Joshua Klein: The intelligence of crows

Translator: Tjasa Vrhovnik Reviewer: Gregor Vidmar

How many of you have seen the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds"?

Koliko vas pozna film Alfreda Hitchcocka - Ptiči?

Se je komu zdel zelo strašljiv?

Any of you get really freaked out by that?

You might want to leave now.

Morda želite zapustiti to predavanje...

(Laughter)

(smeh)

So this is a vending machine for crows.

To je avtomat za vrane...

Over the past few days, many of you have been asking,

V minulih dneh me je veliko udeležencev vprašalo,

"How did you come to this? How did you get started doing this?"

kako sem se sploh lotil tega? Kako sem se začel ukvarjati s tem?

It started, as with many great ideas,

In kot mnogo krasnih idej,

or many ideas you can't get rid of, anyway,

ki se jih ne moreš znebiti,

at a cocktail party.

se je tudi ta porodila na cocktail partiju.

About 10 years ago, I was at a cocktail party with a friend of mine.

Pred približno 10 leti sem bil na zabavi pri prijatelju.

Sedeli smo in prijatelj se je pritoževal o vranah,

We were sitting there, and he was complaining about the crows

ki jih je začel videvati, kako svinjajo po njegovem dvorišču.

that were all over his yard and making a big mess.

And he was telling me we ought to eradicate these things,

Rekel je, da bi bilo treba ta problem rešiti.

"Ubiti jih moramo, ker so z njimi same težave."

kill them, because they're making a mess.

Odvrnil sem, da je to neumno.

I said that was stupid,

Mogoče bi jih morali samo naučiti česa uporabnega.

maybe we should just train them to do something useful.

On je trdil, da je to nemogoče

And he said that was impossible.

And I'm sure I'm in good company in finding that tremendously annoying,

Prepričan sem, da gre tudi vam zelo na živce, če vam kdo reče,

when someone tells you it's impossible.

da je nekaj nemogoče,

zato sem naslednjih 10 let v svojem prostem času bral o vranah.

So I spent the next 10 years reading about crows in my spare time.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

And after 10 years of this, my wife said,

In po 10 letih branja mi je žena rekla,

"You've got to do this thing you've been talking about,

da le moram narediti to,

o čemer vedno govorim: namreč avtomatu za vrane.

and build the vending machine."

In tako sem ga naredil.

So I did.

Toda na nek način me je to zanimalo tudi zato,

But part of the reason I found this interesting is,

ker sem opazil, da se vsi

I started noticing that we're very aware of all the species

zavedamo tega, da vrste živali izumirajo

that are going extinct on the planet

zaradi širitve človekovega življenjskega prostora,

as a result of human habitation expansion,

nihče pa ne posveča pozornosti

and no one seems to be paying attention to all the species

vrstam, ki dejansko živijo - ki preživijo.

that are actually living; they're surviving.

V mislih imam predvsem sinantropne vrste -

And I'm talking specifically about synanthropic species,

to so tiste, ki so se posebej prilagodile življenju v bližini človeka.

which have adapted specifically for human ecologies,

To so denimo podgane, ščurki in vrane.

species like rats and cockroaches and crows.

And as I started looking at them, I was finding that they had hyper-adapted.

Ko sem jih opazoval, se mi je posvetilo, da so hiper-prilagojene.

Postale so izjemno vešče življenja z nami,

They'd become extremely adept at living with us.

And in return, we just tried to kill them all the time.

mi pa jih že ves čas skušamo iztrebiti.

(Laughter)

And in doing so, we were breeding them for parasitism.

Na ta način smo jih samo vzredili kot zajedalce.

We were giving them all sorts of reasons to adapt new ways.

Vedno znova smo jim dajali povod za prilagoditev.

So, for example, rats are incredibly responsive breeders.

Tako so na primer podgane izjemno plodne,

And cockroaches, as anyone who's tried to get rid of them knows,

ščurki - to ve vsak, ki se jih je kdaj hotel znebiti -

have become really immune to the poisons that we're using.

pa so postali izjemno odporni na naše strupe.

