
'Intelligent' crows to pick up litter at French theme park - pmoriarty
https://www.expatica.com/fr/news/country-news/France-tourism-birds-offbeat_2031808.html
======
richsherwood
I read somewhere about training crows to pickup cigarette butts in exchange
food. I’ve always wondered if it would be possible to train a crow to pick up
loose coins for food. I imagine the actual machine would be fairly easy to
build but the most difficult part would be keeping the coin pathway free of
non-coins as the crows are likely to pick up bottle caps, key rings and other
junk. The other problem would be dealing with your neighbours as there would
always be crows hanging around.

Side note: All the crows in Vancouver roost on a single street. Every day
around sundown there are 10s of thousands of crows flying east and creating a
chaotic scene at times. I’ve seen hundreds of crows ripping up a lawn looking
for worms once and it felt like a scene from a movie. Here is a video of all
the crows causing ruckus:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_QuEjaG4Ghs](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_QuEjaG4Ghs)

Also we have one crow here in Vancouver who was raised by a human so he is
essentially part of the population. He takes the sktrain, walks into
McDonald’s and even stole a knife from a crime scene once. It’s an absolute
hoot. He even has his own Instagram page:
[https://instagram.com/canuckthecrow](https://instagram.com/canuckthecrow)

~~~
throwawaymath
_> I read somewhere about training crows to pickup cigarette butts in exchange
food. I’ve always wondered if it would be possible to train a crow to pick up
loose coins for food._

Probably not. It probably seems like I'm shilling this researcher's blog in
this thread at this point but this commentary [1] gives a short explanation of
why.

One of my hobbies is actually bird watching, particularly with crows. I love
the animals, they're very fascinating creatures. I've had the opportunity to
interact with many of them because I set out peanuts for them near my
neighborhood. They've very gradually become acclimated to this routine, and
they reliably arrive to pick up food if I make a particular noise and they're
in the area.

But I'm very skeptical that I could "train" them to start exchanging items for
food. In captivity a crow's intelligence can be especially fostered and
trained because there's no other source of food to distract it. If you want it
to proceed through a puzzle [2] to get food it has to do so. But wild crows
are very, very cautious and (like most animals) very economically rational in
their feeding habits. To date none of the wild crows who give people items
have been trained to do so, it's been a happy accident (it's never happened to
me, unfortunately). If you start imposing an exchange system on the food
dispensary, you might find that the crows simply go elsewhere for easier
meals.

_____________

1\. I read somewhere about training crows to pickup cigarette butts in
exchange food. I’ve always wondered if it would be possible to train a crow to
pick up loose coins for food.

2\. [https://youtu.be/ZerUbHmuY04](https://youtu.be/ZerUbHmuY04)

~~~
st26
Clearly an economically rational animal can still be influenced to a certain
behavior, if you make the reward attractive enough.

It's not like crows are not willing to work for food. They have been
documented breaking open stubborn mollusks by repeatedly flying them high
above a road and dropping them until they crack, or throwing them under
oncoming traffic to be smashed open.

~~~
throwawaymath
Yeah that's true, and I've seen a number of corvid species (including crows)
taking my peanuts and dropping them a few stories. They also like to soak
almonds in water to soften them for chewing.

The thing is that there are ample other food sources so whatever you provide
needs to be truly exceptional insofar as rewards go. And the crows might not
know it's a great reward until they solve the puzzle to get it.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just pessimistic.

------
sturmeh
I feel like they should teach crows to swoop anyone who litters instead.

~~~
pacifika
There are seagulls for that

------
bencollier49
Reminds me of the fantastic Crowbox
([http://www.thecrowbox.com/](http://www.thecrowbox.com/)).

