“Cluing into the kea’s smarts at social learning might actually benefit the sheep farmer,” says Schwing. The best way to deal with kea attacking your sheep? “Remove the young male that has started the practice of feeding on the sheep before it spreads as knowledge within the group,” he advises. “If you move that young male—and it’s almost always a young male, what we call an ‘innovator personality’—sheep and birds can live again peacefully until the next young male comes along to innovate.”
