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Crows are intelligent birds and learn quickly – even from each other. In Sweden, they are used to collect cigarette butts and bring them to a machine that automatically rewards them with peanuts. (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by slothrop@lemmy.ca to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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Corvid Cleaning: Deploys Crows to Clean Up Cigarette Butts in Sweden

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[-] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

This phenomenon is called Perverse Incentive , also known as the Cobra Effect.

[-] jqubed@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

For people who don’t want to watch a video, here’s the Wikipedia explanation:

The results of a perverse incentive scheme are also sometimes called cobra effects, where people are incentivized to make a problem worse. This name was coined by economist Horst Siebert in 2001 based on a historically dubious anecdote taken from the British Raj. According to the story, the British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, and the cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population.