Crow flying squad stubbing out litter
Birds deployed to bin discarded cigs
HERE’S something to crow about... wild birds are going to be used as litter pickers to make a city tidier.
Crows are being trained to remove cigarette butts from the streets.
Each time a bird puts a discarded fag in a specially-designed machine, some food is dispensed as a reward.
The initiative will be trialled this spring in the Swedish city of Sodertalje.
Christian Günther-Hanssen, who founded Corvid Cleaning, the company behind the enterprise, said: “Crows are basically the most intelligent wild animals we have in Sweden, and probably in Britain too.
“They will understand the difference between trash and a rock or a leaf, which they will not be rewarded for, obviously.
“By teaching the crows to exchange butts for food, they can help clean our streets and squares.”
He added: “They are wild birds taking part on a voluntary basis.” Mr GüntherHanssen has spent months getting crows trained up at a recycling centre in the capital Stockholm.
There is no interaction with humans. The inquisitive birds simply learn how the system works.
Firstly, the machine gives free peanuts, then peanuts in return for an object, before the final stage of peanuts in exchange for cigarette butts.
Crows take two months to get up to speed. Mr Günther-Hanssen said: “They learn from each other, so once the first birds learn it at one location, the other birds [there] will copy the first ones.”
The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation says a billion cigarette butts are left on the country’s streets every year.
Each one is estimated to cost as much as the equivalent of 16p to pick up.
Mr Günther-Hanssen thinks birds could do the job for a tenth of that amount, slashing bills for councils.
He now plans to study what impact a diet of peanuts has on the creatures.
VOICE OF THE MIRROR: PAGE 10