The opening-rubbish-bins arms race between cockatoos and humans

August 16, 2024 7:27 PM

The opening-rubbish-bins arms race between cockatoos and humans. 5 minute video from the Australian documentary series, The Secret Lives Of Our Urban Birds.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (9 comments total)

I’m reminded of the observation by an American park ranger once upon a time, when asked “why can’t you just” make a garbage bin that the bears can’t open, who observed that there is a significant overlap in problem-solving abilities between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.
posted by mhoye at 8:17 PM on August 16 [13 favorites]

I like how as they are interviewing the scientist, curious cockatoos walk right up to them and check them out.
posted by tavella at 8:19 PM on August 16 [8 favorites]

Note: stick around for the last minute of the video when they flip the script.
posted by intermod at 9:06 PM on August 16 [5 favorites]

If there were a way to produce it ethically, I would totally watch a series featuring a sequence of problem-solving contests pitting a team of these cockatoos against teams of, say, ravens from North America's Pacific Northwest, New Zealand keas, and New Caledonian crows.

Someone please call the IOC (the International Ornithological Committee) and ask them to get busy organizing this international competition..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:17 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]

In Edinburgh and the Isle of Wight it's seagulls: Gull-proof sacks - a waste of time? (The Edinburgh Reporter, 2014)
(The sacks are neither gull-proof, nor wind-proof, nor fool-proof)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:51 AM on August 17

I love love LOVE the bit about another group of social-learning problem-solving animals at the end. Hooray!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:18 AM on August 17

I just wish that the social-learning problem-solving animals in my own neighbourhood would adopt the obvious solution, which is to stop putting food scraps in the landfill bins.

I've long held that a stinky bin is a mismanaged bin but as of yet have not got far in taking this learning social even though where I live has ample space for everybody to run backyard compost heaps.
posted by flabdablet at 4:43 AM on August 18 [1 favorite]

I like how as they are interviewing the scientist, curious cockatoos walk right up to them and check them out.

It's like one of the cockatoos was dared by the others to do a photobomb.
posted by jonp72 at 12:47 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

I've long held that a stinky bin is a mismanaged bin but as of yet have not got far in taking this learning social even though where I live has ample space for everybody to run backyard compost heaps

The thing is, compost heaps don't just require space, they also require physical labour and time,

and not everyone has that time and/or that physical energy.

I'm a big fan of dedicated bins for Food Organics, Garden Organics - food waste, garden waste, dirty paper (as long as its not water proof) - that then gets collected by the local council, forcibly aerated to reduce methane production, and turned into high value mulch that people buy for their gardens.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:10 AM on August 20 [2 favorites]