Alex the African Grey Parrot Dies 242
grrlscientist writes "Yesterday, I received the devastating news that Alex the African Grey parrot, who was both a study subject and colleague to Irene Pepperberg, died unexpectedly at 31 years of age. 'Even though Alex was a research animal, he was much more than that. This species of parrot generally lives to be 50-60 years old, so Alex was only middle-aged when he died. According to some reports I have read, it is possible that Alex might have succumbed to Aspergillosis, a fungal infection of the lungs that he has battled in the past. However, the cause of death will not be known until after a necropsy has been completed... Alex's veterinarian is returning from vacation to personally conduct this necrospy.'"
Cue the... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cue the... (Score:4, Funny)
Ok no jokes, but did we get any last words [wikiquote.org] to quote then?
Re:Cue the... (Score:5, Informative)
"Four...corner"
Alex, what color?
(slowly) "Browwwn"
Climb in, Alex (closes lid).
He was going mad years ago and it made me sad to see him. When I first learned of Alex, he had just begun to be displayed for the media and he looked great. A few years down the road, after he (and his handler) had become media darlings, he had plucked every feather he could. Among parrots, isn't that a sign that things just aren't right?
Re:Cue the... (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading about this broke my heart. As a parrot owner myself, you hope that your bird outlives you. And yet, in some ways, they're just so delicate. You can't take a nap next to your parrot because you might roll onto it. You have to keep their wings clipped, or they might fly into a ceiling fan, or a burner, or escape (which in most places is a death sentence due to hawks, inclement weather, etc). You have to be very careful when using teflon, because the fumes from overheating teflon are very poisonous to parrots. You have to be careful about smoke of all kinds, because they tend to perch high and are sensitive to smoke (all birds are sensitive to bad air due to their highly efficient lungs -- hence a "canary in a coal mine"). You can't give them caffine, chocolate, avocado, and all sorts of other things. And on and on. I once read about a person who had raised an African Grey for a decade, and got it a mate. After a long time, they finally bred, and at long last, the chicks hatched. He was so happy for them, and wanted them to keep their strength up, so he picked them an avocado off his tree. Didn't know they were poisonous to parrots. Came back an hour later, and the whole family was dying.
It's so easy to grow attached to a parrot as you would a child. You know, when you have a dog or a cat, they have their own world. You love them, but they're a different species, and they never really attempt to blur the line. A dog happily sticks its head in a bowl of dog food, runs around with a wagging tail, sniffs other dogs, and in general has its own little world. Parrots tend to live in your world. Mal, my amazon (named after Mal from Firefly), takes part in our life. He goes with us when we go outside, and even on the plane when we travel cross country (he's small enough to take as carry-on). He eats off our plates, the same food we eat, every meal (we're vegetarians; our diet is very similar to his natural diet). You don't "pet" him -- if he wants to be scratched, he'll let you, but he's just as likely to want to "scratch" (preen) you back. . It's a mutual social relationship, not a relationship where you only give. He goes to the bathroom on command (although he still has the occasional accident). He asks for up when he wants it ("I want up"). He invented a tradition of kissing before meals when he's really happy (rather than walk straight to the food, he walks over to us and says "Kiss!" and then kisses us). When he does something wrong that we've taught him is wrong, he often tries to hide it, just like a little kid. He solves puzzles better than children his age -- seriously. At just six months old, he figured how to get at an inaccessible treat ball by grabbing it by its support rope, hauling the rope to a safe spot, and wrapping it in place so it would stay while he ate. He can take apart wooden clothespins in less than 15 seconds, unbutton the clasps on my shirts, and once even removed the hinge pin to take apart a kitchen magnet (took us a half hour to get it back together -- we only gave it to him because we didn't see a way *we* could have taken it apart). He even addresses us by name -- I kid you not. I'm "Kareh" (Karen), and my partner is "Elay" (Elaine). If I'm fixing dinner, and he's getting impatient, I'll invariably hear, "Kareh! I want up!" If the wrong person tries to pick him up, he gets angry.
Yet, he's just a year and a half old. Like a Grey, he should live to be 50-60.
When something knows your name, it's hard not to see them as a family member... I really feel for Dr. Pepperberg and her staff right now.
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A roof over your head, three square meals, and all the drugs you can want. Now, give me a computer with internet access, and I'm not seeing a down side here.
