Crows are a constant source of amazement. The last couple of years, we have watched our local population take up the practice of crushing walnuts under moving carwheels. I know this trick is performed with high levels of sophistication in many parts of the world - nevertheless, it has been fascinating to see this new behavior take hold and spread among the many, many crows in the region. It's hard not to fancy a pair of disapproving corvid eyes boring into you whenever you've let your instinct take over and have swerved.<p>Actually, I'm getting more and more into the habit of <i>not</i> swerving. For everyone else, absolutely, but not really for the crows. They have my vector to any number of decimal points, and will nonchalantly hop out of harms way at the last possible moment - often into the opposite lane, if no oncoming traffic is seen there. We <i>never</i> see them as roadkill. Pheasants, gulls, sparrows, what have you, but never the crows.
I imagine Aussies could make a bigger dent in their cane toad problem by giving some smart folks a budget to teach classes and produce educational videos specifically for crows.<p>Spread the knowledge on how to safely eat cane toads to every corvid on the continent, much faster than that information could spread naturally.<p>Some crows have a concept of death and mortality, and the ability to make causal associations. It is certainly possible to teach them a skill by literal demonstration, and may be possible to teach via symbolic representation.<p>Catch a bunch of cane toads. Prepare the edible parts from some as motivational snacks to attract interested crows. Use a crow puppet to naively eat a model cane toad, and make it "die". Then use another crow puppet to manipulate and eat a model toad avoiding the poison glands. Give a live cane toad to a crow known to have the skill, so it can demonstrate. Then release some live toads for novices to try it out.<p>Then attempt an experiment to show a video of that demonstration to an ignorant flock, and see if they can acquire the skill that way.
Clever crows, but a real shame other predators are being killed off because of their unfamiliarity with an invasive species. I wonder if any naturally immune individuals will rise up from the loss of their main populations.
I recommend this excellent and hilarious documentary if you'd like to find out more about cane toads:<p>> Cane Toads: An Unnatural History<p><a href="https://imdb.com/title/tt0130529/" rel="nofollow">https://imdb.com/title/tt0130529/</a><p>(I have found versions of this on YouTube, but unsure how legal they may be)
In some respects, if human development followed the cane toad, we would become virtually indestructible. As children, we would use them as cricket balls and some would still hop away afterwards. We found that inserting lit penny bungers into them was an effective way of terminating. Freezing them was also effective, but your mother tended to object to them being in the freezer.<p>What was disturbing about them was the size that some would grow to. I personally have seen one that was about 20 cm (8 inches) high. I have heard of them being much larger.
I feel bad for those frogs. Imagine being eaten/beaten for 40 minutes by a crow. Probably left to slowly die after it is done eating you.<p>And the crows friends are watching the whole time too.
These frogs are really strange - usually poisonous animals have some way of clearly showing not to mess with them: bright colors, smell, sounds they make...
Reminds me if this joke from QI, the UK TV show:<p>"Australians have a big problem with cane toads. They have a foul odour and spread like wildfire. And they have a big problem with cane toads."
Seems to be a handful of videos on YouTube of this phenomenon. A bit in the gruesome direction as a warning to others
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lWX5x0Kmgs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lWX5x0Kmgs</a>
There's a few videos posting about the phenomena from 6-7 years ago so apparently they've learned this trick for some time.
"During much of this process other crows stood and watched."<p><pre><code> EXT. A FIELD OUTSIDE BRISBANE - DAY
CROW 1: I dare you to eat that poisonous frog.
CROW 2: Hold my beer.</code></pre>