Why City Birds Love Cigarettes

Urban birds like house finches and house sparrows are great at finding materials to repel pests and parasites from their nests. Unfortunately, one of those materials is used cigarette butts.

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[SoulDragonWithFlow]

Non-Smoker here and I genuinely did not know those filters were plastic; I assumed they were paper, cotton or some other fiber. Learn a bonus new thing along with all the other cool stuff from this video. Thanks, SciShow.

[mastershooter]

The title and thumbnail made me think birds just started smoking unfinished cigarettes on the ground

[awsomebot]

It's crazy that we had to change plastic straws and all... but cig butts are a greater problem and people dont even REALISE its plastic.

[jensalan]

I never liked when people threw cigarette butts on the ground. Knowing they're made of plastic makes it so much worse.

[orinblank]

The butts are awful. When I was smoking, they were always a nuisance because I refuse to litter. Then you have to carry around a smelly cigarette butt until you can throw it away. The worst though is when you find one while hiking. You can be up in the most gorgeous area of nature, then look down and see an orange cigarette butt on the ground. It always made me so irritated. I pick up any of them that I encounter

[amynoah]

My grandparents used to feed tobacco leaves to their goats, sheep, horses and cattle for parasites.

[RILDIGITAL]

It's astonishing how urban wildlife is adapting to human-related pollution, even capitalizing on its harmful aspects for survival.

[bglas]

😭 thank you for telling me that they're plastic. Someone told me they're cotton or something. Going to be way more careful with my butts and be more diligent on stopping smoking

[Demrik_Dergoat]

I remember when I was a teen we used to feed our farm cats raw ground beef balls with a little pipe tobacco stuffed in the center. It seemed to do a good job of treating them for worms. It is was an age old practice we learned from the local generational farms around the area.

[zabis___x]

Am I the only one who didn't know cigarette butts were made of plastic?

[fiddley]

I live in London and I was walking along one of the canal paths one day and saw a rather large nest made substantially with McDonalds straws...

[Evergreen]

I can picture a bird coming up to you and saying "Hey man. You got a smoke?"

[rogierbesselink]

At the company where i work, the birds don't bother bringing the sigatettes to the nest, they just built their nest inside the metal ashtray that is attached to the building 😂

[BL]

Did anyone else think that they were a paper product?

[martinstyppa]

Few weeks ago a crow crossed my path with a packet and still some in it. I was baffled.

[Mydigitalepitaph]

If you own a cat, you can help the birds with building materials. Every time you groom your cat, collect the fur. Once you have a golfball sized amount, go to a park or a back garden and place it on a twig in a tree. The birds will soon gather to take away bits of the fur to aid in insulating their nests.
I regularly leave my cats fur in our garden for all the birds to freely use.

[aoifedeborha]

The fact that most of us only knew the cancerous properties of smoking says quite a bit about the advertising of tobacco 😂

[BMW_]

You can get filter tips made out of biodegradable material with a little seed inside, unfortunately their like $15 for 30 which you'll fly through.

[lazrseagull]

The seagull who lives on my roof came in through the window and stole the sponge out of my sink!

[handeggchan]

City birds are so cool though, you gotta admit.