Re:No offense but (Score:5, Insightful)
Mal's cage door only shuts at night. He has half of my entire living room to himself, a veritable jungle. He treats us like he'd treat his flock in the wild. And regardless of what you call "anthopomorphizing", his intelligence really is impressive, and we've tested it. A common demonstration that I'll do is to put a finger front of him and then say some random word. He does nothing. Then I'll say up, and he goes up. I can hold him over a trash can, and say "Go potty", and if he can go, he does right then. He really does solve the sort of puzzles that I described (I have video -- want to see it?), and he really, honestly does address us by name, and he really isn't happy if the wrong person comes. If I'm cooking dinner, 98% of the time, he calls for me ("Kareh!). If Elaine is, 98% of the time, it's for her. This isn't anecdotal; we've been paying extra attention to this. If this is some sort of "trick", as opposed to name recognition, I'd really like to know how he's pulling it off. I can take video if you need it.
Re, flying: he can still "fly", just not gain altitude. All that matters is that he not be able to make it to a kitchen burner or a ceiling fan. He can still cover the distance halfway across the house. Furthermore, Amazons are a lot more oriented to climbing than to flying (if you've ever looked at one, they're rather stocky birds). They love to climb (hence the standard advice to make sure that their cages have plenty of horizontal bars).
Anyways, who are you to tell me that even though my (captive raised) bird is demonstrably happy, that he'd somehow be better off starving and trying to dodge predators out in western Mexico (his native habitat)? Hey, you're a human -- your native habitat is the plains of east-central Africa. Want me to ship you back over there? Even if Mal was wild raised and knew how to survive out there (which he isn't; he'd die quickly), he'd undoubtedly be shunned by the other local parrots since he doesn't know their habits and they're very social, "community-oriented" animals.
Anyways, Mal just called Elaine (who is fixing breakfast) and said he wanted up. She just picked him up, and he just said, "Good Elaine!". Breakfast will be ready in just a minute, so I better get going.
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The funniest
Uhm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)
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I think you're full of it.
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Indeed, but are we talking about African, or European parrots?
But white ones can dance! (Score:2)
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Everyone calm down. This poster is incorrect, it was a grey parrot that died. Check TFA, that bird is not colorful at all. So I think we're safe for now.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)
Ok... *still trying to figure out how this is newsworthy* I know, I know.. I'm new here...
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Sad. I didn't know colors mattered, too.
I thought all the fuss was about african vs. european ones.
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Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Informative)
You must not know much about this. Alex was an incredible bird. I've seen him on TV a couple of times. Many birds can repeat things. Some might even be able to associate (say specifically ask for food).
Alex, though hard training and probably natural ability was far beyond that. He knew tons of words. He could answer simple questions and interpret human language. I remember seeing videos of them giving him a little toy car and asking him what it was, to which he responded "truck" (close enough). He did this with a couple of objects. They could ask him what color an object was and he could tell you.
Check out the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] article on him.
This is news, like Washoe dying would be news (is Washoe still alive?)
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm also pretty sure that one of the releases of Parrot (the perl6 VM) was named after him [slashdot.org]. If that doesn't make his death "News for Nerds", then I don't know what does.
News for Nerds? (Score:4, Funny)
Initially I read Nerds as Birds... which would make for an interesting headline:
News for Birds, stuff with crackers
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Funny)
Too bad he's dead. If he could grasp the concept of null as well, he would be a fine programmer.
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Nah...his typing would just be hunt and peck.....
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
And, making generalizations that far surpassed what some of the top dolphins have done, and what we are barely doing with chimps now.
Heck, I have met people in bars with less cognitive awareness than this bird.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)
"Alex, would you like some corn?"
*squawk* "Why do you want to talk about some corn?"
"Well, we could talk about something else."
*squawk* "Does it please you to believe we could talk about something else?"
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From what I've heard, he made prelearned sounds in response to certain shapes or sounds. That's nothing like answering any kind of question or interpreting any language, let alone human language.
Human language is a unique feat of evolution and it's not arrogant to say so, it's simple fact. Our trying to find it in other species would be the same as a bunch of giraffe scientists looking at a human and saying "wow, he stretched his neck a whole qua
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As the owner of many large parrots and dogs over the last 40yrs, I can attest to the fact that both species understand certain words, phrases and gestures to the point that they can comunicate what they desire. Of course the owner also needs a modicum
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How often do you think he heard the phrase, "Karen -- I want up!" in my house? Do you think that's a phrase that my partner and I use with each other? No -- he first learned the command "up" (which we'd give to him), then learned that saying "I want apple"
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-human intelligence is interesting for some of us, even if said non-humans don't come from another planet.
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Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, the shark jumps you.
What about the Norweigan Blue? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What about the Norweigan Blue? (Score:5, Funny)
Profit? (Score:3, Funny)
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2: ???
3: Profit!
2 probably involves some sort of comedy routine, rather than any attempt to sell the thing, though.
