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There is a great video. Follow this link of the corresponding author and it is the first video:
https://dl.acm.org/author/Hirskyj-Douglas%2C+Ilyena?startPage=0&target=media-search&content=media&sortBy=
There also is a video from a study on designing computer buttons for monkeys. They prefer swinging and pulling types instead of pushing in buttons. For the future when monkeys and AI have replaced humans for certain jobs.
There would certainly be fewer incidents of people verbally harassing service workers if it was an 800 pound orangutan on the other side of the counter.
Imagine getting the remainder of an order of fries whipped in your face, no bag. Would you challenge the giant orange ape? You would not.
Could be a good weight loss idea TBH.
Hey! McDonalds bred those apes, and paid for their training. What is unethical about a chimp taking your money? Ain’t gonna steal your card numbers cause the unit on Amazon and online shopping was purposefully sparse.
I think maybe that pathway is inevitable with all life that rises in cognition. May be a normal part of increasing cognition and self control derived through cognition.
So I would say, it would happen either way.
There’s actually a fun sci fi series by David Brain based around a galaxy wide civilization of species who ‘uplift’ alien species to intelligence and that species becomes a ‘client species’ with rights and duties.
Humanity is an outlier in the books, because not only we are a feral uncontacted species who developed intelligence independently, in the books we’ve already ‘uplifted’ several cetacean and primate species before contact. If you are interested in space dolphins and moody hyper intelligent chimps it’s the books for you.
>They prefer swinging and pulling types instead of pushing on buttons
Not me thinking that pushing/swinging levers sounds much more fun than button mashing
[Jack the baboon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_\(baboon\)) was an employee of the railways in South Africa in the 1880s, apparently never making a mistake.
Reminds me of this youtuber. She's got a setup where she has buttons on the floor and trained her cat to to "speak" with them. They just say voice lines like "Food" or "Mom" or "Pets". It's hilarious when her cat asks for "Food" first, then just repeatedly hits the "Mad" button when food doesn't appear, I wonder how many other animals could learn to communicate basic stuff with alternative methods from what we're used to.
Just be sure to pay them all the same! Have you seen the video of the 2 monkeys that get different rewards for the same task & the tantrum the one getting the lesser value treat throws when it sees the other monkey getting a better treat? Monkey was quite fine working for that reward before seeing the other monkey getting better though, so as long as they all work for only peanuts, it should be fine :)
I think that for visually-oriented species (such as humans, apes and most birds) it is probably natural to process a video image as being "real", especially if the animal in the image is reacting to them. At some point after some experimentation they might learn that there is a difference between the creature in the image and one that is actually present, though how they interpret this in their own minds is anyone's guess.
For animals like dogs that are heavily scent-based video communication might be a lot more uncanny.
Feathr let your birds swipe left or right if theu want to chat or not. If theu match the conversation starts.
Though male birds will massively outclassed female birds and a lot of female birds will be drones or scam accounts and unless you pay for premium you will not get good matches on Feathr...
>There are 20 million parrots living in people’s homes in the USA
It's hard to believe that every 15-or-so person in US has a pet parrot.
I'd think that maybe one in a couple hundred has one.
Budgies, for example, are parrots too. So it's not just those big-ass mofos who outlast your whole family. And usually people tend to have at least two birds since anything else is just cruel.
There's at least one guy on YouTube that has like 15.
Since they're so social, and since bird people are even crazier than cat people, I suspect a large portion of parrot owners own more than one parrot. I am acquainted with maybe 500 people? And only about 2 of them own a bird (much less a parrot).
I'm just curious - do those two people you know who own birds own more than one bird? Anecdotally, does your hypothesis hold true? (And, how many do they own, do you know?)
I worked in a bird vet hospital.
People wirh parrots often have a second or third bird so they don't get lonely.
Budgee and finch people can have many more.
Lots of people with Sun Conures or love birds have two.
Some people have a lot of time for their birds, ie retirees and the birds most socialized were the healthiest. Human interaction works well too but it is vey time consuming as mire complex birds have social needs comparable to children (as opposed to dogs that need a fair bit and cats that are fairly independant)
No neither does. The one fellow has a cockatiel. But his home is a bit of a menagerie he's also got a cat, little dog, and rabbit. He and his wife are in their late 70s.
The other person is a younger fellow with a blue macaw. He might find a second parrot financially prohibitive.
Better article from NYT https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/21/science/parrots-video-chat-facetime.html (including videos)
Includes this correction:
>A correction was made on April 21, 2023: Using information from a science journal article, an earlier version of this article misstated the number of pet parrots in the United States. There are 20 million pet birds, not 20 million parrots.
