French theme park ’employs’ birds to pick up trash

The Puy du Fou theme park in western France has recently employed six unusual members to its work force. They are a group of birds that have been ‘hired’ to collect trash in exchange for food.

The six rooks named Boubou, Bamboo, Bill, Black, Bricole and Baco officially started their new gigs on Monday. Their job is to collect small pieces of paper and cigarette butts. For the record, the park would like to note, the corvid colleagues are not replacing any human cleaning staff.

“The park is very clean,” said Puy du Fou President Nicolas de Villiers. “The purpose of the crows … is to educate the people, to open their minds, to think, ‘OK, the birds are able to do something that we are much more able to do than them, so we should do this by ourselves.’ ”

Cigarette butts, in particular, seem to be dropped with abandon by people who could easily take them to a trash can, de Villiers says.

Why not just pick them up? Even a bird can do it, after all.

Read more here: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/13/638205639/french-theme-park-asks-crows-can-pick-up-trash-why-cant-you