So I thought, let's build something that's mutually beneficial;

Tako sem prišel na idejo, da bi morali narediti nekaj, kar bo v obojestransko korist,

nekaj, kar bo dobro zanje in za nas in

something that we can both benefit from,

nam s temi vrstami omogočilo vzpostaviti nek nov odnos.

and find some way to make a new relationship with these species.

Tako je nastal avtomat za vrane.

So I built the vending machine.

But the story of the vending machine is a little more interesting

A zgodba o tem avtomatu je zanimivejša,

če vemo nekaj več o vranah.

if you know more about crows.

It turns out, crows aren't just surviving with human beings;

Kot se je izkazalo, se vrane niso naučile z ljudmi le preživeti,

pač pa so pri tem sobivanju celo izredno uspešne.

they're actually thriving.

They're found everywhere on the planet except for the Arctic

Najdemo jih povsod, razen na Arktiki

in južnem koncu Južne Amerike,

and the southern tip of South America.

le redko pa živijo in se razmnožujejo

And in all that area, they're only rarely found breeding

več kot 5 km stran od ljudi.

more than five kilometers away from human beings.

Morda se jih ne zavedamo,

So we may not think about them, but they're always around.

a vrane so vedno nekje v bližini.

And not surprisingly, given the human population growth,

In glede na rast človeške populacije -

more than half of the human population is living in cities now.

več kot polovica človeštva živi v mestih

And out of those, nine-tenths of the human growth population

in približno 90 odstotkov

rasti populacije se dogaja v mestih -

is occurring in cities.

We're seeing a population boom with crows.

ni presenetljivo, da tudi število vran naglo narašča.

So bird counts are indicating

Preštevanje ptic kaže,

that we might be seeing up to exponential growth in their numbers.

da je to naraščanje skoraj eksponencialno.

A temu se niti ne gre čuditi.

So that's no great surprise.

But what was really interesting to me was to find out

Kar pa se mi je zdelo zanimivo, je bilo odkritje,

that the birds were adapting in a pretty unusual way.

da se vrane prilagajajo na zelo zanimiv način.

Naj vam pokažem primer.

And I'll give you an example of that.

To je Betty, novokaledonska vrana.

This is Betty. She's a New Caledonian crow.

And these crows use sticks in the wild

Te vrane v divjini uporabljajo palčke

to get insects and whatnot out of pieces of wood.

za bezanje insektov in še česa iz kosov lesa.

Here, she's trying to get a piece of meat out of a tube.

Tukaj poskuša dobiti košček mesa iz cevi.

Ampak raziskovalci so očitno imeli problem,

But the researchers had a problem.

They messed up and left just a stick of wire in there.

nekaj so zamočili in ji pustili samo košček žice.

Pred tem še ni imela priložnosti početi česa takega,

And she hadn't had the opportunity to do this before.

vidite lahko, da ni bila ravno uspešna.

You see, it wasn't working very well.

So she adapted.

Pa se je prilagodila.

Tole dela popolnoma sama od sebe. Pred tem tega še ni naredila.

Now, this is completely unprompted; she had never seen this done before.

No one taught her to bend this into a hook

Nihče je ni naučil ukriviti žice,

or had shown her how it could happen.

nihče ji ni pokazal, kako se to lahko naredi.

Vsega se je domislila sama.

But she did it all on her own.

So keep in mind -- she's never seen this done.

Še enkrat: nikoli prej ni videla, kako se to počne.

(Laughter)

Right.

Dobro.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Yeah. All right.

Mhm, v redu.

(Applause)

(aplavz)

So that's the part where the researchers freak out.

To je del, kjer se raziskovalcem naježijo dlake.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

It turns out,

Bolj in bolj smo ugotavljali,

we've been finding more and more that crows are really intelligent.

da so vrane zares zelo inteligentne.

Njihovi možgani so sorazmerno

Their brains are in the same proportion as chimpanzee brains are.

približno tako veliki kot šimpanzovi.

Obstaja več anekdot o njihovi inteligenci.

There's all kinds of anecdotes

for the different kinds of intelligence they have.

