Why doesn't roasting or grilling chicken outdoors alarm the birds and other animals in the area?

No. Animals smell but they don’t have the ability to reason out what it is. Roasting chicken (or any other flesh) doesn’t alarm any other animals either.

It might alarm wolves and wild dogs who salavate to cooked meat.

How do you know it doesn’t? I think @kritiper has it right – the birds aren’t smart and self-aware enough to know you’re eating their cousins.

Well for one thing those animals in the habit of devouring the creatures we roast might understandably be drawn to delicious aromas. And the other consideration is just how often is an animal likely to encounter the odor of one of its cousins roasting on a spit and more importantly, recognize the odor for what it is? While most animals are conditioned to avoid fire itself, a certain level of reasoning is required before the average chicken should cringe at the sight or smell of your local KFC shop of “holocaust”.

Well…apparently our hens have no problem cannibalizing their own eggs if we don’t collect them fast enough, so I don’t think they know or care if were grilling one of their kinfolk. lol
Now the cats and dog, they know what BBQ means, delicious morsels if they’re lucky. haha

I don’t think I would recognize the smell of human flesh on the barbecue.

I’m going to guess that’s true for most people. Stands to reason animals wouldn’t either.

Species envy and status….. :]

I am not sure they can identify the smell of cooked bird meat.
Rotting bird meat, maybe.

It is a fact that sharks escape immediately when they smell dead shark, even if that dead shark smell originates from a different shark species.

How do you it doesn’t?

Or as I meant to say, How do you know it doesn’t?

Interesting question. One aspect that has not been brought up is that animals know enough to stay away from fires. I wonder what aspect of fire acts as a warning. Smell, smoke and heat could act as warnings, but they do not indicate the direction of the fire the way that seeing it does.

There’s dead animal matter all over the place, and it’s a safe bet that most other animals are far more aware of this than we are. The chicken on the grill is probably no more noteworthy than the squirrel carcass in the road, or the nestling under the bush 10 feet away. If you’re well down on the food chain, you already know that the world is a very dangerous place, and the smell from the grill is hardly front-page news.

What’s really amazing is the sense of smell Vultures have.
A few weeks ago one of our neighbors cows died giving birth and within less than an hour there were over 40 Turkey Vultures circling the field. They had the poor thing hauled off but actually, had it been me I would have let the vultures make short work of the carcasses for a few days and then buried or had the remains hauled off.

Of course, the smell of roasting flesh is also accompanied by the smell of the cooking fuel. (Just thought I’d throw that in the fire for the heck of it.)