Sulphur-crested cockatoos (葵花凤头鹦鹉) are common in western Australia, where they normally live in wooded areas. But as forests have been cut down, cockatoos have gotten used to living near people. Scientists report that people in Sydney, Australia are in a battle with these birds.
Last year, scientists at the Max Planck Institute reported that the cockatoos had learned how to open the covers of trash bins. That's not an easy job. The cockatoos must lift the heavy cover with their beaks (喙) and then walk along, pushing the cover up until it falls over.
When scientists first began studying the cockatoos in 2018, only three areas near Sydney had cover-opening cockatoos. A year and a half later, cockatoos in 44 different areas knew the trick. This time the scientists weren't just studying cockatoos. They were also studying humans.
The scientists spent weeks studying more than 3,200 trash bins in four different areas of Sydney. They wanted to see how many bins were protected and what methods were used.
In one area, over half the bins were protected. The most common way of protecting the bins was to put a brick or some other heavy objects on the cover. Some people put things like rubber snakes on the top of their bins. The scientists discovered that the humans were teaching each other tricks, too. In most neighborhoods, many people used the same cockatoo-stopping methods as their neighbors.
The researchers say it's like a race between humans and cockatoos to learn new ways of doing things. Now many cockatoos have learned how to push heavy items off the bins. As a result, humans have figured out ways to attach the items to the top of their bins. The scientists describe the situation as a "human-wildlife conflict". They expect these conflicts will become more common as humans take over more areas that used to be wild.
