Long-time fans of the Far Side (like me) can say that Gary Larson’s legendary comic strip predicted this long ago. It was foretold in a comic strip that caused a minor controversy in its day—not because it was profane or offensive, but because it didn’t make any sense to anybody. Well, now it makes perfectly good sense to everyone: cow tools.
Larson once envisioned a terrifying world that dares to answer the question, if cows had tools, what would they look like? Now, according to a new study published in Current Biology, one Austrian cow named Veronika, Larson’s terrifying vision has been made real. But the tools aren’t so much cow-like as they are a very human broom.
Veronika is a dairy cow who lives as a pet in a quaint Austrian village. She has reached an unusually old age of 13 and spends most of her days roaming in an environment filled with visual and physical stimulation.
One day, years ago, her owner noticed her picking up sticks to scratch herself in her hard-to-reach areas, like her back and udders. She was clumsy at first, but in time developed a dexterity that is, to say the least, unusual.
Veronika Is a Cow That Uses Tools. Yes, Really.
Some scientists heard about it and visited Veronika. After some observation, they determined that Veronica’s practical system for scratching an itch constitutes tool use.
To test it out, they gave Veronika a broom. Over 70 trials, she picked it up, aimed it at her body, and used it to relieve irritation from biting flies. The most important part of the observations was to ensure that she was not doing this randomly.
The researcher needed to ensure she picked up the stick and intentionally used it to scratch herself. She did exactly that. She scraped the tougher areas of her back with the bristle end of the broom and gently prodded the sensitive areas. You know, like on her belly and udder, with the rounded wooden pole end.
This is a big deal. Tool use is considered a marker of advanced cognition and has been documented in animals like chimpanzees, crows, elephants, dolphins, and octopuses. This is the first documented scientific evidence of it in cattle.
This all raises some uncomfortable questions, like have we been underestimating cows all this time? If so, are we doing it intentionally, we know they’re slathered in cheese between two buns? Because Veronika’s abilities, according to researchers, may not be unique but rather rare.
Considering that most cows live short, confined lives with little interaction with the novelties of Veronika’s farm life, they aren’t given the chance to interact with their environments in any meaningful way. Veronika may be demonstrating that if you give a cow freedom and time, they may start showing evidence of problem-solving skills. Along with mental complexity, the ability to experience and express complex emotions.
We’ve lived beside cows for thousands of years. But we only think of them as a food source. If we had allowed them to live out their full lives, lives filled with stimulation and environmental experimentation, maybe we would’ve noticed their cow tools much earlier.
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