-Farms!

On ostrich farms across the world there is a problem nobody talks about. The ostriches will not leave the staff alone. When researchers at Hangland Farm in the UK started noticing that their ostriches seemed more interested in the farmers than in each other they called in a team of scientists to investigate. What they found was one of the stranger documented consequences of raising wild animals in captivity. Ostriches raised entirely by humans from birth do not fully develop the instinct to recognize other ostriches as mates. Instead they imprint on whatever species raised them. On ostrich farms that species is us. To test this properly the research team set up observation stations near several ostrich enclosures and kept themselves completely hidden. Then they sent humans the ostriches had never met before to walk past the fences at varying distances. The ostriches went for it immediately. Both male and female farm-raised ostriches performed full courtship displays when the strangers walked by. Males fanned their wings, squatted down and waved their necks back and forth. Females bent their necks forward and made clapping noises with their beaks. Seventy percent of the ostriches did this reliably every single time a human passed. They were not responding to familiar people. They were responding to humans as a category. The research team also included a control ostrich, a male who had been born and raised in Africa before being imported to the farm. He showed zero interest in any of the humans who walked past. If they got too close he became aggressive. He had been raised by ostriches. He knew what an ostrich was supposed to look like. The farm-raised ones genuinely did not.