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Alex the African Grey Parrot Dies
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.'"
Anyone who makes a comment about pining for the fjords gets a slap.
Ok... *still trying to figure out how this is newsworthy* I know, I know.. I'm new here...
Yeah, but that doesn't give us a cue to commence the recital of Monty Python routines.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I don't know, the Chinese government says they're sleeping.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I met him once. He really was a remarkable bird and could use language for communication, not just mimicry. He would answer all sorts of question about objects that you showed him. Some errors, of course, but correct responses way above chance. Together with all the reports over the last few years about tool-making and using in crows, it makes you have a lot more respect for birds. Makes me think of watching crows play and tumble on a strong, turbulent wind or pelican "surf" the air just in front of a nice clean wave. Awesome.
Dead Parrot Sketch
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
Oh please, are you trolling? Firstly slashdot isn't a general news site, secondly there's always more "worthy" news to report, if we followed those criteria all news outlets would be 24/7 death and misery ... we're near enough to that already.
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.
Can you explain to me why this story isn't newsworthy? It's not like this was just someone's personal parrot. This was a very important and rather famous research animal. I've seen him on more than one TV show. I think I've seen him on the evening news once. I know he was a segment on an episode of Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Luckily for me, Alex died young - I don't know if I could have held out for another 19-29 years...
Jeg lever fortsatt. Er litt sliten da... tror jeg skal sove lidt...
Me an Me shipmates extend to ye oer sympathies. Tis tuf to looz a parrot, I wuldnt be da same witout mine. Arrrrrggghhhh.
May he rest in Davy Jones Locker in peace. Arrrgghhhh!!!!!
load "$",8,1
For me, the sign of the decline of Slashdot isn't that they are posting articles on the death of Alex. It's that the readership thinks only articles about iPhones, CPUs and videogames are "news for nerds."
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.
If you did any reading of the article or the other posts on this thread, you'd know that this was significant to people interested in cognitive development, non-human cognition, and linguistics - very nerdly topics, if you get past the lack of iPhones and such. But no, you decided to go ad hominem.
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.
I have a Meyers Parrot named Brady (picture: http://flickr.com/photos/mark_watson/392128570/) who is about 6 years old. When Brady was a baby, I used to show him videos on my computer, not of Alex, but of the Parrot at MIT who used a symbolic language. Brady was fairly much fascinated by the videos, and I showed them to him many times.
:-)
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.
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.
I got the news from another member of my bird club who knew that Dr. Irene Pepperberg did a demonstration with myself and my Grey for our club a few years ago.
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 is a 503c not-for-profit organization.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
These creatures were meant to fly free in their native rain forests
Creatures are not "meant" to do anything, unless you believe in an invisible friend in the sky who is pulling all of our strings like puppets.
As long as it's happy -- as long as any pet is happy, for that matter -- why does it matter if they're not living in their natural habitat? Just because there's one more parrot in the US doesn't mean there's one less in Africa. You should be attacking people who abuse them, not somebody who has given one a caring home.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Keeping a parrot != Keeping a parrot in a cage.
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.
By a scallop's forelocks!