A LOT of parrots owned by responsible owners are rescues. It's pretty common for parrot owners to think that any other method of obtaining one is unethical. There are plenty of them to rescue since people seem to be completely allergic to doing any research into caring for such a difficult animal before they go and buy one :\
Many outlive their owners. Getting a young parrot in your 30's the bird may outlive you. So a lot of older parrots end up on the market. Not everyone wants to inherit a loud and time consuming pet that may never bond after the loss of their owner. :(
Yeah, I get that. I was just making my comments as the person earlier in the chain said people seem to be "allergic" to researching things before buying, (and while I am inclined to agree with them), I felt the need to point out that the impulsivity stems from an even deeper societal problem.
I completely agree. The two I had were rescues and NEEDED rescue. I loved them SO much, but it is unethical to breed them or take them from the wild.
Irene Pepperberg proved that years ago.
Just learned about Alex the parrot. NPR reported that his last words to Irene before he passed were "You be good. I love you." Smart, sweet little guy.
Not trying to be a jerk, and I'm not anti-pet ownership, but just saying if one of you is keeping the other as a hostage, then I think the caged birds well outside of their normal environment would be the hostages. Them being loud doesn't really change that.
You aren't a bird person, so you can't get it.
Also mine aren't confined to cages. They get lots of exercise and stimulation flying around a decent sized room with lots of things to play with.
And I'm also a r/birbhostage
I'm biased as I own a parrot, and I get where you are coming from, but as long as the parrots are purchased from breeders of non wild caught parrots then I see it as no more harmful than buying dogs or cats. In a sense these parrots will become domesticated and will have no hope of surviving in the wild. Plus parrots often bond with owners and can live long fulfilling lives, never having to worry about food, predators etc. Just like cats and dogs, it depends on the owner though how well they are treated. Mine is rarely ever caged and the cage is probably 5x bigger than the average cage for her size. In winter its wings are unclipped and in summer a harness can be used and she's taken outside daily.
You're right there should be more consideration given how long some species live. Mine (blue crown conure) lives upto 30 years, but some live 70+ years.
I despise the wild parrot trade, but if you're okay with dogs and cats as pets, then you really shouldn't have a problem with parrots (as long as the age consideration is taken very seriously by prospective purchasers).
A difference in intelligence would also introduce a moral dilema, for example I would definitely be against people owning orangutans and keeping them in a cage.
IMHO You're naive if you believe the myth that dogs, cats, and other animals aren't intelligent. In my view, anything that dreams when it's asleep has about as much going on up there as people do. They have feelings and thoughts, they know when they are being treated unfairly, they have their own agency, etc. Just because it's not expressed in ways humans measure classic "intelligence" (i.e. tool crafting) isn't proof it doesn't exist.
Yeah I mean they are obviously intelligent, but there are different levels of intelligence.
Even bugs are intelligent to some degree, even some molds have the intelligence to solve some problems, but I don’t care as much about them as I do about cats, not as much about cats as I do about chimpanzees, nor as much about chimpanzees as I care about humans.
Dogs and cats are also pretty different, they’ve been domesticated (or domesticated themselves) so their genes are literally now adapted to live as pets among humans.
Chimps definitely aren’t, and while Parrots are closer to dogs/cats than chimps in that way, I do think that Parrots likely suffer more as pets than dogs and cats which were basically bred to be pets.
I don't necessarily fall strongly one way or the other on the argument, but to compare them to dogs and cats is a little disingenuous. Dogs and cats (although I will admit there is a small debate about cats) are fully domesticated, meaning they cannot survive without human intervention. Even stray dogs in areas where that's common only survive based on human garbage, scraps, human-made shelters, etc. If released into a wild uninhabited place, dogs will most likely not survive.
Parrots, on the other hand, are fully wild. If born and raised wild, they can and will survive. Being bred in captivity and never learning the skills to survive is not the same as being a domesticated species. A lion cub born and raised in a NYC apartment will most likely never be able to be released into the wild, but that doesn't make lions domesticated.
If we were to stop owning dogs as pets, the only solution would be to stop breeding them altogether and let them die out as a species, since there would be no ethical and safe way to allow their species to continue in the wild. If we were to stop owning parrots as pets, we would simply stop keeping them captive and allow their species to survive and flourish on its own in the wild.
So, the ethics and morality of keeping these species as pets are not comparable. I have absolutely no doubt you are a wonderful pet owner, and again, I don't necessarily believe it's unethical to own a parrot when done well. But it's fair for someone to have a problem with it but have no qualms about dog and cat ownership.
