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'Bin chickens' learned to wash poisonous cane toads
- Nursie 4y agoI think the article considerably overstates Australian ‘hatred’ of ibis. Yes they are referred to as bin chickens by a lot of city people, and you do see them raiding bins, but for the most part it’s a bit of a joke and done affectionately. Saying they are reviled is a bit strong! Particularly in a country with monstrosities like the funnelweb and mouse spiders… Great if they turn out to be a natural control on cane toads!
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoIn the US, we have "trash pandas." These are Raccoons. Clever little bastards. They can get into just about anything. Raccoons also like to wash their food.
- bobthepanda 4y agoThere was a viral video of a raccoon being sad because it tried to wash cotton candy, but being spun sugar it just dissolved in water.
- HappySweeney 4y agoThe longer version of that video has him figuring it out after the 2nd piece vanishes.
- aaron695 4y ago
- mrmincent 4y agoYeah as an Aussie I don’t think the bin chickens are reviled at all. It’s more like we don’t necessarily agree with the way that they live their life, but we respect them for living life on their own terms.
- wizofaus 4y agoAn affectionate tribute to said bird for those who haven't already seen it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU
- combyn8tor 4y agoThere is a bit of a grassroots movement to make the bin chicken the mascot for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
- doctor_eval 4y agoThanks for posting this. I’m Australian and I have never heard of Ibis being reviled and I thought I’d missed something. I mean isn’t there even a hotel chain called Ibis? (I seem to recall being stuck in the elevator with my then-ex girlfriend one night…) The article really doubled down on the “reviled” nature of the birds that I figured they must know something. Do they really steal food from our of peoples hands? I’ve had a miner do that but the Ibis near me seem to stay away from people. But then again, this is the BBC. I don’t know if there exists a worse news organisation that regards itself more highly.
- gtvwill 4y agoMate most of us don't hate bin chickens at all. Tbh love em. Icon of the cities especially Sydney's inner west. Folks graf murals of them and all kinda representations :) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU
- yesenadam 4y agoYeah, sydney inner west here, we get one landing in the backyard sometimes and having a gentle poke around. I like them. They have a kind of humble dignity.
- yen223 4y agoI love bin chickens. They are good birds. Cockatoos, on the other hand, can fuck the fuck right off
- zizee 4y agoHaha, I just posted the same comment. It's always entertaining to see one doing a snatch and grab from a public bbq, and then watch them leg it with a whole sausage in their beak...
- jon_adler 4y agoI’m not sure. I dislike the Ibis quite a lot, and so does this guy (funny, NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-OpFjHRbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-OpFjHRbE
- Nursie 4y agoThat's hilarious, not seen that one before :)
- mcbain 4y agoWe've even got children's propaganda for these birds!: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1743830041 https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1743830041
- vagrantJin 4y agoWell. Ibis is an elegant looking bird that looks out of place. Mynas look like crap so we kinda accept that they are city birbs.
- kennend3 4y agoHere (Canada) we have "cobra chickens". what better way to explain it then having someone from OZ do it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvkkDRiLYkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvkkDRiLYkI Ever see a bird chase away a Tiger??
- hapidjus 4y agoThe ‘how’ was never explained right? Edit: the title used to say “How ‘Bin chickens’ learned…”
- Nursie 4y agoStress the toad so it expresses venom, wash in water or wipe on grass, repeat a few times to exhaust the venom sacks, then swallow whole. Unlike the method that crows and eagles are known to use - flip over and eat from the underside.
- dvh 4y agoGrandma used to have a mixed breed dog that could catch wasp mid air, quickly spit it out, then very carefully kept biting it (maybe 50 times, very quickly and carefully) to disable the stinger, and then he would just eat the wasp.
- dtgriscom 4y agoA friend used to have a dog that ate bees. She would just snatch them out of the air, chew and swallow. Sometimes she'd rub her snout and fuss a bit, but then she'd go right back to eating them. RIP Cordelia (or "Cordoglia").
- 11235813213455 4y agohow they learnt? evolution, natural selection. I guess like crows who are very clever as well, they observe, try, memorize, ..
- xwdv 4y agoThis kind of knowledge doesn’t spread genetically, so I imagine there must be some mechanism by which the technique is taught within the species so that the knowledge of bin chickens gets handed down from generation to generation.
- 4y ago
- exolymph 4y ago> "They've got an incredible breeding capacity... so with every female cane toad that's removed from the environment, it's the prevention of up to 70,000 new cane toads each year," Ms Vincent says. Wow. That's a lot of toads!
- bell-cot 4y agoBig grain of salt: If cane toad populations actually grew at anything remotely close to 70,000X per generation...it would take less than 6 generation for the descendants of one male/female pair of cane toads to have a larger mass than the planet Earth.
- jandrese 4y agoThis is the same calculation you can make about swatting a fly when you were a kid. In reality the population of the cane toad/fly is roughly what the environment will support. Killing individuals makes little to no difference.
- bell-cot 4y ago> Killing individuals makes little to no difference. One or a few, here & there? Yes, true. But talk to someone who's worked at removing invasive plant species for a decade or two, and recalls the "before". If the mortality rate of $Invasive can be seriously pushed up for several generations, in a modest-sized area, then the local population of $Invasive can often be reduced by 10X to 1000X. That is not wiping it out - but it's enough to hugely reduce the environmental damage caused by $Invasive. (Yes, a toad can get around far more than a plant. OTOH, birds can't eat berries off a toad, then poop out seeds 25km away. And there's probably no soil seed bank - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_seed_bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_seed_bank - with toad eggs.)
