We humans, while we recognize a wide range of behaviors in people, tend to view other species as clones of one another. We forget that there is standard deviation around a norm for all animals. We discount the possibility that the outer extremes of deviation can enter the range of mental illness. I have a Brittany (a breed of upland game bird dog) that is remarkably similar in many ways to the autistic children I cared for many years ago when I worked in a home for severely mentally disabled children.

Wild animals get saddled with deleterious genes, just like people. We can see a handful of the visible aberrations, like albinism, but heart defects, bad livers, and everything else people can inherit can also befall wild animals. Bird brains are not as complex as people brains, but they are complex enough to malfunction. In predatory animals, which already have the brain circuits that direct killing of prey, it is particularly easy for miswiring to lead to killing the wrong animal.

I don't know much about herons. Maybe attacks on fellow herons are common. Without other evidence, however, my first inclination would be to note it as an interesting observation, but consider it abnormal and maladaptive unless future observations show that it is more common than we know.

Kelly Cassidy
Pullman, WA
mailto:lostriver at completebbs.com