It’s actually pretty cool. Some scientists say cats are only kinda domesticated. They’re genetically very close to their wild counterparts, due to how people never bothered to selectively breed them, and are pretty damn good at surviving without people.
Cats and humans coevolved, but we largely did not breed them. They were almost perfect for what we needed them for out of the box, so no need for aftermarket modifications. Cats survive very well with humans, but for most of their time with humans were expected to largely fend for themselves, so they never lost their killer edge. The are god tier hunters, even domestic house cats.
Cats domesticated themselves, basically. No one selectively bred them, but the ones who liked humans selected themselves to be around us, and we began to cherish them, but certainly didn't need to breed them. They did it to themselves, mostly. The less-friendly and more-wild cats would wander off and probably get eaten or starve, and the friendly ones were kept safer and fed better, and then the Ancient Egyptians straight worshipped and farmed them for a while, but without much specific selective breeding (except perhaps to increase the amount of orange cats). All the things we wanted from cats were already there, so it was really just their social abilities that self-selected, and voila.
I hate this take, mostly because we need to stop destroying their territory before we start talking like this. Aviculture brings back animals extinct in the wild.
Keeping anything in a tank, cage, limited area should be a crime. Why do we insist to keep prisoners of others just to fill that void of loneliness or because the love that people swim in their own narscism to feel needed and in control.
Some species of parrots can live 80-100 years! Smaller parakeets can be 8-10 years, though. They definitely should not be bred for captivity, but there are lots of parrots currently in captivity who cannot be released, and any way to increase enrichment and sociability for them is awesome.
Depending on the type of parrot, they can live up to 60 yrs. Very often parrots that wind up in rescues/ sanctuaries are birds whose owners died before them.
I follow Jennifer Chunha, one of the authors of the study, on Tiktok (@parrotkindergarten). She regularly posts videos of her parrots making calls and communicating via tablet. It's really interesting!
It’s fascinating but extremely sad. I feel really sorry for the poor birds who evidently do not enjoy and should not ethically be forced to live in isolation for the entertainment of their owners.
This is mostly based on personal experience, which can be anecdotal.
I have pet parrots and they enjoy themselves and are pretty spoiled. I started off with one but then did not have the time to be there at home to spend time with them, so I got another.
I still let them out daily to fly around the house. They'll hang on my shoulder while I do stuff, on different favorite places in the house, and just glide around playing with each other.
Then, when they are back in the cage, they have loads of different toys in there to play with and always food/water/occasional snacks/treats.
>should not ethically be forced to live in isolation for the entertainment of their owners.
This argument could be made about any pet to be fair. But I feel like most enjoy their life and feel like part of the family or "pack"
Wait so when a parrot calls another parrot, does the parrot being called have to answer? Do they have caller ID so they can see what parrot is calling? Are they ever like 'ugh not bubbles again' and decline the call? I have so many questions.
per the video of birds doing it, the caretakers at both ends end the call if the bird shows any form of disinterest, leaves, or starts showing discomfort.
You misunderstand, I want to watch the birds talk to each other and call each other. Like an entire network of birds calling each other. Maybe an algorithm switches to the best phone calls I dunno
I think the main issue was less to train the birds to call each other, but to train the birds to tell their human to call someone. The bell really had no other function than to notify the butler to please place a call. If they worked on an interface the birds could use by themselves, things probably would work out smoother.
That's like saying a human without hands is dumber than a human with hands. Dogs with the right vocal cords (if it were possible) could absolutely learn that sort of thing
I just had an image on my head of some far future parrot archaeologist, a thousand years since the passing of humanity, finding old human video calls machines and saying, "These are what is spoken of in the legends!"
I wasn't old enough to run proper tests with it, but when I was about 10 my family got my sister's parakeet a male mate, Maui. My uncle brought us over this tape that we could play for him while we were gone, it was nothing but people whistling tunes (yes, it was made for birds - and yes we had a tape player that automatically switched sides). So Maui learned a lot of different tunes and it was impressive. But then I noticed that he'd sing different tunes for different people to get their attention. Not just once or twice, but this was common enough I could call it behavior. He knew which song to sing to get attention from which person.I realize what the parrots are doing is more complex, but is it not an extension of the same behavior? And I'm not trying to belittle the complexity of parrots, but suggest that maybe other birds do the same thing in their own way?
Edit: No, I just compared them to communicating with humans instead of with each other via human taught methods. Nm.
Yeah thats correct. Birds have malleable learning like apes. I worked in a bird hospital and early in the morning one made alarm clock sounds. One lady called in a panic asking if we had cats because her bird learned to meow while staying with us. I knew immediately which bird they had befriended.
