Have you ever tried to solve a Rubik’s cube, or any other type of 3d puzzle? If you have, then you already understand how challenging it can be to make a lot of moving parts fit together in 3D space. Sulphur Crested Cockatoos in the Suburbs of Sydney Australia have been working hard to solve a similar sort of puzzle. While we might not want to eat something that we found while scavenging from a neighbor’s trash can, to many animals living in an urban environment alongside humans, scraps of food that we’ve left behind can be an appealing alternative to the the high energy costs of hunting or foraging
There’s one problem though. Without hands or opposable thumbs, opening up a trash can to get at the juicy snack inside can be a pretty big challenge. That’s why many researchers were so intrigued when they heard several reports by Sydney locals that had seen Sulphur Crested Cockatoos opening up garbage cans, and scavenging for food out of them. And once it had showed up in one location, this behavior seemed to spread throughout the suburbs like wildfire. Before 2018, Cockatoos had been spotted grabbing a bite to eat from a trash can in only three of Sydney’s suburbs. By the end of 2019, reports of Cockatoos opening garbage cans had spread to 44 of them.
Observing the rapid spread of the behavior, researchers hypothesized that knowledge about how to open a garbage can was spreading throughout the population through a process called social learning. To put it in simpler terms, many Cockatoos were learning how to solve the puzzle of opening a trash can, by observing another Cockatoo who had already figured it out! The evidence that the researchers uncovered seems to back up this claim. Cockatoos that live closer together use much more similar strategies when opening a garbage can, than Cockatoos who live farther apart. This finding would be hard to explain if each Cockatoo learned how to open a garbage can independently. However, it fits very well with the researchers hypothesis, that most Cockatoos learned how to open a garbage can by observing other birds who had already figured it out. So the next time someone teaches you how to solve a problem that you couldn’t quite figure out on your own, remember that Cockatoos in Sydney Australia are doing the same thing to get at some tasty morsels of food tucked away in garbage cans.
References
Klump BC, Martin JM, Wild S, Hörsch JK, Major RE, Aplin LM. Innovation and geographic spread of a complex foraging culture in an urban parrot. Science. 2021 Jul 23;373(6553):456-60. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abe7808
