Slashdot Mirror
Police Vulture Training Not a Success
rbrausse writes "Some time ago Slashdot covered the German police vulture training scheme; now it is time for a follow-up. BBC reports that the project has failed to take off. The trained vulture hasn't shown interest in working as a detective and confuses human with animal remains. Additionally the bird is shy and prefers to travel by foot."
Glad to know that if I'm assaulted and left at the very edge of my life in Germany, there will be trained police vultures to come finish me off so they can begin devouring my flesh.
too bad. Have they given any thoughts to breeding for rather than training for the correct qualities in the target? With a little patience, amazing results can be achieved in a relatively short time. A Russian experiment showed that in as little as 50 years, wild foxes can be selectively breed to be as friendly as puppies.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
I've never seen a pun so logical with the problem like this.
The International Buzzardhood of Detectives
"Police Vulture Training Not a Success" This title sounds like this article was mis-filed and really belongs on "The Onion."
We have turkey vultures that return to nest in a tree on our property every year. They're intelligent critters, and they do not "finish off" injured animals. They do clean up roadkill remarkably quickly. Late in the summer their young leave the nest and the parents follow them around our yard as they learn to fly.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
In other news the police lion project was also cancelled after the cats proved more interest in tearing the police-dogs limb to limb and then feasting on the arms of the trainers.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Vultures didn't make it into 2. They should have trained with Hellions instead.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ah. I was going to point out that I always called them buzzards until someone told me it was politically incorrect.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
FTFA:
It had seemed such a great idea. What if the police had sniffer dogs that could fly? Dogs do not have wings, they realised, but birds do.
- I have suspicions about these cops. How did they come up with this? Were they sitting in a circle, passing a bong around, when the usual conversation of "My hands are HUGE" was all of a sudden interrupted by a guy, who watched too much Discovery channel?
-Oooooh, guys, I have an idea! It's BRILLIANT. What if birds could be cops? ...
-Holly shit, you are onto something there, man! But wouldn't it be better if cops were birds?
-I like birds.
-I want birds.
-I am a bird.
-No, you are not.
-Yes, I am.
-No, you are not.
-Flap your wings then.
(flap flap flap)
-HOLY SHIT! You ARE a bird!
-I knew a bird once. She was pretty, had this pretty blond hair. We went out a few times, but it didn't end well.
-Did you eat her?
-Vultures.
You can't handle the truth.
They were trying to prove that there are in fact creatures that are stupider, lazier, dirtier, more opportunistic and definitely willing to strike when a man is down than police.
They should have tried lawyers, then.
Vultures are minor league in comparison.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
..they used a teenage vulture.
The key problem was that the bird kept circling local McDonalds' and refused to leave. The trainer explained: "The smell of death made him very excited."
Aside from the obvious title fun, pigs are smarter than buzzards by far and they are already used to find truffles. Seriously, if they can be trained for truffles, they could be trained for finding a buried body. Imagine the hijinks of having a pig that can find both. It would be a twisted sort of lottery on what the pig found unless you could get him to distinguish between the two and signal which it is. Train them to find weed too would be a great trick. And bombs! Yes!
"Today, Pigs found a bomb and saved the day, details at 6 and 10!"
"Did you hear what that news guy called the police?"
"No, I wasn't paying attention."
"He said the pigs found a bomb!"
"Bravo for the pigs then, they weren't out handing out tickets then."
"No, it was real pigs that found the bomb."
"...as opposed to part time pigs?"
"No, these were real pigs as in oink oink, four legs, root around pigs!"
"I get it, they were full time pigs."
"No!"
"No? Either they are pigs or not?"
"Yes, they are pigs but they are swine."
"Aren't all cops swine?"
"From many's point of view, but these aren't cops they are pigs. Well, they are cops, but they are pigs first then cops second."
"So you are going "good cop, bad cop" with this? And pigs are the bad cops?"
"No, no no! These pigs are good cops, they found that bomb! But they aren't cops, they are pigs!"
"Whatever, now you are just being a dick."
Take the Red Pill.
I thought vultures employed police, not the other way around.
I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
anything? At least for once it's not the US tax payers money German cops 1-0 American cops.
Ah. I was going to point out that I always called them buzzards until someone told me it was politically incorrect.
Unfortunately, I will ruin the joke and play biology bird/nerd for a moment and note that "buzzards" are hunting hawks, not vultures, so it's politically and biologically incorrect!
that's the european usage, the New World uses the term as a slang word in a less precise manner in different regions to mean variously, vultures; chicken hawks (a colloquialism for Cooper's Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk or Red-tailed Hawk; or Peregrine Falcon (Duck Hawk).
Yah. I think in the vernacular in the U.S., hawks actually go out and hunt for stuff while buzzards chow down on stuff that's already dead. I guess that would mean "hawks" are somehow more noble. But to give the buzzards (or vultures) their due, they certainly play a part in cleaning up the place. I saw an American Black Vulture sitting as nicely as you please on an abutment overlooking the busiest throughway in my city about two years ago. Because of the way the road is cut, I was actually up the hill from him and above him. (Or her, who knows). I thought he would make an excellent PSA for driving safely and fastening seat belts.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
As soon as they realized that dogs don't have wings, did they consider fitting them with jet packs?
this was tried before but unfortunately the dog was dead before she could locate any corpses