Nature's Most Wanted: Cat burglars and robber duckies

0:00A.B.C. Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. The world right now is a disaster. It's easy to feel helpless, but there was a moment when millions of people around the world said enough. I'm Sisson Kim Simong. Join me for Boycott, the fight to end apartheid, how Australians joined others around the world to push back against racism and won. While it's only teams, we thought that too, the average Australian that would be to speak about Boycott, the fight to end apartheid. Search for A.B.C. Rewind on A.B.C. Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Zorin Kisalowski had a problem. In the small town of River Gashternee in Northern Macedonia, where agricultural fields surround rendered buildings and huge migratory stalks make mammoth nests on power poles, Mr. Kisalowski's honey business was failing to take off.

1:00Every morning, when he'd get up to check the hives, that had been strewn across the ground. Torn apart, the bees were angry and so was Mr. Kisalowski and he knew exactly who was doing this. Not organised crime, not one of his rivals, not an ex and not the local teenagers, it was a bear. I mean, be more stereotypical bear, come on. The bear would return again and again, tearing the hives from end to end and shoving its nose into that sweet honey, licking the money straight out of Mr. Kisalowski's pockets. So, the beekeeper purchased a generator and he lugged it to his site. He set up bright lights and a sound system, but what music would possibly deter a bear with a sugar habit? Setsa is an iconic singer known as the Serbian mother.

2:00She's the sort of star who does shows where 150,000 people will turn up to listen to her turbo folk. How the bees feel about her music is unknown, but it turns out that bear is one of her biggest critics. They didn't like this turn of events and for a time the beehives were safe, until the generator calked it. It took almost no time at all for that bear to return to its damage of property, to its stealing of the honey. There was only one thing to do. Take the bear to court. Welcome to the second episode of Nature's Most Wanted, a series from What the Duck Where I Have Created My Very Own Interpol Red List of Animal Criminals. That is animals who get on the wrong side of the law. You know, Larsen, Arson and Missmatch Tartan. I'm Anjones and finally I have an excuse to turn the tables.

3:06Animals, it is time to rifle through your rubbish bins and find out the criminal dirty secrets of nature's most wanted. This episode is called Cat Burglars and Robber Duckies, where we're taking on stealing, larceny, theft, robbery, burglary and shoplick you get the point. Now you might think that the case of a beekeeper taking a bear to court is frivolous, but you'd be wrong. The bear that ate the honey and hated setsa was wild and therefore didn't have an owner. It didn't turn up to court that day, couldn't find a suit that fit. So the state had to represent it. And in the end, the state was ordered to reimburse the beekeeper on the bear's behalf. This vindicated man walked away with a sick techno folk collection and a sound system, probably both of them taxed deductible and the equivalent of about $3,500,000.

4:08The bear was never apprehended. Now, apparently, quite a few European countries have this sort of situation, you know, that if a bear eats your honey or a wolf defrauds you, the state will offer you some reimbursement. It's as if the state acknowledges that among the wild animals within its borders, there will always be a criminal element. So is stealing sort of natural to animals? This is Leo Leonardo da Pinchy. And he's not very happy to be inside. He wants to go outside. Oh, dear, he wants to go on a crime spree. It probably does. Surely this is my moment as a journalist. I can feel the walkie in my hot little hands. Pop him out now, so he doesn't harass us. Because I've managed to get an interview with the elusive crime boss cat burglar of my rangy bay New Zealand boy Leonardo da Pinchy Leo is a Tonkenese. It's a cat breed that is a hybrid of a cyme's and a Burmese cat.

5:13Then known to be pretty loud and smart and Leo in particular is a known quantity with the local sock cops. But it was particularly it was my husband's socks. He was obsessed with my husband's socks and boxer shorts. We thought was initially really cute, but then when we let him outside, he sort of was like, oh, and I came from work and there was like 10 socks on our lounge floor. And my husband's vestidiously clean, drives me nuts. And I was like, wild earth is timid with all these socks everywhere. And then Tim came home and was like, those aren't my socks. I don't own any of those socks. And then we were having dinner and Leo walked in the door with a t-shirt. And we were all just sh- And then we just started doing it pretty much daily. We've had that come from that summer's beautiful handmade sock. That's not yours, dude. It's not the same. We need you to get that one. Exactly where do you think you're going with that?

