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Comment by disordinary | Hacker News Reader

In Aotearoa-New Zealand we set traps for introduced species like stoats, rats, possums, etc. that kill our endangered wildlife that evolved without natural predators.

The Kea which are very smart mountain parrots will go and disarm the traps in order to eat the bait. They're smart enough to have figured out how to do this, and are one of just a handful of animals that habitually use tools, but are unfortunately too smart for their own good because their handiwork means there's more predators for them.

But, some people don't give animals enough credit. Mammals and especially primates are very, very close to Humans genetically. Animals are often very smart.

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> unfortunately too smart for their own good because their handiwork means [certain doom]

Reminds me of a certain mammalian species.

Almost like this trait might be inherent in all mammals. Or does it go even higher? All animals? All life? Evolve intelligence, begin building your doom?

Kea are birds.

Plants are possibly in that club too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

I thought this would be something more like how plants chemically communicate with each other about insect infestations so other plants can proactively protect themselves or "scream" (give off a pulse) when attacked.

GP was talking about life causing its own doom, so I thought that plants causing a climate change and mass extinction due to uncontrolled growth would be appropriate.

This does miss the "crafty solution to an immediate problem" part that you and the original article mention, though.

I totally misunderstood what you were going for.

In that vein, one of my environmental studies textbooks had a comic of microbes creating oxygen way back when and some of the microbes holding protests against them poisoning their environment with all that icky oxygen waste gas, ew.

Reminds me about https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/ which is incidentally very much about the mammalian species you are thinking of, as well as canids.

> introduced species like stoats, rats, possums, etc. that kill our endangered wildlife

Yep. Like. Humans?

If you’re hiking in NZ, especially in alpine territory, watch out for Kea. They will figure out how to steal your food, even if it’s in the pocket of your bag!

And all alpine chalets and cabins in Kea habitated areas have warning signs about leaving windows open with pictures of the share devastation they cause when they get inside. Where I live we have Kaka which are related to Kea. All they do is tear trees to shreds.

This is a problem with baboons in chalet and cabin areas in the southern African bush as well. They're able to get into a window (if not locked) and devastate a cabin in their search for food, they're able to open chip and food packets, unscrew jar lids etc. In their case I think the opposable thumbs are what really come in handy.

> I think the opposable thumbs are what really come in handy.

they literally come in handy :-)

I’ve seen south-african monkeys carefully opening the rear-door of tourist cars (as they stopped to take pictures), grabbing some loot, and running away as fast as light. There are actual human thieves who are dumber than that.

Monkeys make me nervous, it’s like I’m looking at drunkards in a pub: probably stronger than me in hand-to-hand combat, only slightly less smart, undoubtedly more vicious, and completely unpredictable to the untrained.

The Cockatoos and other parrots love to get in rooms at various resorts in Australia as well. We had them destroy a packet of chips and spread it around a room while staying on Hamilton Island.

This smartness and their very consciousness and ability to suffer is what makes industrialized meat production so ruthless.

I generally avoid meat for this and other reasons, but the Kea for sure don't seem to care about animal rights:

> The video confirmed what many scientists had long suspected: that the kea uses its powerful, curved beak and claws to rip through the layer of wool and eat the fat from the back of the animal. Though the bird does not directly kill the sheep, death can result from infections or accidents suffered by animals when trying to escape.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea#Sheep

Or cats playing with mice, or ants, crows or vultures eating sick animals alive, or seagulls biting bits off of whales ...

No, animals are not nice themself.

But if we claim, we are higher evolved, we can do different.

Make no mistake, animals are ruthless. Watch a documentary about hippos. What happens when a new bull takes over is messed up.

We aren't simply hunting. We cage and destroy at a scale natural death can't match. There are deals like 6 chicken wings for $2. No thought is given to the conditions these animals are raised into slaughter.

Allow me to add that somewhere, I believe we're changing for ourselves first ... people are probably missing some sense of value, some bond with nature and animals, some sense of worth, and food quality.

At least when humans used to hunt, they had to make a real effort to eat, they had skills, they knew first hand what it was to kill and bleed an animal, they didn't waste. All these are existential bonuses.

So, what you're saying is the Keas that stripped the rubber round my windscreen up at Mt Hutt, thought my car was a big metal trap with tasty goodies inside?

I think they just like to watch our reactions.

Some are even filming this for KeaTube. "You won't believe how this Human reacts to broken car windows" - 12 million views.

Clearly the next step is to somehow communicate with the Kea.

How does their handiwork make them targets?

The traps are there to kill the introduced predators that hunt the Kea, their eggs, and chicks.

By disarming the traps there are more predators to hunt them.

on the other hand, having more predators culls the less cunning: the specific predator as an individual that was going to end up in the trap is probably not going to eat the specific Kea bird that disarmed this trap. So the Kea bird that disarms a trap has a benefit at a cost to the group of Kea birds, so comparatively this Kea bird has an advantage over the other Kea birds...

Stoats, rats, and posums are introduced invasive predator species in New Zealand, which prey on native birds such as parrots.

By disabling traps, the parrots increase their predator population.

A classic case of solving for a net-harmful local optimum.

What’s the bait? Interesting that either the Kea or their predators are omnivorous enough that would happen.

Apparently Eggs. Also the research shows that they enjoy the noise of setting off the trap. They also throw things off cliffs just to hear them hit the bottom.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/09/extraordi...

A lot of parrots seem to do this. A very simple game of action > weird reaction (fun sound).

Parrots use their loose feathers as sticks, ripping them off and cleaning out the inside of their beaks.

Parrots are fucking smart, man. You have to be smart to do weird useless shit to amuse yourself.

Man, have I got a video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uXiAe7Oc-I (It's a crow sledding)

Oh god. Crows and octopodes are my shortlist of who will succeed humanity as the sapient Terran species. Crows probably first; octopodes are smarter, but crows have culture and that’s more important than intelligence because it provides another axis of Darwinian evolution.

Sounds like cat behaviour to instinctively sweep all the items of a table / shelf and watch with interest as they fall.

My theory is that it seems too hardwired to be a "fun game" and instead a selected trait because "things knocked off a great height become more edible" e.g. eggs etc.

Well, can a mountain parrot turn a can into a work of art??

Could you give such animals tools to hunt predators? Like little spears, suddenly turning the balance of weapons around towards the tool users?

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