Puy du Fou, A French Historical Theme Park Trained Six Rooks To pick Up Cigarette Butts And Trash It To A Special Box The Device Dispenses Bird Food

This will show that nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment

Maryjane

• Published in Animal Stories
• November 27, 2022

Six crow family-trained birds are now being used by a French theme park to sweep up garbage and cigarette butts. An estimated 2 million people visit Puy du Fou, a historical theme park in Les Epesses, France, each year to study about the French Revolution, Vikings, the Middle Ages, and other historical periods, occasions, and people.

Attendees may relive the simpler days of guillotines and plagues thanks to the authentic and replica antique structures. Rooks, a member of the crow family closely related to carrion crows, are a low-tech solution that the park wants to test out in order to maintain the area clean.

This innovative setup releases bird food when one of the six rooks in the park brings trash to a designated box. Nicolas de Villiers, president of the Puy du Fou park, told AFP saying:

"The goal is not just to clear up, because the visitors are generally careful to keep things clean. Rather, it will show nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment.”

A similar device called Crowbar, a creation that would allegedly train crows to gather cigarette butts, was proposed by Dutch startup Crowded City last year. It was based on a method made popular by Joshua Klein, who discussed his experimental "vending machine for crows" in a 2008 TED talk.

More info: Reddit, gizmodo

Redditor u/f_GOD has this interesting piece of information to share with the TodayILearned subreddit community

Redditor trooped to the comments section to drop their replies and we've gathered some of the most upvoted ones for you below.

People could just throw their trash away

If they were truly french birds

The worker who got replaced by crows

Using the same methods to teach humans

For this Redditor, it is...

Seeing them when they come upon a blunt

It is easily one of the best parks in the world

Humans should do the same with their rubbish

This Redditor has a question to ask and here it goes

Birds also have to work for lazy humans

This Redditor says that it is the best theme park they have ever been to

Instead of picking litter, they'd raid the trash cans

There's a million crows sitting around and doing nothing

The amount they collected wasn't enough to make any kind of dent

Smokers and gum chewers are the most inconsiderate and selfish people

It is easier to train a bird, according to this Redditor

Teaching them to pick up trash and feed themselves

They had to roam the theme park and lick up all the bird poop

Another Redditor saying that smokers are just disgusting

Everybody is welcome and they are bigot

The machine allowed crows to trade found trash or money for treats. They are just trying to find out if the strategy actually works, but Puy du Fou is probably the first company to test it out on a broad scale.

Hopefully all that nicotine and tobacco won't hurt the birds. Share your thoughts about this invention with us by leaving a comment below.

The machine allowed crows to trade found trash or money for treats. They are just trying to find out if the strategy actually works, but Puy du Fou is probably the first company to test it out on a broad scale.

Hopefully, all that nicotine and tobacco won't hurt the birds. Share your thoughts about this invention with us by leaving a comment below.

Maryjane