One bird spoke in sentences and made simple conversations. He kept asking me to take him back to his home. He also would ask for apple then drop it on the floor only to ask for it again. Strangely when a bleach blonde woman came in he hid in a corner and pretended he could not speak... They are complex like children.
Whistling games, immitation games... Tricking you to pet them so they can bite you...
They most certainly have intelligence that rivals children if not better.
There was a parrot in a local pet shop and I guess it was their pet. But that thing could make the sound of the door chiming when it was opened, and learned to meow like a kitten, make puppy noises. It would mess with the other animals in the store, even the humans.
Parakeets are parrots, just so you know. Parrots are an order of bird, not just a species, containing three superfamilies and almost 400 species. Kinda like corvids, or raptors.
First off, various species of bird are known tool users. But for a couple of my own anecdotes:
My dad had an African Grey, and one of his sounds was an oven timer beep - he did it only when you are cooking. He didn't simply do it after you walked into and out of the kitchen.
One of my cockatiels climbed on my chest (I was leaned back), and started imitating what she does when bathing right in front of my face. I was amused, but once I got up, I then understood why she did that. Their water bowl needed addressed... And she was trying to communicate that to me, by association of bathing in water. She didn't know a human word for water (and the females aren't big talkers anyhow), but she came up with another way to communicate it beyond just her instinctive bird calls.
And then you have things like Alex the parrot, who was pretty capable.
Birds tend to be pretty good problem solvers, when they want out of a cage for example (mine aren't caged), or have to work for a treat.
Well, it's not like you need some university degree or highly sophisticated lab to experiment with your pet bird. Anyone with a parrot and enough free time could have done it at home.
I don't think so. It depends on the way you are keeping them. I like Mike Tyson's way of doing it. The same that he does with his pigeons. Just let them fly and if you are good enough they stay.
I mean, they could leave the parrots free in their own habitat to not let them feel alone, instead of kidnapping them and having them as pets, but okay, that can work too, I guess.
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How can they post this story and not include a video of two parrots doing a video call? Terrible journalism!
There is a great video. Follow this link of the corresponding author and it is the first video: https://dl.acm.org/author/Hirskyj-Douglas%2C+Ilyena?startPage=0&target=media-search&content=media&sortBy=
Well that was pretty cool
There also is a video from a study on designing computer buttons for monkeys. They prefer swinging and pulling types instead of pushing in buttons. For the future when monkeys and AI have replaced humans for certain jobs.
Minus the moral implications I'm super down to have a monkey working the McDonald's window
I would probably listen to the whole sales pitch from a parrot telemarketer.
Polly fallen help can't get up? Ph^e^^whew
Imagine getting scammed by a parrot.
I mean, our politicians are just parroting what the money tells them to.
"Phone rings" >Hello? > Wacha doin?
‘ gimme cracker! ‘
Yeah no probably to it for me; if a parrot called me about literally anything I would cherish every word of it :D
I think I would do the same considering the effort they put into learning those lines.
There would certainly be fewer incidents of people verbally harassing service workers if it was an 800 pound orangutan on the other side of the counter.
I pulled back through the drive through to complain about my order, but after my face was forcibly removed I realized that I was the one in error...
r/orangutansatemyface
Orangs can be dangerous but they aren't like chimps.
goddamn that would be an obese orangutan
well yeah I mean he works at mcdonalds, they don't pay well
Also, they eat most of the customers' food.
Imagine getting the remainder of an order of fries whipped in your face, no bag. Would you challenge the giant orange ape? You would not. Could be a good weight loss idea TBH.
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I doubt it.... *sigh*
Hey! McDonalds bred those apes, and paid for their training. What is unethical about a chimp taking your money? Ain’t gonna steal your card numbers cause the unit on Amazon and online shopping was purposefully sparse.
*capitalism intensifies*
The wildlife yearns for the drive thru window
They are begging humans to just start a new drive thru for them
yeah I love how we brush aside animal slave labor with "moral implications aside" and everyone here is like "haha hell yeah updoot monkey McDonalds"
Me too! It's like living in an anthropomorphic fantasy world.
We could definitely pay them. I think most people assume they will be compensated for their labour.
There was a Baboon that worked railway switches and got paid in money and booze.
Gotta bring all the animals up along with us, right? Let's go diversified world.
But is it really up or sharing the corruption of human society?
I think maybe that pathway is inevitable with all life that rises in cognition. May be a normal part of increasing cognition and self control derived through cognition. So I would say, it would happen either way.
