The impact of Alex on unrealistic expectations of the new Grey owners

[Timbersmom]

I certainly remember her Dave. You are exactly right.

[JeffNOK]

Wanna know who the person was who really dealt with wild animals was?? Jane Goodall. She simply lived with loads of chimps and allowed the chimps to do all the work. She recorded them. They made the decisions. They accepted her for certain things and didn't accept her for other things. They made her a part of their lives, not the other way around. They weren't trained to do anything. It was their ways of life that taught people. The chimps taught us how and sweet they were and how violent they were. She simply tried to record it. She recorded every aspect. It wasn't her that fed them bananas. It was the other way around. She didn't wanna touch them--they wanted to touch her. They made it clear when she should stay away such as when they went on visious raiding hunts. Manybe some of you are a bit to young to remember her but she was a true scholar. Many many years later, she visited that vast area and some of the chimps that were still alive actually remembered her. They wanted to see her. They made that perfectly clear.

For those who never heard of her, just look up her name be ready for a great experience. There's even videos of her years with them. She was the person who sparked my interest in wild animals. She'll always have a special place in my heart. A very, very, very true pioneer. A true person who sacrificed for the sake of giving us information.

 

I remember watching documentaries of Ms Goodall when I was a child. It was amazing. So much was learned. I have to admit wanting to go study chimps myself after watching. I appreciated her objectivity. She didn't romanticize them like Diane Fosse seemed to do with Gorillas. Goodall was about the science. She didn't have a personal need to bond with the chimps to fill an emotional void as Fosse seemed to.

[JeffNOK]

I'm curious what the challenges of studying greys in the wild would be. Their physical similarity to each other, the fact that they "nest" in tree holes, that they fly and travel over long distances, the difficulty in determining gender, etc.. I have heard that there is increased interest in doing such research, but I'm not sure what is actually being done.

 

The study of companion greys is also worth exploring further as well and perhaps easier to do. I recently mentioned the study of Cosmo, from "Conversations with Cosmo." This study dealt with grey social interaction in the following situations: grey alone, owner out of room, owner in same room, and owner interacting with others in the presence of the grey. I was thinking about setting up a webcam to record similar situations with Gracie because I see similar patterns with Gracie that Cosmo exhibited. It's always good to get corroborating evidence. I would think we on the forum could be valuable sources of information to add to the knowledge about greys in captivity. Obviously to have validity, we would have to follow certain guidelines, but it's worth thinking about. Just my thoughts.

[danmcq]

I'm curious what the challenges of studying greys in the wild would be. Their physical similarity to each other, the fact that they "nest" in tree holes, that they fly and travel over long distances, the difficulty in determining gender, etc.. I have heard that there is increased interest in doing such research, but I'm not sure what is actually being done.

 

The study of companion greys is also worth exploring further as well and perhaps easier to do. I recently mentioned the study of Cosmo, from "Conversations with Cosmo." This study dealt with grey social interaction in the following situations: grey alone, owner out of room, owner in same room, and owner interacting with others in the presence of the grey. I was thinking about setting up a webcam to record similar situations with Gracie because I see similar patterns with Gracie that Cosmo exhibited. It's always good to get corroborating evidence. I would think we on the forum could be valuable sources of information to add to the knowledge about greys in captivity. Obviously to have validity, we would have to follow certain guidelines, but it's worth thinking about. Just my thoughts.

 

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. Getting a true study of african greys in the wild. We have a few studies of captive african greys which gives us medical insight of anatomy, common diseases, proper diet and cognitive abilities, but thats it. Life span in captivity for example is very anecdotal and sparse. Being an electronic engineer, I look for quantitative data. The larger the data set, the better. All the books and data found on the internet is very lacking in terms of real data over a long period of time and they also use anecdotal references as well with statements such as "It is reported person xzy says their grand father had a grey 100 years old". So presently our most accurate data is from the human populace owning greys that are actually known to have lived for x number of years. The questions I have about about life expectancy in captivity are how much longer will a flighted grey than a clipped one might be. Obviously having a strong cardio vascular system from flight will naturally lead to the chances of a much longer life span than that of a sedentary bird. There are captivity studies that could be done on the life expectancy of captive greys. But, we really need a long term study of greys in the wild. The only existing data in the wild is from short term jaunts following greys and getting small snapshots of their daily activities. They really need to tag or implant a device for tracing and identifying a "Set" of greys and get long term data. Until this is done there will be no concrete data to reference that would give us solid information to use. In regards why we as humans are so intrigued by a creature that uses human language, why wouldn't we be? When you have a creature that can amazingly learn and use spoken language to communicate it is a perfect way of gaining much more insight in to how they think, reason and emotionally feel. Conversely as pointed out, we need to pay special attention to their natural and instinctive use of their language in whistles and sounds they produce which gives us invaluable clarity in to the full spectrum of their massive communicative abilities and thought process.

