Original air date - A Question of Balance :: 7:30pm 8th Aug 2017

A Bird’s-eye View: Professor Darryl Jones from Griffith University, explains a new survey into urban ibis in Brisbane, one with some surprising results. Ibis have a very bad reputation in Brisbane and Sydney for being bin pickers and scavengers. The ibis appear to have lost any fear of humans in these places, a cause of concern for Southbank’s restaurant and café owners. Work by Honours researcher, Indya Wilson sheds a light on what is really happening. Indya spent a whole year surreptitiously watching and recording interactions between people and ibis in three locations around central Brisbane. She found an array of interactions. Some people intentionally feed the ibis, some ignore ibis that approach closely and some people get agitated if an ibis is within 100 metres! Most interactions were initiated by humans who actively chose to interact with the birds as close as possible. This behaviour is very different from their scavenging reputation The ibis have learnt to adapt to life in the cities showing they are smart, can learn quickly and have lost their fear of humans.