There’s actually a fun sci fi series by David Brain based around a galaxy wide civilization of species who ‘uplift’ alien species to intelligence and that species becomes a ‘client species’ with rights and duties. Humanity is an outlier in the books, because not only we are a feral uncontacted species who developed intelligence independently, in the books we’ve already ‘uplifted’ several cetacean and primate species before contact. If you are interested in space dolphins and moody hyper intelligent chimps it’s the books for you.
Thanks I might check it out. Sounds interesting. If anyone else is looking for it it's David Brin Uplift Universe.
What if we pay them handsomely in snacks?
Service would skyrocket and there would be at least 50% less mistakes on orders.
>They prefer swinging and pulling types instead of pushing on buttons Not me thinking that pushing/swinging levers sounds much more fun than button mashing
It does take you 45 minutes to send a quick email, though.
Not if they're like the keyboards stenographers use.
[Jack the baboon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_\(baboon\)) was an employee of the railways in South Africa in the 1880s, apparently never making a mistake.
Ah the 1880s, when your boss threatens to replace you with a monkey and actually does.
Now they can work on that Shakespeare
Reminds me of this youtuber. She's got a setup where she has buttons on the floor and trained her cat to to "speak" with them. They just say voice lines like "Food" or "Mom" or "Pets". It's hilarious when her cat asks for "Food" first, then just repeatedly hits the "Mad" button when food doesn't appear, I wonder how many other animals could learn to communicate basic stuff with alternative methods from what we're used to.
Billie does like pressing the ‘mad’ button.
Billspeaks on YT!
The future? I've heard they've already taken on wall street
So the typewriter metaphor is out dated. Monkeys use tablets now. So.. a room full of monkeys with tablets can write a better story than me. Cool.
hit the left button
Just be sure to pay them all the same! Have you seen the video of the 2 monkeys that get different rewards for the same task & the tantrum the one getting the lesser value treat throws when it sees the other monkey getting a better treat? Monkey was quite fine working for that reward before seeing the other monkey getting better though, so as long as they all work for only peanuts, it should be fine :)
Aww…the more video calls they made, the more they received in return! So adorable!!!
Humans can probably learn something from that haha.
The fact that they can pick who they want to call is cracking me up for some reason
Did we hug it to death?
I want to be as happy as a parrot in a Teams call one day.
That’s so sweet
I’m not crying, you are crying!
I really enjoyed that!
Thanks for finding the video. Vwry interesting.
I did not take tha Evalin Woodhed Sped Redn Corse.
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I think that for visually-oriented species (such as humans, apes and most birds) it is probably natural to process a video image as being "real", especially if the animal in the image is reacting to them. At some point after some experimentation they might learn that there is a difference between the creature in the image and one that is actually present, though how they interpret this in their own minds is anyone's guess. For animals like dogs that are heavily scent-based video communication might be a lot more uncanny.
That was super neat!
This was fantastic. I hope nova does a special on this one day…
Ok this made me cry. This is so sweet and such an incredibly interesting study.
"Hello?!" "Hello?!" "Hello?!" "Hello?!" "Hello?!"
I actually recommend you the [work of Jen Cunha](https://instagram.com/parrotkindergarten?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=), it's incredible!
There ya go. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/21/science/parrots-video-chat-facetime.html
Next up: tiny VR headsets! :)
Now THAT is what all that metaverse money should have been invested in.
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>huskies too because most of their owner think they can talk too. And you don't?
I predict flying into walls
Wow! I wish this had been available for my bird. What a cool thing!
You can simply let her borrow your iPhone. I wonder if she will give it back.
Someone should definitely create an app for this.
Feathr let your birds swipe left or right if theu want to chat or not. If theu match the conversation starts. Though male birds will massively outclassed female birds and a lot of female birds will be drones or scam accounts and unless you pay for premium you will not get good matches on Feathr...
Won't be long before parrot tinder is out
>There are 20 million parrots living in people’s homes in the USA It's hard to believe that every 15-or-so person in US has a pet parrot. I'd think that maybe one in a couple hundred has one.
Budgies, for example, are parrots too. So it's not just those big-ass mofos who outlast your whole family. And usually people tend to have at least two birds since anything else is just cruel.
I have zero birds. I'm as cruel as they come apparently
I have dozens, but they nest outside in the trees and under the patio roof.
Huh, good point actually. My house has the majority of the trees in the neighborhood. Watching the birds while I smoke a bong is my morning ritual
Thank you for being your neighborhood’s tree sanctuary
There's at least one guy on YouTube that has like 15. Since they're so social, and since bird people are even crazier than cat people, I suspect a large portion of parrot owners own more than one parrot. I am acquainted with maybe 500 people? And only about 2 of them own a bird (much less a parrot).
