Flying high, not getting high: the poppy-eating cockatoos of Tasmania are no opiate addicts

Scientists say it’s the poppies’ fat and protein, not their narcotic alkaloids, that keep the birds coming back for more

Amaani Siddeek

Fri 14 Feb 2020 19.00 GMT

Tasmanian farmers have reported their poppy crops are being ravaged by cockatoos, but experts say it is likely that it is a taste for the fatty seeds, and not an addiction to opiates, that is attracting the birds.

Tasmanian farmer Bernard Brain told the ABC on Tuesday that flocks of about 300 white cockatoos had decimated his harvest by ripping capsules from his poppy flowers and eating them, leading him to believe that the native birds were addicted to the alkaloid found in the seed.

Poppies, which naturally produce opium, are used to produce highly addictive drugs such as morphine, opium, heroin and codeine.

But Maggie Watson, a lecturer in ornithology at Charles Sturt University, has cast doubt on that theory.

“The pathways of addiction for birds and mammals are very different,” she said.

“[The cockatoos] are not affected by the opiates in poppy seeds, rather they are interested in the fat content of the seeds.”

Poppy seeds are high in fat (about 50%) and protein (about 22%), so they are very nutritious for the cockatoos.

A spokesperson from BirdLife Australia supported this and said: “Our senior bird expert says he’s not entirely convinced it is about the cockies being addicted.

“I actually think it is a case of these intelligent birds discovering and exploiting a new food resource rather than them becoming the junkies of the bird world.”

Continued

Clever cockatoos bend hooks into straight wire to fish for food

September 5, 2017

In the early 2000s the New Caledonian crow Betty in Oxford shocked the world when she spontaneously bent a hook into a straight piece of wire while trying to retrieve a small out-off-reach basket with a handle from a vertical tube. Interestingly, when human children were tested on a similar task setup they showed great difficulties with coming up with a suitable solution until the age of nearly eight years. New Caledonian crows are specialized tools users in the wild and their ability to handle tools is innate. Nevertheless, in this case Betty seemed to innovatively produce a novel behavioural sequence on an unknown material.

At the time, studying cognition in birds was still a young area of research and thus her hook bending abilities became a textbook example of intelligent tool manufacture in animals. By now brain and behavioural research has shown that some birds such as corvids and parrots seem to possess complex cognition at similar levels as higher primates and show similar neuron counts in the respective brain regions. Nevertheless, the studies on Betty the crow recently came under scrutiny when field researchers from the University of St Andrews found that wild New Caledonian crows used strikingly similar bending techniques to add curvature to the tool shafts of twig tools in the wild. They therefore suggested that Betty's solution was hardly innovative but could be strongly influenced by predispositions from habitual tool use and nest building.

Researchers from the University of Vienna and the Veterinary University Vienna now tested another bird species the Goffin's cockatoo on the same task setup.

Read more at:

Cockatoos Get Protection to Curb Illegal Pet Trade

By RAMONA YOUNG-GRINDLE 

WASHINGTON (CN) - Three species of cockatoos have received final listing status under the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Philippine cockatoo and the yellow-crested cockatoo are listed as endangered, while the white cockatoo is listed as threatened.

Because the white cockatoo is listed as threatened, the USFWS has also issued a special rule for that species under the ESA to allow import, export and interstate commerce of the birds without a permit if they are captive-bred or already in captivity at the time of listing, as long as those activities were in compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Wild Bird Conservation Act, according to the agency's press release. The ESA's special rule clause is not applicable to species listed as endangered.

The Friends of Animals (FOA) petitioned the USFWS to list the cockatoos and 11 other parrot species in 2008. In 2010, the FOA and the WildEarth Guardians sued the agency for failure to issue a 12-month finding on the petition. A 2010 settlement agreement outlined a timetable for determining listing status for the species and the three cockatoos were proposed for listing in August 2011, according to the action.

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Cockatoos crack lock-picking puzzle

By Michelle Warwicker, BBC Nature

Cockatoos can pick their way through a series of locks to reach a reward, scientists have found.

Researchers presented 10 birds with a box containing a cashew nut treat, which they could reach by removing five different interlocking devices.

One of the Goffin's cockatoos, called "Pipin", solved the complex mechanical puzzle unassisted within two hours.

Several other birds mastered the task after observing peers or being presented with the locks incrementally.

The study, carried out by scientists from the University of Oxford in the UK, the University of Vienna in Austria and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, is published in the journal PLoS One.

To reach the nut, the captive Goffin's cockatoos (Cacatua goffini) had to remove a pin, followed by a screw, a bolt, then turn a wheel and move a latch sideways.

"The progress of the birds towards the solution is unaffected by the fact that the goal is very distant," said Professor Alex Kacelnik from the University of Oxford's department of zoology, who co-authored the study.

Read on

Bird brains can crack nut trading game with self-control: study

OSLO (Reuters) - Cockatoos can delay eating nuts in order to win tastier ones, a surprise sign that birds can exercise self-control, a trait usually seen as the preserve of animals with larger brains, a study showed on Wednesday.

Scientists gave Goffin cockatoos, a mainly white species from Indonesia, a nut while showing them a more attractive one just out of reach. If the birds did not nibble the first nut for up to 80 seconds, they learnt they would get the second instead.

"Imagine placing a cookie directly into a toddler's mouth and telling him/her that he/she will only receive a piece of chocolate if the cookie is not nibbled for over a minute," said lead author Alice Auersperg at the University of Vienna.

"Only few, typically large-brained animals have been shown to be able to inhibit the consumption of an immediate food reward in anticipation of a bigger one for more than one minute," the University said in a statement.

The birds were given pecan nuts, and all 14 of those studied waited for up to 80 seconds to win a more attractive cashew nut, according to the findings in the journal Biology Letters.

A video showed one bird, Muppet, waiting 40 seconds while strutting agitatedly around a table top with the first nut in its beak before exchanging it for a second.

(http://youtu.be/c86EYtmllhc)

Self-control in human infants was studied in the 1970s in the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. Under that test, children were given a marshmallow and told that they would get a second if they did not eat the first for several minutes.

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Paradise Park cockatoos have first chick

A pair of cockatoos smuggled into the UK from Australia as eggs have had their first chick at an animal park in Cornwall.

The red-tailed black cockatoo chick is being hand-reared by staff at Paradise Park, near Hayle, after being hatched in an incubator.

Its egg was taken away to be hatched because its parents had broken other eggs, the park said.

Staff said their latest addition was "very endearing".

The adult birds had so far not managed to raise any chicks because of previous egg-breaking, the park said.

Smuggling vest

Curator David Woolcock decided to prevent this by taking an egg before it was broken and hatching it in an incubator.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-20115147