![]() ![]() Researchers visited four suburbs, documenting 3,283 bins, and surveyed an additional 1,134 people from 401 suburbs. So, to be rid of the messy birds, garbage-can owners began testing some defensive strategies of their own. In southern Sydney, people can’t simply get new trash cans or lock their bins shut-the cans are custom fit to the municipality's garbage-truck model and the lids must swing open when the truck flips the cans upside down. “The homeowners don’t like because they have to go and clean up the streets,” says co-author Damien Farine, a social evolutionary ecologist at the University of Zurich. While the birds are beautiful, they have become unwelcome pests in the neighborhoods. “People actually socially learn from other people, especially their neighbors, about how to protect the bins.” “For some of the protections, the cockatoos actually learn how to defeat them, and then people come up with better, more effective methods,” says lead author Barbara Klump, a behavioral ecologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. They suggest the conflict could be the beginning of an “innovation arms race,” where humans and cockatoos develop increasingly imaginative ways of outsmarting each other to control access to garbage cans. The researchers documented more than 50 strategies that people employed to keep cockatoos out of trash bins. This week, in Current Biology, a team published a follow-up study that focuses on the human side of the equation. Geographically separated cockatoo populations have different bin-opening techniques once one bird figures out how to flip the lid, other birds in the area watch and learn. Publishing their findings in Sciencein 2021, they showed that Sulfur-crested Cockatoos, which are native to forests of eastern and northern Australia, have developed this skill not only once but multiple times. Fascinated, the scientists wanted to know how cockatoos learned this new trick. Scientists first documented the cockatoos’ clever behavior eight years ago when Richard Major, an ornithologist at the Australian Museum Research Institute in Sydney, filmed a cockatoo opening a bin and shared it with colleagues. Once she’s had her fill, she hops to the bin next door. Then she flips the lid and reaches in, tossing out trash to uncover last night’s leftovers: bread and pizza. Standing on the bin’s edge, she pushes the brick with her beak until it falls off the edge. But ultimately it’s no sweat for this bird. One trash can owner has placed a brick on the lid to deter cockatoos. It takes some effort, but by stretching their legs, extending their necks, and tight-rope walking along the edge of a can, cockatoos can successfully use their beaks to flip open the hinged lids that are standard in Sydney’s suburbs. Within the past decade, Australia’s native parrots have figured out, and taught each other, how to open trash can lids. Like any great gym session, Captain is rewarded with his favourite treats, such as walnuts, brazil nuts or sunflower seeds.It’s trash day-the best day of the week for Sulfur-crested Cockatoos in southern Sydney. The keepers encourage him to climb, hang or roll over the rope as this builds strength in his legs and increases his agility. Like something you may see at your local Crossfit gym, our keepers use a large rope to help Captain train. This encourages Captain to manipulate objects with his beak and feet to extract food – just like he would in the wild! Crossfit - cockatoo style Keepers will often hide his food inside pinecones or cabbage leaf parcels. ![]() Don't play with your food!Ĭaptain has a varied diet of seeds, fruits and berries, nuts, flowers, leaf buds, roots and insects. This is very important as cockatoos’ beaks never stop growing! This constant activity helps to keep his beak, and tree stump, in great condition. Like the ultimate DIYer, Captain spends a lot of his time making modifications to his home with his strong beak. But don’t be surprised if you only catch a glimpse of his white and yellow feathers on the top of his head. but he could be anywhere between 30 and 80 years old! Some sulphur crested cockatoos can even live to be 100 years old.ĭuring the day, you will spot Captain hanging out in his large tree stump outside the Australia aviaries. He was donated in 1990, and although he likes to talk and mimic keeper voices, he has never told us how old he is. Captain is the resident sulphur-crested cockatoo at Auckland Zoo. ![]()
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