this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Animals with Jobs

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This week, 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.

The Puy du Fou trash collection system is similar to Klein's "vending machine," rewarding birds with food for picking up certain items off the ground. It uses two different sections of a wooden box, one to receive trash and the other to offer up food.

"The park is very clean," Puy du Fou President Nicolas de Villiers tells NPR by phone. "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.' "

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[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Crows are so smart I bet those fuckers gonna start grabbing trash from a bin and dropping in there for more treats haha

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago

When I heard this story (maybe a similar experiment) that's what they were doing. They were also ripping up existing trash for more points

[–] TheLordHumungus@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Ahh don't give em ideas

[–] theodewere@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

so this is just another trashy theme park murder story

[–] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Alteon@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you rewarding me for picking up the trash Monsieur Theme Park? I demand equal pay as the crows! I demand seed to eat!

[–] tyrefyre@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

Well I’m not going to put a crow out of a job that’s for damn sure.

[–] RandomStickman@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

calling rooks crows

Here's the thing...

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And yet French theme park employees are upset with me when I push them off a cliff asking "crows can fly, why can't you"??

[–] bev@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

This is a tried and failed strategy. We had got it for a reading in evolutionary bio.