A city in Sweden is about to deploy flocks (or if you’re into fanciful collective nouns, murders) of crows to collect litter, primarily the thousands of cigarette butts that daily litter the streets of Sodertalje.
The birds have been trained to drop the butts into a collection container that then dispenses a tasty (at least to a crow) snack. Christian Gunther-Hanssen, a ‘behavioral economist’ who founded Corvid Cleaning, says that crows were chosen because they are ‘the most intelligent wild animals in Sweden.’
“They are easier to teach and there is also a higher chance of them learning from each other. At the same time, there’s a lower risk of them mistakenly eating any rubbish,” he said. And, he added, puzzlingly, that the birds trained so far have participated entirely of their own volition, meaning the scheme would “essentially be a barter.” How the crows express ‘volition’ is unstated.
According to Tomas Thernstrom, the ‘waste strategist’ for the town, there could be savings of up to 75% in the cost of collecting butts, a billion of which litter Sweden’s streets annually. He added “We can teach crows to pick up cigarette butts but we can’t teach people not to throw them on the ground. That’s an interesting thought.”