Edited November 10, 2013 by danmcq

[Inara]

I, too, am a long time admirer of Jane Goodall. She is a remarkable human being in every sense, and I grew up wanting to be her. I fell short by a loooong mile. Although as a scientist-practitioner, I did conduct a 15 year longitudinal study of 1200 human subjects who were island bound, collecting and analyzing thousands of data points on each one.

 

One major problem with studying any long-lived species in the wild is just that: they are long lived. People just do not want to commit in this day and age, the years, money and resources that it takes to make a lifetime out of a longitudinal study of a species in it's native habitat. Granted there are people out there like Charles Munn working hard for conservation of South American and Mexican species, and perhaps some day his foundations will be able to sponsor more research in those areas for those species -- love him or hate him, his heart is in the right place.

 

It would be great to see the Alex Foundation be able to expand their horizons and offer scholarships/fellowships to people who would like to do just that for the African Greys. Just picking even one native flock, banding, and then gathering the data over a course of a few decades could be shared year to year by grad students and post-doc fellowships. However, the political unrest in the Congo and other parts of Africa currently make it extremely dangerous and prohibitive for this type of work if conducted by foreigners, especially.

 

In the meantime, these wonderful creatures continue to be trapped, poached, and smuggled. And even in our own country continue to be allowed to be bred using poultry farm mentality and offspring not being allowed to be reared by true breeding pairs, but rather snatched from the nest boxes and then "hand fed." They are not allowed to bond with their immediate family flock of origin and are not allowed to learn to model appropriate bird behaviors (albeit, many from captive bred pairs). I'm very opinionated about this and don't expect people to agree with me, but I would hypothesize that this contributes to a great deal of the biting, neurosis, and feather plucking behaviors that we see in the domestically raised greys. If long term studies in the wild are not currently feasible, then certainly some of the well known foundations could put an emphasis on studies of different captive breeding practices and subsequent behavior traits of the offspring. To control for many of the variables would be difficult, but certainly worthwhile to attempt.

 

I was thinking about setting up a webcam to record similar situations with Gracie because I see similar patterns with Gracie that Cosmo exhibited. It's always good to get corroborating evidence. I would think we on the forum could be valuable sources of information to add to the knowledge about greys in captivity. Obviously to have validity, we would have to follow certain guidelines, but it's worth thinking about. Just my thoughts.

 

Agreed. With the advent of digital recording and data sharing, these types of studies could be conducted so much easier now.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Inara

[Dave007]

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. Getting a true study of african greys in the wild. We have a few studies of captive african greys which gives us medical insight of anatomy, common diseases, proper diet and cognitive abilities, but thats it. Life span in captivity for example is very anecdotal and sparse. Being an electronic engineer, I look for quantitative data. The larger the data set, the better. All the books and data found on the internet is very lacking in terms of real data over a long period of time and they also use anecdotal references as well with statements such as "It is reported person xzy says their grand father had a grey 100 years old". So presently our most accurate data is from the human populace owning greys that are actually known to have lived for x number of years. The questions I have about about life expectancy in captivity are how much longer will a flighted grey than a clipped one might be. Obviously having a strong cardio vascular system from flight will naturally lead to the chances of a much longer life span than that of a sedentary bird. There are captivity studies that could be done on the life expectancy of captive greys. But, we really need a long term study of greys in the wild. The only existing data in the wild is from short term jaunts following greys and getting small snapshots of their daily activities. They really need to tag or implant a device for tracing and identifying a "Set" of greys and get long term data. Until this is done there will be no concrete data to reference that would give us solid information to use. In regards why we as humans are so intrigued by a creature that uses human language, why wouldn't we be? When you have a creature that can amazingly learn and use spoken language to communicate it is a perfect way of gaining much more insight in to how they think, reason and emotionally feel. Conversely as pointed out, we need to pay special attention to their natural and instinctive use of their language in whistles and sounds they produce which gives us invaluable clarity in to the full spectrum of their massive communicative abilities and thought process.

 

There really isn't one special book or literature that entails the complete birth, life and death and everything in between concerning african grey parrots. That holds true for most flock type birds. Individual birds such as predatory types, or other extremely exotic birds such as Birds of Paradise etc can be studied. Almost every type of flock bird that exists behaves as one with slight differences in the group which can't be seen with the human naked eye. Everything special that they do is confined deeply within the flock. Think of other huge flocks of birds--do you know much about flamingos, doves, geese, etc etc.??

I think the best way to achieve what you want is to scan through the multitude of information that exists and take bits and pieces out, put it all together to make up that special piece of literature that you want.

 

PLus---in this thread people are actually looking for 2 specialized pieces of literature-----

 

1----The one you're looking for ( wild) birds and

2----The same type of thing concerning captive birds

 

2 completely different stories but each can be achieved using the same method above.

 

The facts about the captive version will be easier to get to.

 

Always keep the word *plagiarirism* in the back of your mind if you're thinking about becoming a famous author who's about to travel on book tours. Give credit where credit is do. Because of this info, I want a free personally signed copy of the book.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Dave007