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The Kid Should See This

Litter for food: Teaching wild magpies to recycle

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Nature enthusiast and an electronics expert Hans Forsberg created a machine that rewards local magpies with food when they throw away litter. In the video above, a magpie arrives with a bottle cap that Forsberg left in the garden. When the wild bird drops the piece of litter in the machine, a treat drops down in payment.

bird feeder
How did he teach the birds that litter would equal food? The process was multi-stepped with multiple contraptions over a series of weeks. He explains in this video:


teaching magpies
And in this video, he explains how the final set-up, a two-part machine made of a dispenser and a litter-collector, rewards the animals for their good work:


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