Abstract
Social foraging provides several benefits for individuals but also bears the potential costs
of higher competition. In some species, such competition arises through kleptoparasit-
ism, that is when an animal takes food which was caught or collected by a member of
its social group. Except in the context of caching, few studies have investigated how in-
dividuals avoid kleptoparasitism, which could be based on physical strength/dominance
but also cognitive skills. Here, we investigated the foraging success of wild common
ravens, Corvus corax, experiencing high levels of kleptoparasitism from conspecifics
when snatching food from the daily feedings of captive wild boars in a game park in the
Austrian Alps. Success in keeping the food depended mainly on the individuals’ age class
and was positively correlated with the time to make a decision in whether to fly off with
food or consume it on site. While the effect of age class suggests that dominant and/
or experienced individuals are better in avoiding kleptoparasitism, the effect of decision
time indicates that individuals benefit from applying cognition to such decision-making,
independently of age class. We discuss our findings in the context of the ecological
and social intelligence hypotheses referring to the development of cognitive abilities.
We conclude that investigating which factors underline kleptoparasitism avoidance is a
promising scenario to test specific predictions derived from these hypotheses.