Can the right environment make animals ‘smarter’? Expert Explains the larger lessons from a brush-wielding bovine

You’ve said that Veronika is not the “Einstein of cows” and it was her stimulating environment that enabled her tooling. How much does environment matter?

The surrounding environment can matter enormously. Tool use rarely emerges simply because an animal is cognitively capable in principle; it also requires repeated opportunities to interact with suitable objects, a clear functional benefit, and conditions in which exploration is not excessively risky or costly. In other words, cognitive capacity may be necessary, but environmental conditions often determine whether that capacity is expressed.

This helps explain why tool use is frequently associated with island populations or relatively low-risk environments. Reduced predation pressure, altered competition, and different foraging niches can allow animals to spend more time on the ground, interact more freely with objects, and tolerate trial-and-error exploration. These conditions make it more likely that tool-related behaviours will appear and persist.

In birds, especially parrots, this distinction is particularly clear. Many parrot species appear to possess the morphological and cognitive prerequisites for tool use, such as dexterity and exploratory motivation, yet tool use is rare or absent in the wild. A plausible explanation is that ecological pressures (predation risk, human disturbance, or limited object availability) reduce opportunities for safe exploration. In captivity or enriched environments, where these constraints are relaxed, latent tool-use capacities can become visible.

Primates, orcas, parrots, crows, have all shown some use of tools. Is there anything common among these varied animals or are the reasons for tool use different for different species?

There are both shared elements and important differences. Across taxa, tool use tends to emerge when animals face recurring problems that objects can help solve efficiently, such as extractive foraging, body maintenance, or accessing difficult resources. Access to suitable materials and repeated opportunities to practice are also critical.

Learning processes are another common factor. In many species, especially those showing more complex or flexible tool use, individual innovation and social learning play a significant role. However, the reasons for tool use can differ substantially between lineages. Some species use tools primarily for foraging, others for social or hygienic purposes, and others in hunting contexts.

Importantly, “tool use” is not a single, uniform category. The mechanical demands, degree of control, and cognitive requirements can vary widely. Treating all cases of object use as equivalent risks obscuring meaningful differences in both function and underlying processes.

True tool use requires the subject to extend its own bodily limits and must serve a functional purpose. It involves the formation of a body-plus-object system and the use of a mechanical interface between this system and the goal.

Have some animals been over- or under-represented in cognitive studies?

Yes, very clearly. Certain species, especially primates and a few iconic tool users, have been studied far more intensively than others. This creates a distorted picture in which behaviours appear rare or exceptional simply because they have not been systematically looked for in less-studied animals.

Livestock and other familiar animals are a striking example. Despite having lived alongside humans for thousands of years, their cognitive abilities have received comparatively little attention. When behaviours such as tool use are finally documented in these species, they can seem surprising, not because they are inherently unlikely, but because we have not previously paid sufficient attention.

This imbalance influences theory as well as perception. If a behaviour is easiest to document in well-studied species, it may be incorrectly treated as evolutionarily special rather than as a more widespread, but under-observed, capacity.

How do scientists avoid over-interpreting animal behaviour as “intelligence”?

One key strategy is conceptual precision. Clear definitions help distinguish true tool use from looser forms of object manipulation or environmental modification. This prevents the same behaviour from being interpreted very differently depending on narrative or media interest.

Another safeguard is separating the presence of tool use from the quality of that tool use. Not all tool use reflects flexible or cognitively demanding behaviour. Some forms are highly stereotyped and leave little room for adaptation. Researchers therefore focus on features such as sensitivity to functional properties, context-appropriate deployment, behavioural flexibility, and evidence of anticipation or planning.

Finally, scientists actively consider alternative explanations. Rather than assuming complex cognition by default, they design studies that test whether simpler learning mechanisms could plausibly account for the observed behaviour. This does not mean denying animal intelligence, but ensuring that claims are proportionate to the evidence.

Importantly, Veronika’s behavior is a case of extremely flexible case of tool use and an innovation.

What are the most important conceptual or methodological challenges facing animal cognition research today?

A major conceptual challenge is inconsistency in how key terms are defined and operationalised. Long-standing debates persist partly because different researchers mean different things by the same labels, such as “insight” or “problem solving.”

Methodologically, researchers face the difficulty of inferring cognitive processes from behaviour alone. The same task can often be solved through multiple mechanisms, making it hard to determine how an animal arrived at a solution. This is especially challenging in non-verbal species.

A further challenge is the need for better process-level measures. Moving beyond simple success or failure toward indicators of how behaviour unfolds over time, how animals attend to problems, or how emotional and physiological states interact with learning is essential for deeper understanding.

Do you foresee research on animal cognition translating into concrete changes in farming practices or animal protection laws, or is the gap between scientific insight and public policy still too wide?

In the near term, changes in practice are more likely than changes in law. Evidence that farm animals are motivated to explore, learn, and interact with objects supports the development of enriched environments and husbandry practices that go beyond minimal welfare standards.

Research on cognition can help reframe how livestock are perceived, not as passive or purely reactive beings, but as animals with the capacity to engage actively with their environment. This shift in perspective can influence professional norms and public expectations even before legislation changes.

Legal reform typically follows more slowly, often requiring broad scientific consensus, clear links to welfare outcomes, and political feasibility. Cognition research is most likely to inform policy when it is connected to measurable welfare indicators and translated into practical, implementable standards.

Overall, the gap between science and policy remains real, but it is not static. As evidence accumulates and becomes more visible, incremental changes in both practice and regulation become increasingly plausible.