{"id":21795,"date":"2022-11-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=21795"},"modified":"2022-11-21T10:20:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T09:20:24","slug":"bin-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/2022\/11\/10\/bin-raiders\/","title":{"rendered":"Bin raiders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A fast-paced arms race has arisen in Australia as humans attempt to deter cunning cockatoos <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Sulphur-crested cockatoos’ normal diet consists of berries, seeds, nuts and roots <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

ARMS RACES DON\u2019T ALWAYS LEAD to mutually-assured destruction. If new research on an ongoing conflict between cockatoos and human householders in Australia is anything to go by, they might just result in one party missing a meal or the other becoming mildly irritated.<\/p>\n\n

Sulphur-crested cockatoos were first spotted raiding Sydney\u2019s domestic rubbish bins for food in 2018. \u201cWe had reports of cockatoos opening bins in three suburbs,\u201d says Barbara Klump, who led the work from Germany\u2019s Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. \u201cBy the end of 2019, it was in 44 suburbs, so we could see that the birds were learning it from each other.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

And it\u2019s not just the cockatoos that are adapting to circumstances. \u201cPeople started to protect their bins, because the birds do make a lot of mess, throwing out everything they don\u2019t want to eat,\u201d says Klump. <\/p>\n\n

The team\u2019s latest study, published in Current <\/em>Biology, <\/em>documents 52 countermeasures employed by householders to keep cockatoos out while making sure the lid still opens when the refuse collectors turn the bin upside-down. These include placing bricks on the lid to weigh it down, which was effective until the parrots learned to push them off. Tied-down water bottles and training shoes wedged behind the hinge of the lid have so far proved more effective. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cultural behaviour on both sides, so it\u2019s clearly faster than evolutionary arms races, which play out over really, really long timescales,\u201d says Klump. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cCulture enables animals to adapt much faster, especially for a long-lived species such as a cockatoo, which is unable to adapt on a genetic level to a rapidly changing environment such as a city.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Klump is reticent to predict whether the birds or humans will ultimately prevail. \u201cIt\u2019s possible that humans will come up with something that the cockatoos are unable to solve,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n

But then again, perhaps the birds have more incentive. \u201cGetting one large piece of bread might offset hours of foraging elsewhere. For most people, it\u2019s just a bit annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Stuart Blackman <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Behavioural ecologist Barbara Klump<\/em><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

PHOTOS: BARBARA: KATE J BEER; COCKATOOS: SAEED KHAN\/AFP\/GETTY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fast-paced arms race has arisen in Australia as humans attempt to deter cunning cockatoos <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":21794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"14","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"14","purple_seq_number":"1","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"1","purple_source_article":"article_14-1.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_14-1.xml","purple_source_issue":"December-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"December-2022","purple_external_id":"December-2022-14-1","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"December-2022-14-1","purple_issue_code":"|0000087238||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000087238||","purple_android_product":"com.im.wildlife.498","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.wildlife.498","purple_ios_product":"com.im.wildlife.498","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.wildlife.498","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"58d61955-0ac4-406c-83f1-ab6f21d86b70","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2022-11-10T11:04:37Z","apple_news_article-theme":"","apple_news_api_id":"b454c84a-68c4-4368-b96e-9f2dc0e23c9c","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-11-21T09:20:30Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AtFTISmjEQ2i5bp8twOI8nA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":true,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_article_theme":"","apple_news_sections":"[]"},"categories":[25],"tags":[14],"apple_news_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192.jpg",2048,1226,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192-300x180.jpg",300,180,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192-768x460.jpg",768,460,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192-1024x613.jpg",800,479,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192-1536x920.jpg",1536,920,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/bad166b9-71d6-495d-94e1-61efad624192.jpg",2048,1226,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A fast-paced arms race has arisen in Australia as humans attempt to deter cunning cockatoos","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21795"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22233,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21795\/revisions\/22233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}