A Theme Park In France Trained Birds To Clean Up Trash In Exchange For Food

The Puy du Fou theme park in western France put some new employees in the field: six trained rooks, members of the crow family, picking up small pieces of paper and cigarette butts in exchange for food. Corvids, the family of birds that includes crows and ravens, are incredibly intelligent creatures. They have been known use tools, solve complex puzzles and plan for the future. Via: NPR

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Boubou, Bamboo, Bill, Black, Bricole and Baco officially started their new gigs two weeks ago:

The birds will "work" four days a week under the close watch of a falconer, who will make sure that people don't toss garbage onto the ground just to watch the birds pick it up. For the record, the park would like to note, the corvid colleagues are not replacing any human cleaning staff.

Via Puy du Fou
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According to Puy du Fou president Nicolas de Villiers, the purpose of the project isn’t just to keep the park clean.

"The purpose of the crows is to educate the people, to open their minds, to think, 'OK, the birds are able to do something that we are much more able to do than them, so we should do this by ourselves'," Villiers told Sunny Skyz. He says it is also about showing "that nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment."

Via Puy du Fou
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The idea for using rooks as litter collectors came from one of the falconers, Christophe Gaborit.

As part of the falconry show, the theme park had already trained crows to pick up roses and bring them to a "princess" in a castle. Gaborit started training some rooks to do a similar task — with bits of paper or cigarette butts instead of a rose, dropping them off in a little box instead of delivering them to royalty. "It became a game for them," de Villiers says. "They pick up the papers on the floor, and they are rewarded."

Via Sunny skyz