Great attention grabbing first sentence (Score:4, Funny)
This coming from someone who calls themselves grrrlscientist. You could probably make some videos to pay for your research.....
Alex was cool. (Score:5, Informative)
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Language use requires word polymorphisms, grammar, and verbs.
Noted linguists such as Noam Chomsky did not feel that Alex's use of the 100 english words Alex knew constituted a true language.
An average college graduate in the USA has a vocabulary of 100,000 words.
Still, Alex displayed remarkable intelligence for a bird.
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Language use requires word polymorphisms, grammar, and verbs.
Noted linguists such as Noam Chomsky did not feel that Alex's use of the 100 english words Alex knew constituted a true language.
An average college graduate in the USA has a vocabulary of 100,000 words.
Still, Alex displayed remarkable intelligence for a bird.
The average American high school graduate knows only 4 words. Yes. No. Beer. fuck. The other 99,996 are all just synonyms for those 4 they pick up in college.
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The last 4 paragraphs read thusly:
There are some things that the birds do that, colloquially speaking, "just blow us away." We were training Alex to sound out phonemes, not because we want him to read as humans do, but we want to see if he understands that his labels are made up of sounds that can be combined in different ways to make up new words; that is, to demonstrate evidence for segmentation. He babbles at dusk, p
A new beginning... (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is fairly important news because, from what I understand, most Alex's success has not been replicated with other birds. Hopefully this will prompt her and/or others to better describe the conditions under which animals (and humans) come to do things we refer to as language as opposed to simply cataloging differences between species which are all too easy to find.
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For the sake of completeness... (Score:5, Funny)
The cast:
MR. PRALINE
John Cleese
SHOP OWNER
Michael Palin
The sketch:
A customer enters a pet shop.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The owner does not respond.)
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
Mr. Praline: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you
show...
(owner hits the cage)
Owner: There, he moved!
Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour
ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's b
No no he's not dead, he's, he's resting! (Score:3, Funny)
Pining for the fjords? (Score:5, Funny)
Luckily for me, Alex died young - I don't know if I could have held out for another 19-29 years...
Whats newsworthy about this is : (Score:4, Insightful)
no really, he was really, really overly smart. major geek stuff.
Arrrggghhhh!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
May he rest in Davy Jones Locker in peace. Arrrgghhhh!!!!!
What They Didn't Tell... (Score:2, Funny)
how sad (Score:4, Funny)
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This is slashdot. Everybody here uses own arm to try to "mate".
Nevermind, read TFA and TFcomments, some interesting story about nuts, really.
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Of Course It's Tech News! (Score:2)
I was about to rejoyce ... (Score:2)
Birds live long (Score:2, Interesting)
obHomer: Mmmmmm.... peppered bird...
Primer (Score:2)
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As a parrot owner, sad news (Score:5, Interesting)
Although parrots have small neocortexes, they are clever little creatures. Brady has good analytic (puzzle solving) abilities, but his long term memory seems to be limited to things that he has been exposed to many times - this is just my own opinion, not backed up by any scientific research.
I work at home and can frequently give our parrot attention during the day - please don't even consider getting a parrot unless either your family can give it frequent attention and play time every day, or get a mated pair that can keep each other company. We find that we can't really leave rady in a room by himself, so we move him to where ever we are in the house, or better yet, just let him run/fly around (also known as running amuck
A problem with parrots is that they do bite - I get a good bite every month or two, but I try to not let it hurt my feelings. I could probably avoid most bites by not handling Brady when I know that he is pissed off, but why bother.
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Brady probably reaches speeds well over 30 miles an hour flying around our house, but he avoids crashes, knows about windows, etc. I am careful to let him know if I am going to walk through a doorway while he is flying to avoid any unfortunte ramifications of the conservation of momentum and the pauli exclusion principle
Baby birds mess up on the flying thing a lot, but it must be like learning to ride a bicycle - once you have it down, you have
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If humans were birds, we would die in the shell. With our giant noggins we'd be completely unable to weild the egg tooth to crack out of our shell. Birds have a lot more pressure to develop cognitive capacity without also developing cognitive bulk. It's hardly surprising that birds accomplish more with less.
I personally regard Alex as a lot more interesting and significant than any Apple product. However, the topic is hardly worthy of discussion. It could work as a honeypot. -1 for everyone who chimes
Tastes like chicken! (Score:2)
I ate what? Well, how would I know it was a talking parrot?
Banerry (Score:4, Interesting)
The coolest bit was that he invented a word for an apple (banerry)
based on its similarities in color and taste to fruits he knew.