Interested to see how this will work, for how long, and whether it's just PR.

~~~
throwawaymath
I'm a huge fan of corvids, but evidence that the crowbox works is dubious [1].

Incidentally if you enjoy reading about crows take a look at the author's
other posts on that blog. She's a scientist who writes about them (and her
work) very frequently.

__________

1\. [https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/03/12/a-scientists-
thoughts...](https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/03/12/a-scientists-thoughts-on-
the-crow-box/)

------
eloisant
That's the Puy du Fou, about an hour drive from where I live:
[https://www.puydufou.com/en](https://www.puydufou.com/en)

They already have many birds, and a falconry show so they certainly have the
skills to train birds to do what they want.

[https://www.puydufou.com/en/lallee-des-
volieres](https://www.puydufou.com/en/lallee-des-volieres)

The park is usually pretty clean, not that many people litter anyway so as
suspect it's more for the novelty and as a fun project for the falconry staff
than to save on cleaning.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
It's also a very controversial theme park that promotes an extremely religious
version of history (cf. in French, the French Wikipedia article
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puy_du_Fou#Controverses](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puy_du_Fou#Controverses)
\- and this blog post about the bizarre revisionism of every attaction
[https://culturespub.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/le-puy-du-
fou-c...](https://culturespub.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/le-puy-du-fou-
chretien/)).

The owners of the park are also working with ultraorthodox oligarch Konstantin
Malofeev to create similar parks in Russia and Crimea
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Malofeev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Malofeev)).

>He has teamed with a French developer to build two “Tsargrad” theme parks in
Crimea that will present a family-friendly recounting of Russian history. He’s
also developing Tsargrad TV, a cable network—for now it’s just a YouTube
channel—that will provide a conservative Orthodox perspective on the news. “We
want to build up [a network based on] Orthodox principles the way Fox News was
built,” he says. “We want to show the news in the way that Orthodox people,
who are 70 to 80 percent of the population, see it.” (Jack Hanick, a former
Fox News employee, will be a producer for the network.) I ask if Russia’s
existing TV networks aren’t conservative enough. “Aren’t Orthodox enough,” he
counters.

>But his goals go beyond making Russia a more religious society. A self-
described monarchist, he favors a full return of the Russian Empire, including
the restoration of the czar. “Monarchies have been alive in history for
thousands of years,” he says. “Republics, just for several centuries, yet we
assume that monarchies belong to the past and republics to the future.” He
points out that seven of the 10 wealthiest countries in the world are
monarchies.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/10/konstantin_malofeev_one_of_vladimir_putin_s_favorite_businessmen_wants_to.html)

Puy du Fou is using some of its revenues to finance religious/royalist French
organizations and discreetly supports anti-abortion campaigns
([https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/07/08/2140471-puy-
fou-...](https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/07/08/2140471-puy-fou-
donne-50-000e-association-anti-ivg-anti-euthanasie.html)).

~~~
arnaudsm
Accusing the park of revisionism is a bit extreme. It depicts romanized events
that are deliberately avoided by French schools, like the Chouannerie.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Really? Did you watch the "Anneau de Jeanne d'Arc" show?

~~~
arnaudsm
Jeanne d'arc is a myth in French history. Just like the other shows about King
Arthur's and Les trois Mousquetaires. The park is more about culture and
folklore than royalist propaganda.

------
hliyan
I'm continually fascinated by how corvids seem to show this level of
intelligence without any of the brain structures that we usually associate
with it. Can someone point me to a source that explains this?

~~~
some_account
I have magpies outside my window and they are very intelligent and nice
creatures. They sit in trees two together, close to each other, enjoying each
other's company. I've seen them group together in bigger numbers to fend off
cats and I've seen them tease cats in situations where they know the cat can't
reach them.

They are known to recognize faces of people and have stunning memory,
remembering hundreds of places where they stash their food reserves etc. I
think they are awesome.

~~~
barking
I'm not gone on them, they persecute the local song bird population, we have a
plague of them and the even more unwelcome grey crow. The magpie's call is
either a horrible squeal or an equally unpleasant chchchchchch sound

------
tokyodude
How about just teach people to throw away their own trash? It's amazing they
taught the crows but my guess is it will end up with the unintended
consequence of encouraging people to just dump their trash whereever even more
since "it's the crows' job to clean up"

~~~
c3534l
As awful as this sounds, I think it might be easier to train crows to pick up
people's trash than to train people how to throw away their trash. People are
apparently not as easily teachable as literal birdbrains.

~~~
Iv
Using people to pick up trash and throw them properly is the solution that has
been used for centuries. Crows are paid peanuts (literally) for bringing back
trash. They are employees.

And I am sure that if you were to offer people a dollar as a reward each time
they bring back a trash to a trashcan, the parks would be clean.

In Berlin glass bottles are reused and there is a reward for bringing them
back to specific bins. I have seen homeless people looking for trash and
filling carts of these.

