Photo: Arco Images GmbH/Alamy
Crows at a park in France have been trained to pick up cigarette butts and trash.
You may have already heard about crows in France that are improving the environment. The stories were all over the news in August. I include two articles here — the first from the Guardian and the second from USA Today.
” ‘The goal is not just to clear up, because the visitors are generally careful to keep things clean’ but also to show that ‘nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment.’ said Nicolas de Villiers of the Puy du Fou park, in the western Vendee region.
“Rooks, a member of the crow family of birds that also includes the carrion crow, jackdaw and raven, are considered to be ‘particularly intelligent’ and in the right circumstances ‘like to communicate with humans and establish a relationship through play,’ Villiers said.
“The birds will be encouraged to spruce up the park through the use of a small box that delivers a nugget of bird food each time the rook deposits a cigarette end or small piece of rubbish.” More from the Guardian.
And from USA Today, “Crows have been trained to collect other items in a similar way. In 2008 a man created a ‘crow vending machine’ — a box that would dispense a peanut every time a crow found a coin and put it in the machine’s slot. The inventor, Josh Klein, surmised at the time that if a crow can be trained to collect coins it can be trained to help improve human lives, such as picking up trash or sorting electronics.
” ‘Don’t hate the crows,’ Klein told NPR in 2008. ‘Just let them save you.’ ”
Amazing work by the birds I most admire.
Crows have a savvy quality that makes them appeal to all kinds of writers. They seem to know more than they let on.
Absolutely. 🙂
The next step–admittedly more difficult–will be to train the humans who discard their butts and other trash.
Ha, ha. Maybe humans who see crows doing the work for them will feel ashamed. Or we could give humans little treats, too.
And thank you for your blog, Suzanne’s mom–often highly interesting to me and thought-provoking.
That is do encouraging to hear. Helps me.
If only humans were as easy to train and as intelligent as crows! It’s a cool story–makes you wonder what else they could do . . .
The head of the park did make a point of saying that his human visitors were good about picking up their own trash, but he was probably being diplomatic.