Na primer: na Švedskem

For example, in Sweden, crows will wait for fishermen

prežijo na ribiče. Ko ti odvržejo trnke skozi luknje v ledu

to drop lines through holes in the ice.

in se umaknejo,

And when the fishermen move off,

priletijo vrane, izvlečejo trnke in pojedo ribe ali vabo.

the crows fly down, reel up the lines, and eat the fish or the bait.

Precej nadležno za ribiče.

It's pretty annoying for the fishermen.

On an entirely different tack,

Čisto drugače pa je bilo

at University of Washington a few years ago,

na Univerzi v Washingtonu, kjer so pred nekaj leti

izvedli poskus, v katerem so nekaj vran iz kampusa ujeli.

they were doing an experiment where they captured some crows on campus.

Študentje so šli ven, v mreže ujeli nekaj vran,

Some students went out, netted some crows, brought them in,

jih prinesli v laboratorij, jih stehtali, izmerili in te stvari

weighed and measured them, and let them back out again.

in jih izpustili.

And they were entertained to discover that for the rest of the week,

Zdelo se jim je zabavno, ko so odkrili,

da so te vrane še ves teden,

ko so se točno ti študentje sprehajali po kampusu -

whenever these particular students walked around campus,

zaradi njih krakale,

these crows would caw at them and run around,

tekale okrog njih in jim na nek način grenile življenje.

and make their life kind of miserable.

(Laughter)

Bistveno manj zabavno je to bilo... naslednji teden.

They were significantly less entertained

when this went on for the next week.

In naslednji mesec. In po počitnicah.

And the next month.

And after summer break.

Until they finally graduated and left campus,

Dokler niso končno diplomirali in zapustili kampusa -

and -- glad to get away, I'm sure --

prepričan sem, da so bili veseli, da so šli.

came back sometime later, and found the crows still remembered them.

Ko so se kasneje vrnili, so ugotovili, da se jih vrane še vedno spominjajo.

(Laughter)

Poanta zgodbe: ne razjezite vran!

So, the moral being: don't piss off crows.

Ko zdaj študentje na Univerzi v Washingtonu

So now, students at the University of Washington

that are studying these crows, do so with a giant wig and a big mask.

preučujejo vrane,

to počnejo z ogromno lasuljo in masko.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

It's fairly interesting.

Zelo zanimivo.

(Laughter)

So we know these crows are really smart,

Zdaj vemo, da so te vrane res bistre,

but the more I dug into this, the more I found

ampak bolj kot sem ril po tem, bolj sem bil prepričan,

da imajo še pomembnejšo prilagoditev.

that they actually have an even more significant adaptation.

Video: Crows have become highly skilled at making a living

(Pripovedovalec) Vrane so razvile izjemne spretnosti,

ki jim pomagajo preživeti v novih, urbanih okoljih.

in these new urban environments.

In this Japanese city, they have devised a way of eating a food

V tem japonskem mestu so iznašle način

uživanja hrane, ki jim je sicer nedostopna -

that normally they can't manage:

drop it among the traffic.

z višine jo spustijo na cesto.

The problem now is collecting the bits, without getting run over.

Zdaj je problem to, kako pobrati koščke,

ne da bi jo zbil avto.

Wait for the light to stop the traffic.

Počaka na semafor, ki ustavi promet.

Then, collect your cracked nut in safety.

In tako pobere lešnik popolnoma varno.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

(Applause)

(aplavz)

Joshua Klein: Yeah, pretty interesting.

Joshua Klein: Ja, ja. Še kar zanimivo.

What's significant about this isn't that crows are using cars

To, da vrane uporabljajo promet za trenje lešnikov, niti ni tako pomembno.

to crack nuts.

Pravzaprav je to zanje star trik.

In fact, that's old hat for crows.

To se je zgodilo pred približno 10 leti

This happened about 10 years ago

in a place called Sendai City, at a driving school

v avtošoli v Sendai Cityju,

in the suburbs of Tokyo.

predmestju Tokia.

And since that time,

Od takrat dalje,

all the crows in the neighborhood are picking up this behavior.

so se vse vrane v okolišu naučile tega obnašanja.