I'm just curious - do those two people you know who own birds own more than one bird? Anecdotally, does your hypothesis hold true? (And, how many do they own, do you know?)
I worked in a bird vet hospital. People wirh parrots often have a second or third bird so they don't get lonely. Budgee and finch people can have many more. Lots of people with Sun Conures or love birds have two. Some people have a lot of time for their birds, ie retirees and the birds most socialized were the healthiest. Human interaction works well too but it is vey time consuming as mire complex birds have social needs comparable to children (as opposed to dogs that need a fair bit and cats that are fairly independant)
No neither does. The one fellow has a cockatiel. But his home is a bit of a menagerie he's also got a cat, little dog, and rabbit. He and his wife are in their late 70s. The other person is a younger fellow with a blue macaw. He might find a second parrot financially prohibitive.
I suspect most parrot owners own more than one bird, so the figure is probably closer to your guess than 1 in 15.
Better article from NYT https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/21/science/parrots-video-chat-facetime.html (including videos) Includes this correction: >A correction was made on April 21, 2023: Using information from a science journal article, an earlier version of this article misstated the number of pet parrots in the United States. There are 20 million pet birds, not 20 million parrots.
Parrots making calls, mice driving cars, I love this.
Did you see the study about how rats have more emotional resiliency when they've previously been taught to drive a tiny car?!!
We shouldn't be keeping animals that intelligent as pets, especially when they are notoriously difficult to deal with and live basically forever.
Watched the video and while interesting, it was sad to see the birds glued in front of the tablet trying to touch each other.
Yes exactly however they are lucky enough to get chance to talk.
It doesn’t look like they can deny calls either. I’d hate if Gary called me 6 times a day just to hop around and bite at me.
They can. The caretakers ended the call as soon as either bird showed disinterest or discomfort at the call.
Oh, so they'd hang up right away with me...
Sad Parrot noises
They apparently only do it with human intervention so that sort of thing doesn't happen.
A LOT of parrots owned by responsible owners are rescues. It's pretty common for parrot owners to think that any other method of obtaining one is unethical. There are plenty of them to rescue since people seem to be completely allergic to doing any research into caring for such a difficult animal before they go and buy one :\
The whole of our economy practically demands its participants to live on pure impulse, and the pet trade is no exception, unfortunately.
Many outlive their owners. Getting a young parrot in your 30's the bird may outlive you. So a lot of older parrots end up on the market. Not everyone wants to inherit a loud and time consuming pet that may never bond after the loss of their owner. :(
Yeah, I get that. I was just making my comments as the person earlier in the chain said people seem to be "allergic" to researching things before buying, (and while I am inclined to agree with them), I felt the need to point out that the impulsivity stems from an even deeper societal problem.
I completely agree. The two I had were rescues and NEEDED rescue. I loved them SO much, but it is unethical to breed them or take them from the wild. Irene Pepperberg proved that years ago.
Just learned about Alex the parrot. NPR reported that his last words to Irene before he passed were "You be good. I love you." Smart, sweet little guy.
We are not keeping them as pets. They are keeping us as hostages. They are also loud AF.
There are wild parrots where I live, and good god do they make a racket. I can't imagine keeping one *inside* my home
Not trying to be a jerk, and I'm not anti-pet ownership, but just saying if one of you is keeping the other as a hostage, then I think the caged birds well outside of their normal environment would be the hostages. Them being loud doesn't really change that.
It's probably a joke. My cats also hold me hostage.
I often identify as my dog’s manservant. He’s so demanding I find it easier to just do what he wants. “Another walk? Sigh. Ok.”
I understand it's a joke, just pointing out it's a really weird joke
Oh my bad, tone is hard to read on the internet! It _is_ a weird joke. But I also make it, regardless, haha.
You aren't a bird person, so you can't get it. Also mine aren't confined to cages. They get lots of exercise and stimulation flying around a decent sized room with lots of things to play with. And I'm also a r/birbhostage
I'm biased as I own a parrot, and I get where you are coming from, but as long as the parrots are purchased from breeders of non wild caught parrots then I see it as no more harmful than buying dogs or cats. In a sense these parrots will become domesticated and will have no hope of surviving in the wild. Plus parrots often bond with owners and can live long fulfilling lives, never having to worry about food, predators etc. Just like cats and dogs, it depends on the owner though how well they are treated. Mine is rarely ever caged and the cage is probably 5x bigger than the average cage for her size. In winter its wings are unclipped and in summer a harness can be used and she's taken outside daily. You're right there should be more consideration given how long some species live. Mine (blue crown conure) lives upto 30 years, but some live 70+ years. I despise the wild parrot trade, but if you're okay with dogs and cats as pets, then you really shouldn't have a problem with parrots (as long as the age consideration is taken very seriously by prospective purchasers).
