The French Trained Their Crows, Why Can’t South Utica?

The French have managed to train crows to do simple tasks - think of what this could mean for South Utica.

Its no secret that every year, hundreds of crows descend on South Utica and other towns in Central New York, making life difficult for residents and commuters alike. The crows are loud, invasive, and frankly - kind of freaky when you see them staring at you from the treetops. It's a little too Alfred-Hitchcockian for me, thanks.

It's ALSO no secret that South Utica, like most towns, could use a little sprucing up.

What if we could train the crows to help out? If they're gonna be hanging out, why not put them to work?

It's not impossible, it turns out.

A historical theme park in France has trained six crows to pick up and throw away trash lying on the ground. Each time a crow drops off a piece of trash, a dispenser issues a food reward. And it's working. The crows work under the eye of a handler, mostly so humans won't keep throwing trash on the ground to watch them pick it up, according to Business Insider.

Think about the implications here.

Crows are actually really smart birds. Once we teach them to print out all the garbage in South Utica, we can send them out to the rest of the Mohawk Valley to pick up cigarette butts and the like. But why stop there?

Maybe we could teach them to carry pebbles to fill in potholes. Or, like in Lord of The Rings, they could help fight crime by keeping an eye out for crime and sending out a crow alarm if they spot something suspicious.

We've been looking at the crow invasion all wrong - they're not pests, they're actually a low-cost, migratory workforce - all they need is training.