The six rooks pecking at bedding material within the Puy du Fou radical parking lot in Les Epesses , France , are n’t unwished-for pests : They ’re part of the stave . AsAFPreports , the trained birds have been dispatched to clean up drivel and butt butts from the park undercoat .
castle are a fellow member of thecorvid family , a chemical group of intelligent birds that also includes ravens and crows . At Puy du Fou , an educational amusement park with attractions inspired by various periods from French account , the castle will flit around the commons , pick up any bits of bedding that have n’t been by rights disposed of , and deliver them to a receptacle in interchange for a treat . At least that ’s how the system of rules is set up to work : The full team of six rook has only been on the job sinceAugust 13 .
Employing birds as trash collectors may seem far - fetched , but the experiment has common law . The Dutch startupCrowded Citiesrecently started training bragging to pile up coffin nail butts using a vending motorcar - like equipment . Once the Crow were taught to link the rig with free peanuts , the simple machine was tweaked so that it only mete out food when the crow nudge a cigarette butt resting on a shelf into the receptacle . The cigaret butt were eventually remove , and the shuttle figured out that they had to regain the litter in the wilderness if they want to continue receiving their snacks .
Crowded Cities had design to impart more enquiry on the method acting ’s effectivity , as well as the potentiallyharmful effectsof tobacco on crows , before bringing their vending machine to public spaces . Puy du Fou , meanwhile , has become one of the first — if notthefirst — business to amply go through the strategy on amajor weighing machine .
Even if it does n’t prove to be practical , Puy du Fou president Nicolas de Villiers severalise AFP that clean up the commons is only part of the goal . He also hopes the birds will demonstrate that " nature itself can teach us to take concern of the environment . "
[ h / tAFP ]