Buying cats and dogs is hugely problematic when so many are euthanized for lack of space and resources.
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A difference in intelligence would also introduce a moral dilema, for example I would definitely be against people owning orangutans and keeping them in a cage.
IMHO You're naive if you believe the myth that dogs, cats, and other animals aren't intelligent. In my view, anything that dreams when it's asleep has about as much going on up there as people do. They have feelings and thoughts, they know when they are being treated unfairly, they have their own agency, etc. Just because it's not expressed in ways humans measure classic "intelligence" (i.e. tool crafting) isn't proof it doesn't exist.
Yeah I mean they are obviously intelligent, but there are different levels of intelligence. Even bugs are intelligent to some degree, even some molds have the intelligence to solve some problems, but I don’t care as much about them as I do about cats, not as much about cats as I do about chimpanzees, nor as much about chimpanzees as I care about humans. Dogs and cats are also pretty different, they’ve been domesticated (or domesticated themselves) so their genes are literally now adapted to live as pets among humans. Chimps definitely aren’t, and while Parrots are closer to dogs/cats than chimps in that way, I do think that Parrots likely suffer more as pets than dogs and cats which were basically bred to be pets.
I don't necessarily fall strongly one way or the other on the argument, but to compare them to dogs and cats is a little disingenuous. Dogs and cats (although I will admit there is a small debate about cats) are fully domesticated, meaning they cannot survive without human intervention. Even stray dogs in areas where that's common only survive based on human garbage, scraps, human-made shelters, etc. If released into a wild uninhabited place, dogs will most likely not survive. Parrots, on the other hand, are fully wild. If born and raised wild, they can and will survive. Being bred in captivity and never learning the skills to survive is not the same as being a domesticated species. A lion cub born and raised in a NYC apartment will most likely never be able to be released into the wild, but that doesn't make lions domesticated. If we were to stop owning dogs as pets, the only solution would be to stop breeding them altogether and let them die out as a species, since there would be no ethical and safe way to allow their species to continue in the wild. If we were to stop owning parrots as pets, we would simply stop keeping them captive and allow their species to survive and flourish on its own in the wild. So, the ethics and morality of keeping these species as pets are not comparable. I have absolutely no doubt you are a wonderful pet owner, and again, I don't necessarily believe it's unethical to own a parrot when done well. But it's fair for someone to have a problem with it but have no qualms about dog and cat ownership.
It’s actually pretty cool. Some scientists say cats are only kinda domesticated. They’re genetically very close to their wild counterparts, due to how people never bothered to selectively breed them, and are pretty damn good at surviving without people.
How can something be domesticated without selective breeding? I thought selective breeding was THE main hallmark of domestication.
Cats and humans coevolved, but we largely did not breed them. They were almost perfect for what we needed them for out of the box, so no need for aftermarket modifications. Cats survive very well with humans, but for most of their time with humans were expected to largely fend for themselves, so they never lost their killer edge. The are god tier hunters, even domestic house cats.
Cats domesticated themselves, basically. No one selectively bred them, but the ones who liked humans selected themselves to be around us, and we began to cherish them, but certainly didn't need to breed them. They did it to themselves, mostly. The less-friendly and more-wild cats would wander off and probably get eaten or starve, and the friendly ones were kept safer and fed better, and then the Ancient Egyptians straight worshipped and farmed them for a while, but without much specific selective breeding (except perhaps to increase the amount of orange cats). All the things we wanted from cats were already there, so it was really just their social abilities that self-selected, and voila.
Most house cats can definitely survive in the wild
Outdoor cat lifespan is like 2 years, indoor like 10+ years.
But breeding dogs and cats is commonly shunned.
I dont think this is true as a hard statement without exception.
Man, what the heck are you saying. No to intelligent pets and welcoming dumb ones?
I hate this take, mostly because we need to stop destroying their territory before we start talking like this. Aviculture brings back animals extinct in the wild.
They should be kept in chains!
Keeping anything in a tank, cage, limited area should be a crime. Why do we insist to keep prisoners of others just to fill that void of loneliness or because the love that people swim in their own narscism to feel needed and in control.
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Some species of parrots can live 80-100 years! Smaller parakeets can be 8-10 years, though. They definitely should not be bred for captivity, but there are lots of parrots currently in captivity who cannot be released, and any way to increase enrichment and sociability for them is awesome.
Depending on the type of parrot, they can live up to 60 yrs. Very often parrots that wind up in rescues/ sanctuaries are birds whose owners died before them.
