Crows are really smart. Well, smart enough to know that there is no need to fly when they can ride the subway in Japan without a ticket, but their intelligent behavior has been well known for a while now. Many have observed that when troubled crows are helped out, they sometimes show gratitude to the humans who aided them by bringing back shiny pieces of trash as a "present", or paying them regular visits. Now one Japanese Twitter user from Osaka is finding out that appealing to the intelligence of crows is a great way to get them off your back--and onto the backs of others!

Garbage day in Japan is, for the most part, a well organized affair. Designated days for burnable, non-burnable, and recyclable items are scheduled by your neighborhood, they are left out in the morning during assigned pick-up times. However, as many leave their trash out earlier in the morning on their way to work (or worse, the night before), crows eagerly search out the less protected trash spots and search for food or whatever catches their eye. This leaves trash strewn across the sidewalk, which becomes a nuisance for the neighborhood. Perhaps hoping to prevent this, @DD_kuroshio_kai decided to take up some advice they had previously read on Twitter:

I previously read on Twitter that "if you greet the crows politely, they'll think you're a friend and stop messing with trash and doing bad things", so I started waving and saying "good morning!" and "hey there!" to the crows around my house and they really stopped doing it! They mercilessly lay waste to houses further away.

So while it looks like @DD_kuroshio_kai has solved their crow problem by buddying up to the trash-seeking birds, it appears those new feathered friends have simply designated @DD_kuroshio_kai's trash space as a no-fly zone, opting to terrorize garbage bags down the block. Which makes you wonder, what happens if we all started making friends with crows? Try it out--make a crow friend today!


By - grape Japan editorial staff.