I Think the Term "Trash Parrot" Might be Offensive

(I know, no one knows why I randomly capitalize things!)

Lynn wanted some good news. And so right now, instead of blogging about a new Climate Change issue, I though I would blog about this. The "trash parrots" title is used for some other animal entirely; like trash panda for raccoons, of flying rats for pigeons. 

NYTimes link

So the trash parrots are really Sulfur-crested cockatoos, which may sound exotic to us but apparently all over the suburban areas of Sydney. They learned a new behavior to get into lidded trash cans. Wht is amazing is that it was not developed spontaneously in each area. Instead researchers could plot where 1 cockatoo learned it, and it spread from there. Other cockatoos watched and repeated it to learn.

 I will quote from the article here

Some birds walk left, some right, they step differently or hold their heads differently. The process is similar to the spread and evolution of human cultural innovations like language, or a classic example of animal culture, bird song, which can vary from region to region in the same species.

Dr. Klump and her colleagues in Germany and Australia plotted the spread of the behavior in greater Sydney over the course of two years. The behavior became more common, but it didn’t pop up in random locations as it might if different birds were figuring out the trash bin technique on their own. It spread outward from its origin, indicating that the cockatoos were learning how to do it from each other.

The cockatoos’ new skill opens up a whole new resource for the birds. This is adaptive cultural evolution, spreading at lightning speed compared to biological evolution. Dr. Klump noted that culture has been called a second inheritance system and that applies to both humans and animals, allowing us and them to quickly adapt and change our behavior.

It’s impossible to know which bird or birds first developed the trash bin technique, but apparently there is not one lone cockatoo genius. During the course of the study, the behavior popped up a second time in a suburb too far away from the first for the spread to be by social learning, Dr. Klump said. The technique was invented again.

What is fascinating about this is that it is not instinct. And we (humans) just don't expect learning and problem solving in other animals, so we had to do a lot of study to prove it.

Better?