6:14Oh, Leo! On Sunday, it brought in four things. Oh, it's a nightmare. Yeah, becoming intimately acquainted with the undies of your neighbours is nowhere near sexy as it sounds. And so we made a WhatsApp group with all these people. But I think he goes to, and that just keeps getting added to and added to. Helen estimates that Leo has stolen in excess of 300 things. That is one talented, clipped-o-kitty. And you can track some of his antics on his very own Instagram, Mr. Undescore Leonardo Undescore, Da Undescore Pinchy, which is a lot of typing for little catty-toots. Leo, where did he even get it? Uh-oh. That is not yours, Leo. Someone's massive cuddly, toy snake. Leo, there's a baby in the neighbourhood with one cold foot. What? Why? Do you think he does it? I think, initially, when he was a kitten, he liked to fetch. If he used to get the socks and then we'd throw them,

7:15and then he'd bring them back to us and then we'd throw them. So maybe it's some sort of gateway to crime fetching scenario. A basic internet search will pop up these cat burglars all over the world. There's Kylo, the pirate kitty from Brisbane, with hundreds of offences under his collar. Mary and Ohio, she specialises in bringing home mouthfuls of leaves. And the real-life, slinky malinky at a school in New Zealand, who hit the headlines for dragging a giant towel out of the school yard like she'd just caught an antelope. I got in touch with Dr Julia Henning, whose PhD was all about feline behaviour to ask, what are they doing? What are they doing? See? I mean, that's a good question. Unfortunately, we don't have empirical answers to, because it's quite difficult to study that sort of behaviour in cats. Which is absolutely the most cat answer ever, right?

8:15There are mystery. But Julia says that part of this story is anatomical. Cats have very small stomachs, so it's much more efficient for them to, when they kill an animal, eat a little bit what they need now, and then take the rest back to their territory and hide it for later, when they need the food. Alright, so this is a little snacky for later. Exactly, yeah. So it could be like later this afternoon or tomorrow sort of a thing. But then why are they doing this with things that aren't food objects? When their food needs met elsewhere, it's possible that they're going out there and they're having fun praying on these items, and then bringing them back to stash at home, because that instinct is so ingrained in them. So even though it's not a food item or something they're going to eat later, their instinct is, I killed this thing, so I'm going to bring it home and save it for later. So that's one theory. Alright, let me relay that to Helen, the owner of Leonardo da Pinci.

9:16And it clicks over this automatic drive. Yeah. And he brings it back. So he can't help himself. And when it first happened, you probably reinforced the behaviour. We enabled him. Oh, Lord, I never like to blame the parents, right? Everyone's just doing their best. But... The cats may do that behaviour once. Maybe they saw underwear, for example, on the line blowing in the breeze, and they're like, oh, that looks like a bird. And they captured it and they brought it home. And then their person has seen this and gone, what? And the cats learned, oh, if I do this, I get attention. Ooh, he says I've been for attention. So this could potentially be positive reinforcement criminal behaviour. This is all like incredibly cute, but we should also be mindful that some of the things that cats like to collect can be a hazard for their health.

10:19Strings, hair dyes, rubber bands, which can lead to some pretty tragic consequences or very expensive vet bills or both. Meanwhile, back in New Zealand, Leo has stolen a $300 cashmere sweater and has resisted any attempts by Helen to train him to only bring back non-traceable gift cards. Recently some people bought a house just up the road from us and I went around to take some back to them because I figured it was their house and she was so thrilled. She said, oh, the real estate agency there's a cat that steals things around here and we were so hoping he'd target us. Wait a second. The real estate agency. What are they doing to the cat? You and your cat are listening to what the duck. I'm Dr. Andrew Jones and we are right in the middle of an episode all about animal thieves, critters that just can't seem to keep their fangs or beaks of our stuff.

