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Parrot Drives Robotic Buggy
grrlscientist writes "Proving that robots aren't just for people any longer, an African grey parrot, Pepper, has learned to drive a robot that was specially designed for him. Pepper, whose wings are clipped to preventing him from flying around his humans' house and destroying their things, now manipulates the joystick on his riding robot to guide it to where ever he wishes to go. This robotic 'bird buggy' was the brainchild of his human companion, Andrew Gray, a 29-year-old electrical and computer engineering graduate student at the University of Florida."
Grey's are large birds, too large to really fly in an average house. It may not be able to fly between rooms due to narrow hallways and clutter anyway.
I have a couple of smaller birds, fully flighted and they're not really happy about needing to fly to chase you. Often they'll scream at you instead.
Also you guys might temper your anger realizing that wing clipping is temporary. You clip their wings once a month or so, because all you're doing is cutting the outermost 4 flight feathers back. These fall out and grow back (trimmed or not). For most birds this is enough to make flying very difficult.
Just FYI, guys, it's not cruelty. You don't actually cut their wings, just their feathers, and you have to keep cutting them because they grow back all the time.
But, I do agree that this is totally unnecessary. Parrots are very smart, can be trained, and are fucking birds - totally capable of moving around without a crappy golf cart. Don't clip him, just train him to not do whatever it is he was doing wrong. Plus they have beautiful plumage, the Norwegian Blue. Mine's been really quiet since I got him, though. I think he's pining for the fjords.
With larger birds such as African Grey's, there is a really high risk of injury to the bird if they are allowed to grow up flying inside a house. Young birds do not understand glass for instance, and will attempt to fly into it, ultimately doing harm to themselves. To offset this, the non-permanent wing clipping is employed to prevent them from taking flight. This doesn't prevent gliding, however, so they can still leap safely off ledges to the floor to get around. Once they're older, you have to take into account that the nearly or fully grown bird has never flown, so you keep clipping the wings as they don't know how to use them.
I've never owned a Parrot but I grew up with one and my parents opted to not clip his wings. The net result was a lot of snapped feathers and a bird with neurological damage from running into things full tilt. Not pretty.
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