神操作！法國主題公園“僱傭”烏鴉撿垃圾
公園中總少不了垃圾，尤其是小而難纏的菸頭等。法國的一個主題公園想到了一個好辦法：訓練烏鴉來撿垃圾。上週末開始，6只“出師”的烏鴉已經開始它們的清潔工生涯。烏鴉撿完垃圾扔進垃圾桶後，就能領取到“報酬”。
ScienceAlert網站截圖 If you've been paying attention, you know that corvids (crows, rooks and ravens) are remarkably intelligent birds. Now these feathered geniuses have been given a job: six rooks have been trained to pick up rubbish in the Puy du Fou historical theme park in western France.
如果你平時留心的話，應該知道鴉科動物（烏鴉、白嘴鴉和渡鴉）是絕頂聰慧的鳥類。現在這些智商超羣的鳥兒們得到了一份工作：6只白嘴鴉接受訓練後將在法國西部的歷史主題公園“狂人國”撿垃圾。
Whenever Boubou, Bamboo, Bill, Black, Bricole and Baco deposit a cigarette butt or other small piece of trash in a special receptacle, it dispenses a treat - rewarding the rooks for their efforts.
這6只白嘴鴉的名字分別叫波波、斑布、比爾、布萊克、布里克爾和巴科。它們將菸頭或其他垃圾碎屑放到一個特別的容器中，容器就會發放一個小食，來獎賞白嘴鴉的勞動。
The idea came from one of the park's falconers, Christophe Gaborit. As part of the falconry show, crows had already been trained to pick up roses and bring them to a princess - so in the 2000s, Gaborit raised and trained two rooks to do the same with rubbish.
想出這一主意的是公園一個名爲克里斯托弗·蓋伯裏特的放鷹員。訓練烏鴉銜玫瑰獻給公主，本就是放鷹秀的節目之一。於是在2000年到2010年間，蓋伯裏特就馴養了兩隻白嘴鴉來撿垃圾。
The training system is not dissimilar to experimental setups for testing corvid intelligence, in which a dispenser issues a food reward when a crow correctly performs a task.
這種訓練體制和測試鴉類智商的試驗安排並無不同，都是在烏鴉準確執行任務後由分配器發放食物獎勵。
Earlier this year, we saw research in which a type of "vending machine" was used to teach crows how to tear paper into a specific shape. And 10 years ago, "hacker" Josh Klein built a similar vending machine to reward crows for retrieving lost money. So we know the concept works.
今年早前曾有研究用一種“自動售貨機”教烏鴉如何將紙撕成特定的形狀。十年前，黑客喬什·克萊恩製造過一個類似的售貨機來獎勵取回丟失錢幣的烏鴉。由此可見，這一理念還是可行的。
The rooks were deployed for the first time over the weekend, and they'll be working four days a week under close supervision - not for the birds, but to make sure the humans don't deliberately drop rubbish to watch the birds clean it up.
白嘴鴉於上週末首次出動去撿垃圾，它們將在密切監視下每週工作四天，不是要監視鳥，而是爲了確保沒有人爲了看烏鴉撿垃圾而故意丟垃圾。
That's because the aim of the rook garbage collectors isn't solely to collect garbage - it's also to get park-goers to think before they litter.
這是因爲讓白嘴鴉做清潔工的目的不只是爲了撿垃圾，還爲了讓公園裏的遊客在丟垃圾前三思。
"The purpose of the crows ... is to educate the people, to open their minds, to think, 'OK, the birds are able to do something that we are much more able to do than them, so we should do this by ourselves'," park president Nicolas de Villiers told NPR.
公園負責人尼古拉斯·德·維利爾斯告訴美國國家公共電臺說：“讓烏鴉撿垃圾的目的……是教育人們，開放人們的眼界，引發人們的思考：烏鴉能做的這件事情對我們來說輕而易舉，我們應該自己把垃圾扔進垃圾箱。”
"It's a funny way to show the people that you cannot throw the papers everywhere."
“這是教育大家不要亂扔垃圾的一種有趣的方式。”