- a1369209993 4y ago> birds can't eat berries off a toad, then poop out seeds 25km away. And there's probably no soil seed bank[] with toad eggs. These sound like excellent ideas that I will definitely incorporate into the next invasive species I make. (Not sure if /s. Troll worldbuilding is fun.)
- hilbert42 4y agoThis story brings me to ask the question if anyone has ever done some kind of IQ scale for birds where each species is rated by intelligence. The reason I ask is that there seems to be a vast difference in intelligence between species. Some birds don't just seem dumb to us but are so in that their actions likely endanger the species—for example, birds that allow cuckoos to parasitize their nests with their eggs and actually go on raise the cuckoo's young which is obviously not its kin compared to birds that are clearly very smart such as ravens, ibis and currawongs. I have currawongs in a tree near my house and one bird in particular clearly recognizes me from other people, moreover, it knows by my actions whether I'm likely to feed it or not quite some time before I actually do so (it seems to quickly take measure of my mood so to speak). It also knows when I'm annoyed with it, especially so when it rummages around in my overfull wheelie bin when the lid isn't properly shut—when caught in the act it flies off onto a branch and stares at me the moment I appear (even if I'm not close to the bin). At other times he hangs around so close to me I could just about reach out and grab him (he's wary of me but certainly not timid about getting close even when I have no food). I may be wrong but I simply cannot image that a bird with the inate intelligence of this currawong would let itself be a surrogate for raising a cuckoo's young. It seems to me this differential in intelligence between bird species is huge but I'd love to have an actual measure of it. BTW, when currawongs are nesting it's not advisable to get too close to the tree or you'll likely be dive-bombed by them (they can be quite vicious).
- marcosdumay 4y ago> I may be wrong but I simply cannot image that a bird with the inate intelligence of this currawong would let itself be a surrogate for raising a cuckoo's young. I imagine birds raise cuckoos not because they think they are their offspring, but because of some instinctive imperative like we mammals have for raising any kind of puppy.
- fire 4y agoif memory serves in many cases ( because there are a lot of parasite birds ) it's an evolutionary thing to prevent the parasite layer from destroying their own eggs - many of the parasite species will check on the nest after the fact and destroy it / the eggs if their eggs have been removed
- markdown 4y agoThere's an aussie youtuber called Mark (Self Sufficient Me) who has a dog that's addicted to cane toad venom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0x9_tATD9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0x9_tATD9E
- linuxandrew 4y agoI've heard crows have also learnt to eat cane toads (crows are known to be quite smart) - https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2018/01/can-crows-eat-cane-toads/ https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2018... Apparently other animals are eating them with varying success - https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-11-01/cane-toad-native-animals-eating/11649498 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-11-01/cane-toad-nat...
- zizee 4y ago> There are few Australian animals more reviled than the white ibis. I just want to say that as a Queenslander who has had Ibises run off with whole steaks brazingly zoinked straight off a sizzling bbq, I think reviled is a bit hyperbolic. I have think people mostly have a grudging respect for these bbq bandits
- soperj 4y agoQuestion: Why don't aussies have lids on their BBQs?
- technion 4y agoI do, but I've had snags taken by kookaburras just trying to move them onto a plate before taking them inside.
- jon_adler 4y agoThe ibises are usually located on the coast, by a beach where humans hang out. In Queensland, the council typically provide free BBQ facilities to cook your lunch. It’s often a great experience. The free BBQs are electric and on a timer, with a flat grill. I’m guessing this is the type of BBQ the hapless steak was stolen from.
- contingencies 4y agoMany NSW beach BBQs are gas AFAIK. I guess this is because buried high voltage infrastructure costs more to install to remote locations than an occasional gas bottle change.
- soperj 4y agoYes, I understand that. I don't think I've ever seen an Aussie with a grill that has a lid though? It's all flat grills.
- skissane 4y agoThe LPG BBQ on our back deck has a lid, and our setup is very common. (Keep in mind when we say “BBQ” we usually mean grilling, which is not what many Americans would call “BBQ”.) If you go to Bunnings and look for a BBQ, heaps of them have lids.
- rippercushions 4y agoFor those not familiar with this majestic bird, David Attenborough presents Planet Earth: Bin Chicken. https://youtu.be/w4dYWhkSbTU https://youtu.be/w4dYWhkSbTU
- ElCapitanMarkla 4y agoWe have just spent a week on the Gold Coast with the kids and they loved the bin chickens. We come home with a stuffed toy bin chicken toy and book for our little niece which is the no. 1 toy at the mo. Also Barry the Bin Chicken 2032 - https://barrythebinchicken.com.au/ https://barrythebinchicken.com.au/
- taberiand 4y agoThat's a contender for best mascot since Fatso the Fatarse Wombat
- jamiepenney 4y agoMy kids love the bin chicken stories and we aren't even aussies.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 4y agoOne morning in a Canadian Rocky Mountain Park cookshack, a Whiskeyjack (aka. Canada/Gray Jay) swooped through and snatched a piece of bacon out of the frying pan. I repositioned myself to deprive the Whiskeyjack of a straight flight path and didn't suffer any more such depredations. Much better manners than the bears. On other trips they will even eat out of your hand (not permitted in parks, but you can't corrupt a Whiskeyjack or Raven - they already are).
- aussiesnack 4y agoI was eating at a picnic table in the Border Ranges National Park (NSW, Aus) when a kookaburra swooped down to snatch, on the wing, a slice of meat out of my wife's sandwich.