Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
crowdedcities.com
Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
1–10 of 144 posts
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#2Bonus points when the crows learn they can speed up the process by dive bombing a smoker, causing them to run away in terror, dropping their cigarette in the process.
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#3Have any of these stations been deployed so far? Interesting idea!
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#4This seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass removal).
Maybe we could train the people to pick up their own butts.
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#5Also http://www.thecrowbox.com/ were they apparently trained captive crows to pickup coins in return for food, there's also a TED talk the guy behind it gave.
I've briefly looked at the 'Crowded Cities' page, I'm still not sure how the crows realise they get food though for cigarette butts? Does it rely on them randomly dropping something in the pot, and then getting food and continuing to do it?
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#6This seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass remo…
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Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#7This seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass remo…
Birds have already been observed to use cigarette butts for nest building, and no resultant population crash has happened for them.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-cigar...
Maybe the food being given to the crows is more beneficial than any of the downsides of the exposure to the butts.
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#8Now I'm picturing a murder of crows on their smoke break.
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#9with their mouth? dont do that.
Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
#10This seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass remo…
Birds have already been observed to use cigarette butts for nest building, and no resultant population crash has happened for them. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-cigar... Maybe the food being given to the crows is more beneficial than any of the downsides of the exposure to the butts.
It seems to offer some sort of advantage in pest resistance, and I would assume over the (sometimes) shorter lifespan of the birds that do this that advantage outweighs the toxicity of the butts.