Birds That Deactivate Poison: Macaws

When a person is infected with poison, his only recourse is to take a
drug to counter the effects of the poison or to remove the poison from
his body through medical intervention. Otherwise, a person who lacks
specialized knowledge about poisons will be unable to cure himself
through using a plant or some other kind of counteractive substance.

Yet, some creatures innately have this knowledge that most people must
learn through education. Certain animals, which do not possess minds
to be educated, any intelligence and, in short, any consciousness at
all, can cure themselves very easily. The striking feature about the
methods animals use to cure themselves is that they know what to do
very well and have determined what is good for each particular
illness. Is it reallythe animals themselves who have determined these
things? How have animals come to possess such knowledge? Evolutionists
claim that most animal behavior such as this is instinctive. However,
they cannot explain the origin of these behaviors or how they
originally came to exist.

First of all, it is not possible for creatures to learn these
behaviors over time. An animal that is poisoned, for example, will die
right away. In this case, it is not possible for it to imagine how it
might remove the factor that caused it to be poisoned. Besides, we
should by no means forget that animals lack the consciousness capable
of thinking up such a solution.

Let us see, by giving an example, how animals display conscious
behavior while curing themselves. Macaws, which are akind of parrot,
are found in the tropical regions of Central and South America. One of
the most striking feature of these creatures, besides their truly
dazzling colors, is that they feed on poisonous seeds. These birds,who
can break even very tough shells with their hooked beaks, are experts
on the subject of poisonous seeds. This is a somewhat surprising
situation because, when the bird eats a poisonous seed, normally it
should suffer harm. Yet, amazingly, this does not happen. Immediately
after the bird eats the poisonous seeds, itflies directly towards a
rocky place and begins to gnaw and swallow the clayey rock pieces
there. The reason for this behavior is that the clayey rock pieces
absorb the toxins in the seeds, and so neutralize the effects of the
poison. In this way, the birds can digest the seeds without
experiencing any harm.

It is certainly impossible for macaws to know on their own how to
neutralize or counteract the poison found in the seeds they eat. It is
evident that such conscious behaviors in creatures do not originate
from themselves, and that their origin cannot be sought in some other
force or factor that exists in nature either. An invisible power
controls the behavior of all creatures and, in other words, inspires
them with what to do. This matchless power belongs to Allah. Allah,
Who is the ownerof a superior knowledge, is the Preserver of all
things.