What have you seen to change your perspective of the intelligence of animals?
Pet Skunks - Skunk pictures included Skunks are extremely smart animals. For many years people have presumed animals were very substandard in the intelligence department. I have seen some amazing things.
I had owned a house overlooking a lake in Northern Minnesota. I had been in the hospital for a few months. In the meantime, my family faithfully saved plastic soda bottles (ex husband lived on Pepsi) upstairs in the loft area. When I returned home I was packing to move to Southern Minnesota. When my new husband (current husband 12 years now) were packing my house to move we found huge circular nests upstairs of Pepsi bottles with blankets in the middle. As you know it gets very cold up there. Evidently, my skunks had made the insulated nests while I was in the hospital. I wasn�t there to sleep with with them.
Think about this, the common human would most likely never think of using the Pepsi bottles as insulation or dead air space. As deep and as high as the nests were � this took some complicated thought.
You would think animals would instinctually be afraid of a large fires. I have been a reporter for a good many years. I was covering a huge fire in the country. A big propane tank was very close to exploding, it was also an ammunition dealer. There was a dairy next door. These cows were all lined up at the fence line all trying to get a better view. You could see the curious nature in their face and eyes. Inquisitiveness is a sign of intelligence.
Curiosity took over any instinct of being afraid of this big fire � much like humans (and reporters lol)