He's not dead... (Score:2, Funny)
If you want to help... (Score:5, Informative)
Irene's research was instrumental in helping understand the cognitive ability of animals (ironicly, her research started out as trying to help brain damaged humans rebuild cognitive ability through Model/Rival training).
Irene has a big heart and I know she must be crushed from this loss.
If you want to support her research with her 3 other birds (lab space and research assistants aren't free), please donate a check made payable to:
The Alex Foundation MS/062
Department of Psychology
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02454
Attn: Alex Memorial
The Alex Foundation [alexfoundation.org] is a 503c not-for-profit organization.
Re:Elsewhere, (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but that doesn't give us a cue to commence the recital of Monty Python routines.
I don't know... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know, the Chinese government says they're sleeping.
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Oh yes it does, but nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Re:Elsewhere, (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly a bunch of Chinese miners dying isn't particularly unusual or newsworthy, either. That's what happens when you have hardly any safety measures at all.
Re:Elsewhere, (Score:4, Interesting)
However, in one sense, the idea that it's not unusual for large groups of miners to die due to insufficient safety measures...is itself newsworthy.
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However, in one sense, the idea that it's not unusual for large groups of miners to die due to insufficient safety measures...is itself newsworthy.
Sure it is, but on slashdot? The technical solution is trivial. Similarly, the political/managerial parts of the solution are also no-brainers. All we're really left with is the observation that some people (certain mine owners and local officials in this case, if they're distinct categories) are scum. But that's not news anywhere; it's just depressing (and its consequences, statistics).
I so wish I could be less cynical about this all.
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It is quite newsworthy, though. This parrot had particularly beautiful plumage.
Re:What the Hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the Hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What the Hell? (Score:5, Informative)
There was a book about Alex, called "The Alex Papers," describing the research, and the relationship between the researcher and Alex. It may have some flaws, but it is still important work.
You may be right about that poll, though. That's what I describe as a "decline." The term "idiocracy" comes to mind.
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The other guy said it best - this story is not interesting because it's not about the research or about cognitive science or anything useful at all. It's about a parrot dying. It's very tangentially related to an interesting subject, and you'd have to be pretty damn interested in the particular research of one particular researcher to even care about this. I'm not saying that there isn'
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Yes you are right, I did attack kdawson, the guy/gal annoys me terribly. I went so far as to write an email to CmdrTaco complaining about kdawson's editorial quality, I find it that bad.
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Do you think it wouldn't be "news for nerds" to report the death of Laika?
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The interesting research part was in TFA.
It's not electronic (Score:2)
I must admit, at first I was wondering why an article about a parrot was on the front-page of slashdot. I'm a regular, but apparently I haven't caught Alex on the news on slashdot before. However, the article was enough to pique my interest and look up a bit more of Alex... although
Re:What the Hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have modpoints and you're at +5 already, so let me instead say: BRAVO. Well said.
This sort of quirky, hard-to-categorise but somehow "of geeky interest" story is what brought me here. Sadly, in recent years, such stories have come along every few months, buried under a flood of flamebait RIAA/MS are evil / fanbait Google/Apple are glorious tripe, which are clearly just trolling for maximum ad impressions. And when they DO come along, someone pops up and complains they're not related to Halo 3 or whatever idiotic computer game is flavour of the month at the moment, and therefore not news for nerds.
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I have seen the bird on a BBC documentary (PBS originally) and if this is the same bird I remember that was totally nuts. I could not believe what I see and what I hear. It was surreal.
This is news. Sad unfortunately.
Well, duh. (Score:2)
It's not like the histories of artificial intelligence and cognitive science as fields of study are inextricably linked. We haven't been going back and forth between models of thinking based on computer programming and models based on human or animal behavior, building from one to the other, for over fifty
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Because I don't want to miss the 1/3 of stories that he posts that are worth reading. I am worried about missing something, because even though kdawson is the worst editor slashdot has ever had (although it's a close race with zonk), every once in a while even he/she/it posts something wo
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I'd actually like to nominate this a one of kdawsons best use of editorial control for a long while.
Re:Gov't had something to do with it? (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, it seems that Alex died on the 7th and his necropsy won't be conducted until the tomorrow, the 10th. The thing about avian tissues is that they tend to autolyze rather quickly. If he really died of aspergillosis and has fungal plaques all over the lungs, air sacs, and liver then the diagnosis is a no-brainer. On the other hand, if the diagnosis requires high quality histologic sections to make- well that might be harder with three-day-dead bird tissues.
Why would anyone wait three days for his personal veterinarian to return when there are boarded veterinary pathologists at Angell and Tufts in the state who could be called in over the weekend? Seems like with a bird this famous, it would have been worth the effort to do things right.
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