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.'"
Elsewhere, (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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:What the Hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats newsworthy about this is : (Score:4, Insightful)
no really, he was really, really overly smart. major geek stuff.
Re:What the Hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A new beginning... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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:What the Hell? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd actually like to nominate this a one of kdawsons best use of editorial control for a long while.
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.
Re:What the Hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
The ad hominem isn't against me. It's what I see as your campaign against kdawson, which is what motivated your remark to begin with. I don't really notice who-edits-what - I'm not really a Slashdot trainspotter - but you assumed that since he posted it, it must not have been of value or interest. You were wrong.
And the "practically useful knowledge" remark reinforces my observation about iPhones, CPUs and videogames.
Re:Uhm... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 of intelligence before the animal goes to the trouble of communicating with them.
Re:Uhm... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're full of it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:No offense but (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No offense but (Score:2, Insightful)
He is fully flighted. I take him outside with me all the time. He pretty much has free reign of the house when I am home. When I am not home he has to play all day in his gym and listen to the radio. He is only in a cage to sleep which I think he would prefer to being hunted 24/7. He was not wild caught so all of the things you're complaining about are non-applicable. Rather than saying no one should have birds as pets, perhaps you should say that people should do their homework before they buy animals to make sure things are on the up and up. The birth of my bird didn't affect Africa or Australia any more than my birth is affected Switzerland or England.
It is tragic that bad things happen. It is more tragic when people over-react to those bad things and tromp all over things that make people happy.