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By now, most people have heard of the game show called “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” hosted by Jeff Foxworthy. Here in the heart of Alaska, maybe the show should be called “Are You Smarter Than the Common Raven?”

The term birdbrain definitely does not apply to these crafty corvids.

“They are really, really, really intelligent birds,” said Susan Sharbaugh, a senior scientist with the Alaska Bird Observatory.

Besides being crafty, cunning and opportunistic, the Common Raven, Corvus corax, makes a good parent, has a sensitive side, and is a staple in European and Native folklore and legends.

Here in Fairbanks, you’d be hard-pressed to go a day without the telltale squawk and coo of the raven, not to mention the sight of the glossy black birds diving through trash in the back of a pickup at Fred Meyer.

Proof that ravens are much more than Dumpster divers comes from studies and research on their behavior and society that has been done by researchers around the world and right here in Alaska.

But there has also been cognitive testing done on the raven, said Sharbaugh.

“They’re really good at problem solving as far as how to access food.”

The classic test was hanging a piece of meat on a string and putting an obstacle between the bird and the food. Other birds would peck away at the obstacle, usually a piece of wood, or try to go under it to fetch the food. The raven, however, will hoist up the string with its bull, hold it in place with a talon, and keep pulling the string up until the food is accessible.

“There’s also some indication that they can count,” Sharbaugh said.

In Alaska, studies on ravens have been going on for years, but the perhaps the most interesting is an ongoing project on the North Slope by biologist and University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Stacia Backensto. She is part of a group of researchers studying the impact of infrastructure and the increased number of humans in Prudhoe Bay on ravens.

Backensto, a doctorate student with UAF’s Regional Resilience and Adaptation Program, worked at catching the ravens to tag and then monitor their habits. But in a short amount of time the birds began to recognize her when she returned to recapture them, and would fly away en masse.

To negotiate that problem, Backensto had to disguise herself, first with a fake moustache and sunglasses. The ravens soon caught on, so Backensto began a more elaborate costume. She attached a full beard, a wig and stuffed her shirt with pillows so she would look more like a burly oil worker.

The process of changing her appearance took 30 minutes, she told Ned Rozell, a writer with the Geophysical Institute a few years ago.

“It wasn’t just the ravens she was trying to trap, but all the ravens up there recognized her as someone they should stay away from,” said Sharbaugh. “They’re incredibly adaptable and have been associated with humans all throughout our history as a good source of food for them and they’ve learned how to exploit that.”

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For indigenous people, the raven holds a special significance.

“We have beliefs about our origin and these beliefs are told in stories. The raven is the creator,” said Susan Paskvan, an Athabascan from Koyukuk now living in Fairbanks.

Stories about the raven — how it stole the sun and moon; and how the raven created man first out of mud, then out of clay — have been passed down for generations, said Paskvan. She said she remembers sitting in her home in Koyukuk as a girl listening to the legends.

When people are going out hunting, they will tell the raven to “roll over and empty your packsack” in hopes that they will be fortunate and get a moose, said Paskvan.

Seeing a raven is common, but Paskvan said she’ll still stop to watch them every now and then.

“Even though we see them all the time, I still think they’re amazing.”

In the wild, ravens, which have been called wolf-birds by some authors, work with wolves to get food. According to research by noted raven expert Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont, ravens evolved with wolves, with ravens possibly leading wolves to moose or caribou, and then later feeding on the carcasses torn open by wolves.

“They have regular songbird feet, not big talons like raptors have, and they have a pretty wicked bill but not anything can rip open a carcass, so there is cooperation among different these species,” added Sharbaugh.

Even though ravens — a group of which is called an “unkindness” — are frequently spotted sifting through garbage, many people in the North know there is much more to the Common Raven than rummaging through trash for an easy meal. They are crafty and opportunistic, yes, but it’s their high level of intelligence that makes them thrive in this harsh environment.

“The trick to staying here in the winter is getting enough food and if you can get enough food, you can survive just about any temperature and they’re large birds so they don’t lose heat as fast,” said Sharbaugh. Though they don’t migrate south, they are considered migratory birds and are therefore protected. Instead of flying Outside to warmer climes, ravens congregate to a large food source, which in this case is Fairbanks, from all over the state.

Though the Common Raven is the same species that you might find in, say, Arizona, they are much bigger here to account for the chilly temperatures. Ravens congregate in Fairbanks in the winter because of the abundance of food.

Even large birds of prey wouldn’t take on a healthy adult raven, though they do compete with the Great Horned Owl for nesting sites. The owls can take down an adult raven, which weighs an average of 2.6 pounds and can live up to 40 years, but only in rare circumstances. According to Sharbaugh, there were about 1,500 ravens in the area as of December.

Once the mating season is in full swing, the birds will become less abundant around town.

“Here it’s a matter of resources,” said Sharbaugh. “Like a lot of songbirds, partners will stay together if they’re successful, but if not, the female will try to find another male.”

Now is the time when locals can witness the beautiful, airborne aerobatics of ravens, which are beginning their annual mating rituals.

Both male and female ravens look after the nest and the young, and both will protect it from aggressive birds of prey like eagles. From the time when the eggs (usually five or six) are laid to the time when the young fledglings become independent is about six weeks.

“They are part of our landscape here and a really special part of people’s lives in the North.”

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A lot of Alaskans have become immune to the sights and sounds of ravens, as they are part of daily life here. But although research has been done, there is still a lot we don’t know. The ravens roost nightly, but finding these spots is difficult.

“There are rumors that there are roosts around town that have had as many as 300 or 350 ravens in them at one time and this is where (scientists) believe that a lot of the communication happens,” said Sharbaugh. “Ravens that haven’t been successful at finding food during the day will get information from other birds that have been successful and whether that’s through vocalization or whether they watch the other ravens as they fly in to see who’s full, we’re not quite sure how that happens. It seems like there is information sharing within the roost about where to find food.”

The local roost sites change periodically, but the exact locations are still not known, though a group of UAF students did find a roost spot in the Goldstream Valley several years ago.

“You would think it would be a spot that you couldn’t miss with all that noise, but the problem here is access,” said Sharbaugh, adding that the myriad of calls and squawks made by ravens is never just random noise. The birds are always communicating information in some capacity.

Another perplexing topic is how the hierarchy works and how it is established. Couples will defend their nests against other ravens, but whether there is one top raven out of the 1,500 or so in Fairbanks is unknown.

“There’s still lots and lots to figure out,” Sharbaugh said. “It’s unlimited.”