11:21In 2018, a spate of robberies occurred in the Kyoto prefecture in Japan and it started with just one sandal going missing and then another. And then almost every night for 10 days straight sandals waiting for human feet outside doors were swiped. Was this some sort of pervert? A sandal museum stocking up on exhibits was this a centipede? What to do? Except for the obvious thing if you've ever watched a detective movie, a stakeout. At midnight, all is quiet and the police are waiting outside a house with sandals at the door. Imagine here a montage of cops waiting because it takes six hours for the suspect to turn up. A fox. And when they follow it to its home, they find 40 or so pairs of sandals,

12:22which is a lot when you've only got four feet and you can't do up buckles. The behaviour exhibited by Leo of bringing things home that aren't necessarily food can occur in the wild as well. But let's face it, most of the stealing that animals do from us is directly related to their tummies. Can you see on the right hand side there's a little chat icon. I'm on a video call with Milcha Bohert and Associate Professor in Animal Behavior at the University of Exeter. She has a deep interest in seagulls. I've just put a link in there. Yes. Yes. That open for you? Oh, it's been banned. Yes. Stephen Seagull has been banned from a convenience store in Dorset in the south of England. Why? Because Stephen has been trying to... Actually, not trying to. He has been successfully stealing packets of chips

13:23for at least seven years. And in a video from 2024, Stephen is seen inside the shop grabbing a packet of chips off the shelf and making a run for it out the door and across the concrete. His favourite flavour is, apparently, beef. The store tried putting spicy flavours low on the shelves at the sneaky seagull height. But Stephen Seagull has them... under siege. Stephen knows how to get what he wants. They're just so smart. There are people often call them wings rats because they feel that niche of just eating whatever people dump and breeding on any kind of flat roof they can find. I'm not sure of Stephen's literacy level, but regardless, he takes no heed of the sign on the door saying he is banned from entering the shop. He is one street smart, hearing girl. But still, think about it.

14:23Stephen Seagull is going into an enclosed space where he cannot escape easily. He is risking a lot for his chips. So, what's the go? Our Seagulls just feel us. And how could you assess that, you know, scientifically? So we actually use thermographic cameras for this. So you can look at the change of blood flow in an animal. And so, when you measure a temperature drop around the eye region, this indicates either excitement or fear. So we did this experiment where we lured a gall in with a fake pasty pasty, like call zone, but the kind of Cornish equivalent. To be fair, I would potentially be lured into a life of crime for a Cornish pasty. So we lured them in an infrared camera filming then and played back either alarm calls of conspecifics. Conspecifics means animals of the same species.

15:23Or a robin song. Another type of bird. Or a man shouting. A common reaction to having your Cornish pasty stolen. Just because we wanted to see if a man shouting would be as scary or as fear inducing as conspecific alarm call. And it turns out you see a temperature drop around that eye region for both of those treatments. Both the gull shouting and the man shouting caused a physiological reaction of fear in the birds, which seems obvious. But let's break it down, Skins. It means the gulls understand at least some of the communication of another species. So for the second experiment, then we wanted to know if any kind of man's voices are scary or if it's specific to the shouting. Can the gulls understand nuance in the way that humans make noise? And so we did the same experiment, but here we had a man shouting, a man just speaking calmly, the same words.

16:27I can hear what you're shouting right now. I know the comparative volume would scare the bird. But the research has got around that by altering the sound. So the shouting is the same volume as the talking, like this. That's my pasty. Please, be more British. That's my pasty. So that took the volume out of the equation. So first, the control sound, robinson. So they just keep doing what they're doing? They used hot chips in this experiment, and the gulls took no notice of the robinson at all. Even though it's the exact same volume from the exact same speakers as the men's voices. Then with the men speaking, they are not a big fan of that. No, stay away. That's my food. That's my pasty. So they would often stop what they were doing and show some more vigilance. And the same was true when the man was shouting. No, stay away. That's my food. That's my pasty. However, when the man was shouting,

17:28they would stop in the tracks and most likely fly away. Whereas when the man is talking, they would most likely walk away. The gulls could tell the difference in the words said with angry tones and rhythm and intonation, versus the words that were neutral. So that shouting really induces this sense of urgency. So it's really a different intensity of response. The other thing we know about stealing food from people is that, well, we think it's learned because juveniles, so the young ones are really terrible at it. Stephen has developed the skills needed to be a potato poacher over time. He's learned about this shop, who works there, how they talk and act. Stephen has basically become an anthropologist and he knows exactly how far he has to swallow his own seagull fear when he needs to stay just snack attack. There's just huge individual differences in personality and risk-taking and I think it's going to be a very, very small subsection

