Rumor that city in Sweden trained crows to pick up cigarette butts is for the birds

In fall 2025, a rumor circulated that a city in Sweden was using trained crows to pick up cigarette butts as litter. According to claims, the crows had learned to bring the butts to a specific location in exchange for food. 

For example, a Dec. 6, 2025, post on Facebook said the scheme was in place in Södertälje, a city to the southwest of Sweden's capital, Stockholm (archived):

The post had gained 2,200 reactions as of this writing. Older posts making the claim had amassed tens of thousands of reactions — for example one on Instagram from Nov. 16, 2025, and another on Facebook from Nov. 14.

The claim was false, though it required some context. 

In 2022, reputable U.K. newspaper The Guardian published an article suggesting the town was "carrying out a pilot project before potentially rolling out the operation across the city."  

In an email, a spokesperson for the city said that while the head of a startup company known as Corvid Cleaning had "presented his pilot project [project] during Science Week in Södertälje in 2022," the municipality of Södertälje had not proceeded "with any collaboration or project beyond that." 

In other words, the rumor stemmed from a misunderstanding of The Guardian's report. 

Snopes attempted to visit the startup's website, which did not seem to work. We also reached out to the founder, Christian Günther-Hanssen, who said he was not giving interviews at the moment. We were not able to determine whether any project by Corvid Cleaning was ongoing, or if there were plans to implement this scheme anywhere.

While researching the claim, Snopes did come across an older example of crows trained to pick up litter. 

In 2018, several reports across French news media said an historical park in in the West of France known as Le Puy du Fou had trained crows to help keep the park clean. Christophe Gaborit, a falconer at the park since 1993, reportedly came up with this idea while watching crows scratch the ground. He started to train them to pick up detritus they could carry, including bits of paper, wrappers or cigarette butts.

Meanwhile, other initiatives have taken place in Europe to harness crows' willingness to bring objects in exchange for food. In 2018, a scheme in the Netherlands known as Crowded Cities suggested using an existing contraption known as the Crow Box, created in the U.S., to train crows to bring cigarette butts in exchange for food. According to the website, the effort did not last, but the founders helped train another organization in France, Birds for Change.

Birds for Change's website said it was experimenting with Crow Boxes in Paris' Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden, but also in Aix en Provence. We contacted the organization to ask if the initiative was ongoing and we will update this report should they respond.