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"Sheep Smarter Than They Look"

Nov. 8 Sheep, like turkeys and ostriches, are not considered the most intelligent animals, but British scientists said on Wednesday humans may have underestimated the woolly creatures.

Researchers at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, southern England, have shown that the animals have a remarkable memory system and are extremely good at recognizing faces, which they suspect is a sure sign of intelligence.

Behavioural scientist Keith Kendrick and his colleagues trained 20 sheep to recognize and distinguish 25 pairs of sheep faces and used electrodes to measure their brain activity. The researchers said results from the study showed the sheep could remember 50 faces for up to two years.

"If they can do that with faces, the implication is that they have to have reasonable intelligence, otherwise what is the point of having a system for remembering faces and not remembering anything else," Kendrick said in an interview.

So hours of seemingly mindless grazing may not be so mindless after all. Kendrick suspects sheep got their dim-witted reputation because they live in large groups, don't appear to have much individuality and are scared of just about everything.

"Any animal, including humans, once they are scared, they don't tend to show signs of intelligent behavior," he said.

In research reported in the journal Nature, Kendrick and his team showed that sheep, like humans, have a specialist system in the brain which allows them to distinguish between many different faces that look extremely similar.

"The most important finding (of the study) is that they are able, both from a behavioral point of view and from looking at the way the brain is organized, to remember a large number of faces of individuals for a very long time," said Kendrick. "It is a very sophisticated memory system. They are showing similar abilities in many ways to humans."

DISCOVERY NEWS DISCOVERY.COM NOV. 8TH, 2001 FRONT PAGE.
url: dsc.discovery.com/news/reu/20011105/sheep.html

First of all, on the literal aspect of the analogy. Why do you think shepherds have long sticks? It's to make sure all the sheep stay in one flock. They'll go to such extents as slapping them in the face, puncturing their stomachs, and breaking their legs. Why? If one sheep goes in one direction, the rest follow. Like lemmings, they would even do so off the edge of a cliff (as has been documented). Is that a mark of intelligence, too?

Second of all, the explanation of the analogy due to gross misinterpretation: The idea says that submissive and passive people are like sheep in that their direction is controlled by a shepherd, which represents a dogma or slaver, often leading them to slaughter.

Simple fish can recognize offspring and territory. It doesn't mean scientists recognize them as halfway intelligent.

I have no clue what the poster who posted the intial post was trying to say.

But it is rather interesting. Reconigtion of faces means that the animal is more social in behavior. Meaning there must be a more complicated social structure.

Meaning there might be a leader of some sort, who is recogonized by the group. This leader might be the one who can jump off of cliffs and the others will follow. Who knows.

Having a social structure which they seem to have might be what allows sheep to be hearded easier.

But as you can see the speculation here is high, and any conclusion you can make from that story is very shaky.