18:31of gulls that will show this behavior. He's like those people who did the art heists at the Louvre, but he's art and he's art. He's with the beef crisps. Because the manager of the store said the crafty seagull made off with about 30 packets of crisps in the past two months alone. I try and explain to the powers that VR got stock loss because of a seagull and they think it's a joke. I mean, how smart is that? It's funny though, because if something like a chimp does it, we're all like, oh, this is amazing. But then, you know, the humble seagull doesn't have that same level of admiration. You're not far wrong, Neutr. And you've led me to a perfect segue. Perhaps the greatest thieves of all. Monkeys. The reason for this is the primate species that has the largest, distributional rings right next to humans. And neighbors that live too close together

19:31absolutely get on each other's nerves. Sindo Radhakrishna is a professor of behavioral science at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bengaluru, India, and an expert in the interactions between humans and monkeys. It's an extremely adaptive and sturdy monkey. And therefore, it's kind of an attitude to the very cognizant creatures. And, you know, face off with the reasons it's not a pleasant experience. But it's all equally true that people are also sure ignores a month of tolerance for, you know, when their food is stolen. Yes, Sindoja said, even though they can be quite scary to interact with, people are generally quite tolerant when their food is stolen, which is amazing, right? But what happens if it's something else that the monkeys are after? Like a phone. Oh, just wait a tick. I have to take a sex. Stop. Just recently, there's been a couple of videos

20:32that filtered through my social media that show McCaps not doing the average monkey mugging in one video on an old concrete awning and McCaps sits peering over the edge. Now below, men with backpacks appear to be negotiating with the monkey because he has a phone, a pricey one according to local reports. The monkey waits. He's letting them get nervous. What a genius. This monkey has a plan. And eventually, the men bring the goods for its juice. And they toss it up into the air where the macaque catches it seamlessly, transfers it into its mouth and immediately drops the smartphone off the edge of the building all in one smooth movement. So this is something that people study monkeys and noted and they describe it as rob and butter behavior. And monkeys will take things from there and hand it back when they get food in place.

21:32Rob and butter sounds like some sort of bougie men's wear brand. But actually, it describes an incredible amount of cognitive work for the monkey. So this is the exchange of a token. That is something that is of no inherent value to the monkey. They don't really probably get what a phone is or get what a wallet is. But they know that it has value to someone else. So realizing what is valuable to another species, then acquiring it and then getting a maximum payoff. This is the start of economics. I've spent the last fascinating just watching all monkeys watch us. How monkeys watch us. How they scope us out as marks. And, you know, I'm trying to figure out why is it that monkeys target some people versus others. What is it that they're reading about people? You know, it's just not random. They actually observe and figure out,

22:32you know, who can they snatch this from and who is better off protect this from? And we think we are so smart. They aren't. The sanitary lesson to watch monkeys watches. If they start using the stolen phones for betting on the trots or catfishing your grandpa, we'll know it's time to give way to the planet of the apes. But riddle me this. Is shoplifting some chippies, pilfering a party, or nicking off with a Nokia, a gateway to more heinous, serious crimes? It's Boxing Day. The stillness of time between Christmas and New Year in a suburb with really big brick veneer houses and tall fences. There's old concrete driveways that are crumbling a bit. Everything seems normal, mundane, even. It's just a very quiet day in a street in South Africa. A panic button is pushed once,

23:32and again, and again, and again, and again. It's frantic. And along the winding street tears several security service cars with stickers on their sides, indicating that security workers inside are armed and ready to use their arms to fire those arms. They rally along the otherwise quiet streets, dodging huge plastic bags of rubbish that are left out for collection, and scream to a halt at the house. In the intervening minutes, the panic button pressing has gone silent. It is now no longer in range of the receiver in the house. Because a monkey had broken into the house and nicked the remote, running off, pressing the button maniacally like a toddler that just discovered Apple Pay. So if these monkeys could press the buttons of a security force trained to use force,

24:32could they fall and maybe even kill you? A monkey in the Indian capital New Delhi has been accused of murder. What the duck? In the next episode of Nature's Most Wanted, we're turning our eyes towards killers, murderers, liquidators, exterminators, and homicidal ideators. No more of this pussy-footing around with undies. It's big cats in big trouble on what the duck. Now if you love true crime, then you should absolutely go and subscribe and follow what the duck, not because we do true crime per se, but because it really helps us out if we have more subscribers. And if you don't want to do that on your phone, you can probably do it on your mum's phone when she asks you how to email her favourite show what the duck. It's what the duck at abc.net.au. I'm Ann Jones, and what the duck is made for ABC Radio National on the lands of the Kulin Nation.

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