Editorial: Toilet-training cows, whatever next?

Where are you going, Daisy? Over yonder hill to the shed, I need to go number ones. Photo / Brett Phibbs, File

EDITORIAL

Some people in hard lockdown may have thought they'd either gone completely mad - or had a Rip Van Winkle experience and woken up on April 1.

Cows, it was reported this week, can be toilet trained.

Lindsay Matthews, an animal behavioural scientist at New Zealand's University of Auckland, proved this by working with colleagues on tests at an indoor animal research lab in Germany which used a sweet treat to coax the cows to push through a gate and urinate in a special pen.

Reportedly, it all started with a half-in-jest question on a New Zealand radio talk show about the problem of livestock waste and the research results were published on Monday in the journal Current Biology.

Given the success of this, might we suggest some further trials?

How about trying to get a politician to answer a question directly; without obfuscation? While the cows went potty from some sweet molasses, perhaps our elected representatives might just give us some straight replies for a glass of rosé?

Or perhaps to get our public health experts to agree on the best course for a way out of this Covid quagmire? That said, it's difficult to guess what inducement public health experts might go for. Most treats are likely to be on their naughty list.

Or, even more urgent right now for those doing hard time in forced isolation, go back to the cows and train them to deliver takeaway coffees? Mmm... make our flat whites with extra frothy milk.

That would be something worth waking up to.