french theme park trains crows to pick up trash

french historical park puy du fou has trained six crows to pick up cigarette butts and rubbish left by its visitors. considered to be particularly intelligent, these birds are also able to use tools, plan for the future and recognize faces to such degree that they can even hold grudges against humans who have disrespected them. the technique used to train them consisted in rewarding the crows with a nugget of bird food every time they turned over a piece of rubbish.

‘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 puy du fou park to AFP.

(above) image by puy du fou
(main) images by tyler quiring and matteo paganelli

the birds are scheduled to work four days a week under close supervision of a falconer. this includes taking care of them and making sure people will not toss garbage around just to see the birds pick it up. hopefully this experiment will teach humanity something.

image by puy du fou