[HN Gopher] 'Bin chickens' learned to wash poisonous cane toads
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'Bin chickens' learned to wash poisonous cane toads
Author : clouddrover
Score : 90 points
Date : 2022-11-25 05:27 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| exolymph wrote:
| > "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 wrote:
| Big 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 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| > 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 - with toad
| eggs.)
| linuxandrew wrote:
| I'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...
|
| Apparently other animals are eating them with varying success -
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-11-01/cane-toad-nat...
| Nursie wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| In 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 wrote:
| There 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 wrote:
| The longer version of that video has him figuring it out
| after the 2nd piece vanishes.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Mate 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
| mrmincent wrote:
| Yeah 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.
| combyn8tor wrote:
| There is a bit of a grassroots movement to make the bin chicken
| the mascot for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
| jon_adler wrote:
| I'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
| yen223 wrote:
| I love bin chickens. They are good birds.
|
| Cockatoos, on the other hand, can fuck the fuck right off
| aaron695 wrote:
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Thanks 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.
| zizee wrote:
| Haha, 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...
| wizofaus wrote:
| An affectionate tribute to said bird for those who haven't
| already seen it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4dYWhkSbTU
| zizee wrote:
| > 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
| peblos wrote:
| Yep. Ibis are generally dirty, walk awkwardly, even take flight
| and land pretty awkwardly so they're easy to dislike
|
| But they're pretty chill dudes. Lots of others birds will try
| to shove them off somewhere else and they'll either wander away
| off their own accord, or they'll completely ignore the other
| birds (probably a mynah) and just keep eating. They never
| really fight, they just mosy along
|
| Then you see this big lump of a bird try to find a comfy spot
| in a big tree which isn't the most graceful sight so it's kinda
| funny. And then out of nowhere (because they're so quiet)
| they'll remind you that love a good HONK. Sometimes they'll
| even HONK, HONK, HONK, EEEEK
|
| they're alright
| enneff wrote:
| Agree. I think they're awesome birds and it is so cool they
| such an exotic looking bird should be considered a pest.
| soperj wrote:
| Question: Why don't aussies have lids on their BBQs?
| technion wrote:
| I do, but I've had snags taken by kookaburras just trying to
| move them onto a plate before taking them inside.
| jon_adler wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| Many 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.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| if 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
| enneff wrote:
| Why on earth are you feeding a currawong? They're among the
| meanest most mercenary omnivores; they hardly need your help.
| markdown wrote:
| There'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
| hapidjus wrote:
| The 'how' was never explained right?
|
| Edit: the title used to say "How 'Bin chickens' learned..."
| Nursie wrote:
| Stress 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 wrote:
| Grandma 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.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| how they learnt? evolution, natural selection. I guess like
| crows who are very clever as well, they observe, try, memorize,
| ..
| xwdv wrote:
| This 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.
| dang wrote:
| We've re-unhow'd the title above. Thanks!
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