Residents Are in a Long Battle Between Sulphur-crested Cockatoos in Australia for Garbage Access

Residents of southern Sydney, Australia, have long fought over garbage: people want to toss it out, while cockatoos want to consume it.

The sulfur-crested cockatoos that live in the region have a habit of going into garbage cans, so humans have devised creative ways to keep them out.

In a study published on September 12 in the journal Current Biology, researchers outline the tactics utilized by both humans and parrots.

Cockatoos and humans are in an arms race over garbage access

(Photo : Pat Whelen/Unsplash)

"When I first watched a video of the cockatoos opening the bins, I thought it was such an unusual and distinctive activity that I knew we had to investigate it," said lead author Barbara Klump, a behavioral ecologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, as per ScienceDaily.

The cockatoos are motivated by food waste. "They enjoy bread a much," she said.

Once a bin is opened, all the cockatoos in the area will flock to it in search of something tasty to eat.

The birds normally use their beaks to pry open the bins, then move onto a little rim and flip the lid open. It's a neighborhood thing.

Klump said, "We could actually establish that this is a cultural feature."

Human homeowners attempting to keep cockatoos out cannot simply close the bin lids fully since the lids must open when tipped by an automated arm on the garbage truck.

According to a study conducted by the researchers, individuals place rocks and stones on their bin lids, attach water bottles to the top, construct ropes to keep the lid from flipping, block the hinges with sticks, and swap strategies after the cockatoos figure them out.

"There are even commercially available cockatoo bin locks," Klump notes.

It's not just social learning on the bird side, she explains, but also social learning on the human side.

People develop new defense strategies on their own, but many others learn them from their neighbors or people on their street, so they receive their inspiration from someone else.

Klump won't predict whom she thinks will win the race for the bins, but she and her colleagues intend to study how the cockatoos' behavior changes from season to season.

Klump anticipated that more similar human-wildlife encounters will occur in the future.

"As cities grow in size, humans will have more contact with wildlife," she predicted.

Also Read: Brainy Cockatoos Make Economic Decisions in Tool Use Experiments

Cockatoos scavenging skills

Cockatoos in Australia have discovered how to forage for food in conventional waste bins by opening the lids with their beaks and plunging in, as per Lafeber Company.

The behavior has spread to other cockatoo colonies in the area, demonstrating the importance of social learning.

Sulfur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) are described as a "large-brained, long-lived, and extremely sociable parrot endemic to eastern Australia." They are the topic of recent research published in Science magazine.

Cockatoos "learn from each other a unique talent - lifting rubbish bin lids to seek food," according to a team of international experts.

According to the researchers, cockatoos propagate this innovative behavior through social learning.

A poll conducted in 2018 indicated that birds in only three suburbs were capable of opening a bin.

Only two years later, the list had grown to include 41 additional Sydney neighborhoods where cockatoos could nimbly snap open a bin's difficult-to-handle lid.

The scientists' challenge was to discover whether this was a "pass along" talent or if birds were just responding to an untapped feature.

It was most likely a single attentive bird observing a human lift a lid. The bird worked hard to master the method after enough attempts, with success as the prize.

Birds soon learned how to open a lid after observing their friends do it. A city full of cockatoos eventually developed the ability.

One piqued the interest of the previously mentioned scientist Richard Major of the Australian Museum. The unusual bird had seized the lid with its feet, raised it, and secured it with its beak.

It would then move around the container's rim, suffering the weight of the lid pushing against gravity until it was able to hurl the lid back, providing access to the "treasures" inside the bin.