Crows love cheeseburgers. And now they’re getting high cholesterol.
▻https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/08/crows-high-cholesterol-urban-cheeseburgers-animals/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw201
In a study published today in the journal The Condor, Townsend and her team show how urban living affects the health of American crows, including their cholesterol, and what happened to a rural population when burgers became part of their diet.
Crows Can Has Cheezburger?
Like other successful urban wildlife, crows survive in part by eating our food. Often that means eating whatever they find in our trash, including processed foods not found in nature. (Learn why crows are among the smartest birds.)
Previous studies had found that wildlife in urban or heavily touristed areas, like house sparrows and rock iguanas, respectively, had elevated cholesterol levels.
Townsend set out to learn whether urbanized crows also had higher cholesterol levels than their rural cousins.