Crows are among the smartest of bird species and have been recorded to be able to solve puzzles, use tools, and play in a way that mimics humans. Of course, with smarts like that, it was only a matter of time before someone thought to train them.
A unique initiative taking place in a Swedish city is using trained crows to pick up litter, hoping to reap the many benefits that would come from our avian friends' aid.
And one city is putting their smarts to use by having them help keep the ground litter-free.
A pilot project in Södertälje, Sweden, is training a fleet of crows to pick up and dispose of cigarette butts, as well as other small pieces of litter.
In an interview with Sweedish newswire TT, founder Christian Günther-Hanssen said, "They're wild birds taking part on a voluntary basis."
Why crows, though? "They are easier to teach and there is also a higher chance of them learning from each other. At the same time, there’s a lower risk of them mistakenly eating any rubbish."
“The estimation for the cost of picking up cigarette butts today is around 80 öre [$0.09] or more per cigarette butt, some say 2 kronor [$0.22]," Günther-Hanssen said, "If the crows pick up cigarette butts, this would maybe be 20 öre [$0.022] per cigarette butt."
According to the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation, cigarette butts make up 62% of all litter across the country, and the city of Södertälje alone spends over 20 million kronor, or $2.1 million, on street cleaning.
Tomas Thernström, the waste strategist for Södertälje municipality, told TT that, "It would be interesting to see if this could work in other environments as well. Also from the perspective that we can teach crows to pick up cigarette butts but we can’t teach people not to throw them on the ground. That’s an interesting thought."
h/t: IFLScience