Zdaj vsaka vrana v razdalji 5 kilometrov stoji ob pločniku

Now every crow within five kilometers is standing by a sidewalk,

in čaka, da bo kosilo nared.

waiting to collect its lunch.

So they're learning from each other. And research bears this out.

Učijo se druga od druge. To podpirajo tudi raziskave.

Starši učijo mladiče.

Parents seem to be teaching their young.

Oni so se naučili od vrstnikov, ti od sovražnikov.

They learn from their peers, they learn from their enemies.

If I have a little extra time,

Če mi bo ostalo kaj časa, vam bom povedal o primeru vranje nezvestobe,

I'll tell you about a case of crow infidelity

ki to dobro ponazarja.

that illustrates that nicely.

Dejstvo je, da so vrane razvile kulturno prilagoditev.

The point being, they've developed cultural adaptation.

Kot smo slišali včeraj,

And as we heard yesterday,

that's the Pandora's box that's getting human beings in trouble,

je to ta Pandorina skrinjica, ki spravlja človeka v težave,

in to se kaže tudi pri vranah.

and we're starting to see it with them.

Vrane se zelo hitro in zelo fleksibilno prilagajajo

They're able to very quickly and very flexibly adapt

to new challenges and new resources in their environment,

novim izzivom in virom v svojem okolju,

which is really useful if you live in a city.

kar je posebej koristno, če živiš v mestu.

Vemo, da je vran veliko.

So we know that there's lots of crows.

Ugotovili smo, da so precej bistre in tudi, da lahko druga drugo učijo.

We found out they're really smart and they can teach each other.

Ko se mi je to posvetilo,

When all this became clear,

I realized the only obvious thing to do is build a vending machine.

sem vedel, da je zame edina logična poteza to, da naredim avtomat za vrane.

So that's what we did.

In to sem naredil.

This is a vending machine for crows.

To je avtomat za vrane.

And it uses Skinnerian training to shape their behavior over four stages.

Pri avtomatu sem uporabil trening po Skinnerju, ki vrane uči v štirih fazah.

Je zelo preprost.

It's pretty simple.

Basically, what happens is that we put this out in a field

Najprej avtomat postavimo nekam ven,

or someplace where there's lots of crows.

nekam, kjer je veliko vran.

We put coins and peanuts all around the base of the machine.

Okrog naprave razstresemo kovance in arašide.

Vrane priledijo, pojedo arašide

Crows eventually come by, eat the peanuts,

in se na napravo nekako navadijo.

and get used to the machine being there.

Kmalu pojedo vse arašide,

Eventually, they eat all the peanuts.

a opazijo, da so še na vodilu,

Then they see peanuts here on the feeder tray,

and hop up and help themselves.

zato skočijo gor in si postrežejo.

Then they leave, the machine spits up more coins and peanuts,

Odidejo stran in avtomat izpljune še več kovancev in arašidov

in življenje je prav krasno, če si vrana.

and life is dandy if you're a crow --

Vrneš se kadarkoli in si privoščiš arašid.

you can come back anytime and get yourself a peanut.

So when they get really used to that, we move on to the crows coming back.

Ko se vrane tega res privadijo, jih naučimo vračanja.

Navajene so tudi zvokov avtomata, še vedno se vračajo

Now they're used to the sound of the machine;

they keep coming back and digging out peanuts

in izkopavajo arašide iz kupa kovancev,

from the pile of coins that's there.

in ko so s tem povsem zadovoljne,

When they get really happy about this, we stymie them.

gremo korak naprej in jih uženemo v kozji rog.

We move to the third stage, where we only give them a coin.

Sledi tretja stopnja, v kateri jim damo samo kovanec.

Now, like most of us who have gotten used to a good thing,

In to jih, kot večino nas, ko se enkrat navadimo na dobre stvari,

zares razjezi.

this really pisses them off.

In začnejo se obnašati tako, kot se obnašajo tudi v naravi, kadar kaj iščejo -

So they do what they do in nature when they're looking for something:

s kljunom odmikajo in razmetavajo stvari.

sweep things out of the way with their beak.

