Nature’s Rules For Killing Your Siblings By: Esther Inglis-Arkell 12-10-14
In the informative article Nature's Rules For Killing Your Siblings by Esther Inglis-Arkell is writing about something called siblicide. The definition of siblicide is the killing of a sibling or siblings, as a behavior pattern typical in various animal groups. The most common group of animals to have this type of behavior is birds and more commonly bald eagles. Siblicide in birds is classified in one of two ways “Obligate siblicide is, of course, obligatory. In nearly every family, someone is going to end up dead. Facultative siblicide is murder that only happens when things go south for the family”. (NRFKYS Inglis-Arkell) Still the most common is Obligate siblicide. Older siblings with push around younger siblings and try to get the mother's attention by acting needy this way the mother will give the older siblings more food and protection while the younger ones get pushed out of the nest.
The main point the author wanted the reader to gain is that birds have sibling rivalries just like humans but they are extremely violent. The author also wanted the reader to see the relationships between different breeds of birds and how different animals acted similar or worse to birds.
“Normally, getting a parent on your side means being nice to that parent, but let's face it, you didn't read an article on siblicide because you were willing to be nice. Instead, be needy. The fact is, parents will pay attention to whatever sibling makes a big display of needing them the most.” (NRFKYS Inglis-Arkell) I thought this quote was most interesting because for humans the more annoying you are the more likely your parent will try and ignore you, but for birds it's the complete opposite. If a bird is more annoying than its siblings it will get noticed more and get more food leaving some sibling with none and doing so until they are so weak they can get rid of it. With humans no matter how annoying you are you will get the same amount of food and generally attention from your parents.
I agreed with the piece when it was talking about how bald eagles prominently killed each other. “(Bald eagles do this. Be sure to mention it to anyone who tells you that killing your sibling is somehow un-American.)” (NRFKYS Inglis-Arkell) I agree with this statement because America was built on brother fighting brother.
I disagreed with the piece when the researchers switched the eggs from a species of birds who kill each other 100% of the time versus a bird that kills each other 50% of the time to see if the numbers raised or lowered. I didn't agree with this because they didn't give quite enough research so when the number dropped from 100 to 80 and then raised from 50 to 100 it was hard to believe that just parents had to do with that.
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