Clever ravens have been outwitting quoll feeders and rangers 

A fascinating battle of wits has unfolded at Booderee National Park over recent weeks. Local ravens have been challenging conservation efforts to help the translocated eastern quolls adapt to their new home on park. These ravens, often mistaken for crows, are proving to be remarkably intelligent, creating a superb challenge for rangers trying to protect the food set aside for the quolls. 

Following reintroduction into the Booderee Botanic Gardens, the quolls have been regularly provided with supplementary food—chicken necks and a specially formulated quoll mix—twice a week. This food is placed in ‘quoll feeders’, which are lengths of PVC pipe sealed at one end and suspended above the ground. The design is intended to give quolls easy access to the food while keeping most scavengers out. However, the rangers didn't count on how clever the ravens would prove to be. 

Highly intelligent ravens are among the smartest of all birds. Their cognitive abilities, specifically their capacity to understand the mental states of others, allows them to problem-solve in ways few other animals can. The ravens at Booderee have learned to follow rangers as they stock the quoll feeders, swiftly swooping in to snatch the food before the quolls have even woken up. 

To keep the ravens from stealing the food, the feeders have been redesigned to be longer and narrower. This allows the quolls to squeeze in and access the food, but the narrow openings are too small for the ravens to reach.