John Marzluff knows a lot about crows and ravens.

In fact, since gradating from Lawrence High School in 1976, he has become an authority on the birds’ place in human culture and on their ability to adjust.

“In a rural setting, if you approach a raven’s nest, it will sneak off quietly and watch. It won’t do anything to call attention to itself,” Marzluff said Thursday, addressing a science class at Kansas University.

“But in an urban setting, it will dive and attack, mob and scold,” he said. “The difference is that in a rural setting, they’re persecuted – they’re hunted, they’re shot – while in an urban setting, shooting is banned and they know they can attack.”

In Seattle, where Marzluff is a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington, crows and ravens are busy building and defending their nests.

“When I get back,” he said, “I’m sure my voicemail will be full with calls from people wanting to know what they did to warrant being attacked.”

Marzluff noted that while people’s toll on some species – the extinct dodo, for example – is well-known, he and his colleagues are studying crows’ and ravens’ uncanny ability to adapt to people, asphalt and junk food.

“They’ve influenced our culture,” he said, pointing to words and phrases such as crowbar, crow’s nest, scarecrow, crow’s feet, and ‘as the crow flies.’ “And we’ve influenced theirs.”

Last year, Yale University Press published a book by Marzluff’s and illustrator Tony Angell: “In the Company of Crows and Ravens.”

“Our next book,” Marzluff joked, “is going to be called ‘You saw a crow do what?’ It’ll be based on the response to ‘In the Company'”

When he submitted his ‘In the Company’ manuscript, Marzluff said he was unaware that the press’ senior science editor, Jean Tompson Black, had attended LHS in the early 1970s.

Since leaving Lawrence, Marzluff has earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Montana, a master’s at the University of Northern Arizona, and a post doctorate at the University of Maine.

He’s kept tabs on events leading to the Kansas Board of Education decision to de-emphasize the teaching of evolution.

“It’s been in the news…,” he said. “And Kansas is a laughingstock because of it. most people, I think, know that not everyone from Kansas thinks that way. But, still, it’s the butt of a lot of jokes.”

The perception, he said, is worse in Europe.

“I did my sabbatical in Oslo and spend some time in Berlin,” he said. “They look at what’s going on in Kansas and in the United States -and they just don’t get. That fact that there’s even a debate is incredible to them.”

At Lawrence High School, Marzluff’s science teachers included Ken Highfill and Stan Roth.

“It’s so pleasing to see him make such highly regarded strides toward success in his chosen fields,” Roth said. “He was an outstanding student.”

Marzluff is the son of Joe and Betty Marzluff, of Lawrence. Joe Marzluff led the Navy ROTC program at KU for many years.