~~~
pjmlp
That reward as you call it, has created a 2nd level economy in Germany.

It is not only homeless, people with very low pensions or not able to get a
proper full time job also hunt for them, everywhere.

On the streets, trains, subway, beach, lakes, you name it.

To the point that many people don't throw away bottles anymore, leaving them
grouped outside the trash cans, as means to help those people pick them
without messing with trash.

There are even trash cans in the Rhein region that have bottle holders around
them.

So yeah it helps keep the street clean from bottles, but fighting the causes
of this 2nd level economy would probably be a better idea.

~~~
Iv
What is the correct word for the reward? That's one of this weird case where I
know the word in French and German but not English...

------
INTPenis
In theory it works, I've seen it work. But in practice I'm afraid a theme park
will be so full of edible trash that the crows might question the reasoning
behind picking non-edible trash up to get a reward.

~~~
devoply
Give the Brawndo, it's what plants crave. Seriously give them what they like
to eat. Make it addictive like we do for fast food. Not only will you have
birds that do your bidding, but they'll be nice and fat so you can catch 'em
if you need to later.

------
code_coyote
Is there any consideration for the health effects of carrying a carcinogen in
their beaks? Cigarette butts are _nasty_ and also poisonous.

~~~
collyw
Your comment sounds a bit hyperbolic.

I guess eating them isn't going to be good, but is picking them up and
depositing them going to be poisonous to the crow?

~~~
csydas
I think it's what the above poster was specifically asking. Is this safe for
the crows? It's a cute circus trick, but has anyone checked that it's actually
safe for them?

~~~
Digit-Al
As far as I am aware it is only inhaling the smoke that is carcinogenic. That
being the case, just holding a butt in their beak should be safe.

------
oakwhiz
Nothing would seem to stop the crows from throwing rocks into the machine
instead of the pieces of garbage that we want them to pick up.

~~~
OscarCunningham
There's a similar story about dolphins who were trained to pick up any litter
in their pool and give it to their trainer in return for fish. The dolphins
began to hide the trash and tear off pieces so that they could get multiple
fish.

~~~
kiallmacinnes
That's pretty impressive! I wonder how long it took them to figure this out :)

~~~
diggan
Also shows the dangers of optimizing for metrics without thinking really hard
about what kind of metric your optimizing for and what kind of side-effects it
can have.

------
curiousgal
What will keep them from attacking smokers and grabbing their cigarettes for
treats?

~~~
Digit-Al
I guess that would reduce the number of cigarette butts littering the park, if
smokers were too terrified to smoke there :-D

------
tjoff
There is a nice ted talk (from 2008, 10min) about crow intelligence and
teaching crows how to pick up trash. It has stuck with me ever since I first
saw it, highly recommended.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_o...](https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows)

~~~
throwawaymath
You should read this short commentary [1] from a corvid researcher. There will
probably be replication issues with trying to get wild crows to pick up food
using his crowbox idea.

____________

1\. [https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/03/12/a-scientists-
thoughts...](https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/03/12/a-scientists-thoughts-on-
the-crow-box/)

~~~
tjoff
Thanks! That is disheartening, however the spirit of the talk is still
inspiring and this HN post reinforces the idea.

The motivational part is after all a bit orthogonal to the intelligence claim.
So the answer to the question "could we teach crows to do this?" might instead
be "absolutely, however wild crows choose not to participate". Which is quite
different depending on which viewpoint you have.

The other anecdotes from that talk are still valid and equally fascinating.

Can't recommend that talk any more though, at least not without preceding it
with the information you linked...

------
aniijbod
If "litter collecting crows" produces an amusing mental image, just imagine my
momentary initial misreading of that healine with "intelligent cows" and
somehow it seems to fit the "theme park" idiom far more appropriately.

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pjettter
I thought it said cows, which got me thinking...

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snambi
This is so sad. Now we are "training" the birds to pick up our trash.

~~~
deviationblue
Agreed. And can't we just employ humans to do this? Give them a job and such?

~~~
pxtail
Are you eager to apply for this job?

