Cockatoos in Australia are teaching each other how to loot trash cans

[Still Waters]

Australia's sulphur-crested cockatoos have rapidly turned into big city birds.

In Sydney, these large, white, and noisy parrots (Cacatua galerita) have fully adapted to the urban environment, quenching their thirst in public drinking fountains and foraging for food on the streets.

Some have even learned how to throw open the lids of trash bins to comb through the wastage for scraps. Now, researchers have noticed this phenomenon spreading across dozens of new suburbs in Sydney, and the reason could be down to cultural learning amongst the birds.

https://www.sciencealert.com/clever-cockatoos-have-learnt-and-spread-a-culture-of-trash-bin-looting

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/456

[papageorge1]

Allow me to throw up a controversial theory here I've heard discussed by people like Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. 

The hundredth monkey effect is a hypothetical phenomenon in which a new behavior or idea is spread rapidly by unexplained means from one group to all related groups once a critical number of members of one group exhibit the new behavior or acknowledge the new idea. The behavior was said to propagate even to groups that are physically separated and have no apparent means of communicating with each other. (Wikipedia)

My understanding of Sheldrake is that so-called 'instincts' are stored in species' group soul's memory. There are certainly examples of mysterious abilities that animals will react with in situations they were never taught to encounter. After enough individuals of the species learn a trait (how to crack a certain type of nut, the multi-step lifting of garbage lids) it becomes increasingly ingrained in the group's soul level knowledgebase.

Now I have even heard on the human level Rupert speculate that children born today might 'take to phones, computers, TV remotes' more quickly than humans born a thousand years ago would.

I understand the materialist-skeptics will have none of this but I suspect there is some truth in this. A species evolves on a soul level too.

[Myles]

3 hours ago, Still Waters said:

Australia's sulphur-crested cockatoos have rapidly turned into big city birds.

In Sydney, these large, white, and noisy parrots (Cacatua galerita) have fully adapted to the urban environment, quenching their thirst in public drinking fountains and foraging for food on the streets.

Some have even learned how to throw open the lids of trash bins to comb through the wastage for scraps. Now, researchers have noticed this phenomenon spreading across dozens of new suburbs in Sydney, and the reason could be down to cultural learning amongst the birds.

https://www.sciencealert.com/clever-cockatoos-have-learnt-and-spread-a-culture-of-trash-bin-looting

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/456

This is understandable to me.   Once they see a fellow bird or any animal do something, it stands to reason that they would try it.   I have a couple parakeets.  When I first put the new water dispenser in the cage, they ignored it.   I had to use my finger to splash a bit of water for them to see.   Now they drink from it no problem.