
Some birds use discarded cigarettes to fumigate their nests - sethbannon
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21729739-they-help-keep-parasites-bay-some-birds-use-discarded-cigarettes-fumigate?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/somebirdsusediscardedcigarettestofumigatetheirnests
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farnsworthy
Then came the crows:

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/startups/news/a28...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/startups/news/a28543/startup-
trains-crows-to-pick-up-trash/)

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bmc7505
How does it tell the difference between a crow it has seen before and a new
crow? Would it just dispense free peanuts to all crows?

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alexozer
It dispenses in response to cigarettes, not crows (at least after training),
so it wouldn't really matter I don't think.

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thomastjeffery
> (at least after training)

That is the question.

The article described "training" as progressing from free peanuts to peanuts
for butts.

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shawabawa3
Maybe after the initial training period they just rely on crows learning from
each other

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ars
I believe this is because nicotine is an insecticide?

For some reason I'm imagining the birds carrying lit cigarettes and smoking
out their nests LOL.

Would be interesting to check nests near tobacco plants and see if the birds
utilize the plants.

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jabretti
>I believe this is because nicotine is an insecticide?

Okay, but how would a bird know that?

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pygy_
Survival of the fittest? The birds that do it could fare better that those
that don't, leading to a healthier offspring, etc...

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giomasce
Not an expert, but I do not think that you need an evolutionary explanation:
birds are often not stupid, and can simply observe that nests with more
cigarettes have less parasites.

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pygy_
Do birds spend time observing the nest of their peers? AFAIK the only nests
they care about are their own (though I'm definitely not an ornithologist, I'm
mostly ignorant about them in general).

But that's the beauty of Darwinism, whether the information is stored in the
genes or in their culture (memetically) doesn't matter, the
selection/amplification process is the same.

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erikpukinskis
Sure. Birds die, other birds take over nest.

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gdrift
It would have been more interesting to add placebo butts and also a nicotine
carrying material that looks differently than the butts.

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Veen
We have a bird feeder in our garden, which has a river at the bottom and is
surrounded by forest, so we get a lot of birds.

I've often noticed blue tits (UK) in particular stealing cigarette ends out of
the ashtray that sits on our windowsill. I've read about the "nicotine as an
insecticide" theory before, but my understanding is that most birds don't nest
all year round, and they seem to take the cigarette ends through autumn and
winter.

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freeflight
Maybe they simply get hooked on the nicotine? Used cigarette ends are pretty
much oozing with all the nasty stuff, it wouldn't surprise me if some of that
ends up in their system, and they develop a liking for it.

That's supposedly the case for NYC pigeons [0], funny in a weird way but
actually quite depressing. I wonder how many rats and other rodents are also
hooked on cigarette butts?

[0] [http://johnjpowers.blogspot.de/2013/09/pigeons-addicted-
to-n...](http://johnjpowers.blogspot.de/2013/09/pigeons-addicted-to-
nicotine.html)

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mrob
That article is a joke, and there's no real study (it's not even named). The
final sentence is obviously not serious: "If you notice a pigeon displaying
signs of nicotine addiction call 311 to report it and get it the help it
needs."

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freeflight
I figured there was something off about it due to lack of a source, also
couldn't find any studies like that when searching, that's why I put the
"supposedly" in there.

Still kinda odd that nobody seems to have actually looked into a connection
like that.

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sethbannon
I'd love to know how these birds acquire the knowledge that fumigating with
cigarettes Works and if/how they pass that knowledge along.

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mentos
Sometimes I think life is just one big joke and that I'm going to wake up in a
lab with technicians around me laughing "He really believed yellow labradors
evolved from wolves! How gullible!"

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DanBC
If you don't like the economist paywall here's another aricle:
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-
cigar...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-cigarette-
butts-for-chemical-warfare-against-ticks/)

> To firm up the conclusion, Macías Garcia and his team experimented with 32
> house finch nests. One day after the eggs in the nest had hatched, the
> researchers removed the natural nest lining and replaced it with artificial
> felt, to remove any parasites that might have moved in during brooding. They
> then added live ticks to 10 of the nests, dead ticks to another 10 and left
> 12 free of ticks.

> They found that the adult finches were significantly more likely to add
> cigarette butt fibres to the nest if it contained ticks. What’s more, the
> weight of cigarette butt material added to nests containing live ticks was,
> on average, 40 per cent greater than the weight of cigarette butt material
> added to nests containing dead ticks.

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peterclary
Another possibility: being fed on by blood-sucking parasites makes birds crave
the taste/smell of cigarettes, without any understanding of the insecticidal
properties.

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azernik
Evolution does not require understanding on the part of the creature that is
evolving.

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mitchty
Indeed, I doubt any gecko understands the Van der Vaals forces that enable
them to stick to walls, but they use it all the same.

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hordeallergy
Doesn't say whether the butts are still smoking when collected, which could
have a historic association with fire and bugs.

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binaryapparatus
I _knew_ I was contributing something by smoking.

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eternalban
Smoker here. s/littering/smoking.

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fiftyacorn
I feel bad for them now people are switching to e-cigarettes

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freeflight
It won't let me read the article as I've supposedly "reached my article
limit". From what I can read, before the paywall pops up, this seems based on
similar (the same?) research as an old Atlantic article [0] from 2012?

[0] [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/birds-
app...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/birds-appear-to-
self-medicate-with-our-cigarette-butts/265923/)

~~~
cbcoutinho
Opening economist links in pivate/incognito mode removes the limit barrier on
paywalled sites that use cookies

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freeflight
Thanks for the tip! I pondered trying that option but I didn't think they'd
actually make it as easy as that, what a pointless hassle.

So it's a follow-up experiment on that 2012 study, that's interesting.

