Study: Australia's Cockatoos Enter Into 'Inter-Species Arms Race' With Humans

An "arms race" between the cockatoos and Sydney residents has emerged as another instance of human-wildlife conflict, which is often driven by animals and birds' foraging for food in inhabited regions. Other examples of this conflict include crop-raiding elephants and monkeys stealing food from people.

Cockatoos, white parrots that feel comfortable in urban environments, have entered into an “interspecies arms race” with human beings in the Sydney region as the birds forage for food in trash cans.

According to a new study published in peer-reviewed scientific journal Current Biology, cockatoos are developing new techniques to overcome obstructions placed on trash cans which the birds have been trying to access.

Previous research into the subject has also already demonstrated that the noisy parrots have developed ingenious techniques for throwing open trash can lids to pry through the waste for food.

The cockatoos have also found ways to remove bricks or other heavy objects that might have been placed there by humans to prevent garbage from spilling on the streets.

The new research, published on Monday, said that the birds are thwarting human defenses, thus revealing an "interspecies innovation arms race” with humans, who in turn are innovating so that the cockatoos aren’t able to pry open trash cans.

Barbara Klump, a behavioral scientist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the lead author of the study, found out during her research that cockatoos attacked 338 garbage cans across 478 suburbs.

Skie Jones, a Sydney resident, told AFP that she had to resort to tying a rope to her trash can's lid after clever cockatoos developed a way to remove the bricks from the garbage can.

"They're evolving. Yeah, like if you go back like five-ten years ago, they didn't know how to open bins so they're figuring stuff out," another local resident told the news agency.

Scientists, however, say that the cockatoos haven’t been able to overcome more involved methods of resistance, such as when humans tie the lid to the wall with a rope or drill screws into the trash can.

Klump said the human response to these cockatoo innovations was the "most interesting part" of the research for her.

"​As the cockatoos learned to defeat some of the humans' protections, the two species appeared to be engaged in a "stepwise progression and reiteration," the post-doctoral research fellow said.

Klump strongly believes that it is the humans who would ultimately win the ongoing arms race.