To počnejo tudi tukaj, zaradi česar kakšen kovanec zleti tudi v režo.

They do that here, and that knocks the coins down the slot.

When that happens, they get a peanut.

In ko se to zgodi, dobijo arašid.

This goes on for some time.

Po določenem času

se vrane naučijo, da je vse, kar morajo storiti, to, da pridejo,

The crows learn that all they have to do is show up,

počakajo na kovanec, ga vržejo v režo in dobijo arašid.

wait for the coin to come out, put it in the slot,

then get their peanut.

In ko to res obvladajo,

When they're good and comfortable with that,

sledi zadnja stopnja. Vrane pridejo, nič pa se ne zgodi.

we move to the final stage, where they show up and nothing happens.

This is where we see the difference between crows and other animals.

In tukaj lahko vidimo razliko med vranami in ostalimi živalmi.

Veverice, na primer, bi prišle, iskale arašid, neuspešno, in odšle.

Squirrels, for example, would show up, look for the peanut, go away.

Čez nekaj časa bi spet prišle, iskale arašid, neuspešno, in odšle.

Come back, look for the peanut, go away.

They do this maybe half a dozen times before they get bored,

To bi naredile mogoče 6x, nato bi se naveličale

and then they go off and play in traffic.

in se šle raje igrat na cesto med avtomobile.

Crows, on the other hand, show up and they try and figure it out.

Vrane, po drugi strani, pridejo in zadevo poskušajo razvozlat.

They know this machine has been messing with them

Jasno jim je, da jih ta avtomat vleče za kljun,

through three different stages of behavior.

obnašal se je že na tri različne načine,

(Laughter)

(smeh)

They figure there must be more to it.

torej mora biti še kaj na tem.

So they poke at it and peck at it.

Zato drezajo vanj, ga kljuvajo itd.,

And eventually some crow gets a bright idea:

dokler ene od vran ne prešine,

"Hey, there's lots of coins lying around from the first stage,

da naokoli leži precej kovancev - na tleh so še iz prve stopnje -

skoči dol, pobere kovanec, ga vrže v režo in ...

hops down, picks it up, drops it in the slot, and we're off to the races.

... naj se zabava začne!

That crow enjoys a temporary monopoly on peanuts,

Ta vrana nekaj časa uživa monopol nad arašidi,

potem pa postopek dojamejo tudi njene kolegice.

until his friends figure out how to do it, and then there we go.

So, what's significant about this to me

Pri vsem tem se mi ne zdi najbolj pomembno to,

isn't that we can train crows to pick up peanuts.

da vrane lahko naučimo pobirati arašide.

Mind you, there's 216 million dollars' worth of change lost every year,

Naj vas samo spomnim, da vsako leto izgubimo za 216 milionov dolarjev drobiža,

but I'm not sure I can depend on that ROI from crows.

a vseeno nisem prepričan, da bi se lahko zanašal na ROI (donos na investicijo) vran.

(Laughter)

Instead, I think we should look a little bit larger.

Namesto tega bi po moje morali pogledati širše.

I think crows can be trained to do other things.

Mislim, da se da vrane natretnirati tudi kaj drugega.

For example, why not train them to pick up garbage after stadium events?

Zakaj jih, na primer, ne bi naučili pobirati smeti po prireditvah na stadionih?

Or find expensive components from discarded electronics?

Ali pa med elektronskimi odpadki poiskati drage komponente?

Kaj pa iskanje in reševanje ponesrečencev?

Or maybe do search and rescue?

Menim, da je pri vsem tem najpomembnejše to,

The main point of all this for me is,

we can find mutually beneficial systems for these species.

da lahko najdemo sisteme, ki bodo v korist nam in drugim živalskim vrstam.

Najdemo lahko načine medsebojne interakcije,

We can find ways to interact with these other species

ki ne vključujejo iztrebljanja,

that doesn't involve exterminating them,

pač pa iskanje za vse koristnega ravnovesja.

but involves finding an equilibrium with them that's a useful balance.

Thanks very much.

Hvala za pozornost.

(Applause)

(aplavz)