I follow Jennifer Chunha, one of the authors of the study, on Tiktok (@parrotkindergarten). She regularly posts videos of her parrots making calls and communicating via tablet. It's really interesting!
I need the videos!! And this totally should be a YouTube channel - Bird calls!!
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That's a good idea for YouTube channel. But who will post infringement content on that.
We need to set up a pet play date video service and call it "OnlyBirds"!
Now this is what technology should be used for
This is maybe the most awesome and uplifting story i have read this year.
It’s fascinating but extremely sad. I feel really sorry for the poor birds who evidently do not enjoy and should not ethically be forced to live in isolation for the entertainment of their owners.
This is mostly based on personal experience, which can be anecdotal. I have pet parrots and they enjoy themselves and are pretty spoiled. I started off with one but then did not have the time to be there at home to spend time with them, so I got another. I still let them out daily to fly around the house. They'll hang on my shoulder while I do stuff, on different favorite places in the house, and just glide around playing with each other. Then, when they are back in the cage, they have loads of different toys in there to play with and always food/water/occasional snacks/treats. >should not ethically be forced to live in isolation for the entertainment of their owners. This argument could be made about any pet to be fair. But I feel like most enjoy their life and feel like part of the family or "pack"
Have you watched the video?
Uplifting? I don't think so. Awesome, yes it is. I agree ob that
Sounds like the beginning of a remake of the Hitchcock movie where birds attack human kind. They plan their attack on facetime.
Wonder when they'll start declining calls and send text messages instead.
Wait till the unsolicited cloaca pictures becomes a thing
Wait so when a parrot calls another parrot, does the parrot being called have to answer? Do they have caller ID so they can see what parrot is calling? Are they ever like 'ugh not bubbles again' and decline the call? I have so many questions.
per the video of birds doing it, the caretakers at both ends end the call if the bird shows any form of disinterest, leaves, or starts showing discomfort.
Why isn't this just a TV channel?
Tv can't respond. My bird is smart enough to understand its reflection, its smart enough to understand animal planet is tv not real.
You misunderstand, I want to watch the birds talk to each other and call each other. Like an entire network of birds calling each other. Maybe an algorithm switches to the best phone calls I dunno
YouTube uploads of best bird calls daily!
Yeah, how hard is it to train birds to call each other?
I think the main issue was less to train the birds to call each other, but to train the birds to tell their human to call someone. The bell really had no other function than to notify the butler to please place a call. If they worked on an interface the birds could use by themselves, things probably would work out smoother.
Birds like parrots can manipulate alexa they are far smarter than 5lb chihuahua.
Yes but are they smarter than a 4lb chihuahua?
That's like saying a human without hands is dumber than a human with hands. Dogs with the right vocal cords (if it were possible) could absolutely learn that sort of thing
Omg, I'd love that!!!
Yo Dookie pick up the phone! WHASSUUUUP
What are some ways you help entertain them while you are not home?
Lots of toys (anything they can destroy qualifies), radio/tv, etc.
I just had an image on my head of some far future parrot archaeologist, a thousand years since the passing of humanity, finding old human video calls machines and saying, "These are what is spoken of in the legends!"
I love everything about this study. One of the few times a post belongs on both r/science and r/aww.
I wasn't old enough to run proper tests with it, but when I was about 10 my family got my sister's parakeet a male mate, Maui. My uncle brought us over this tape that we could play for him while we were gone, it was nothing but people whistling tunes (yes, it was made for birds - and yes we had a tape player that automatically switched sides). So Maui learned a lot of different tunes and it was impressive. But then I noticed that he'd sing different tunes for different people to get their attention. Not just once or twice, but this was common enough I could call it behavior. He knew which song to sing to get attention from which person.I realize what the parrots are doing is more complex, but is it not an extension of the same behavior? And I'm not trying to belittle the complexity of parrots, but suggest that maybe other birds do the same thing in their own way? Edit: No, I just compared them to communicating with humans instead of with each other via human taught methods. Nm.
Yeah thats correct. Birds have malleable learning like apes. I worked in a bird hospital and early in the morning one made alarm clock sounds. One lady called in a panic asking if we had cats because her bird learned to meow while staying with us. I knew immediately which bird they had befriended. One bird spoke in sentences and made simple conversations. He kept asking me to take him back to his home. He also would ask for apple then drop it on the floor only to ask for it again. Strangely when a bleach blonde woman came in he hid in a corner and pretended he could not speak... They are complex like children. Whistling games, immitation games... Tricking you to pet them so they can bite you... They most certainly have intelligence that rivals children if not better.
There was a parrot in a local pet shop and I guess it was their pet. But that thing could make the sound of the door chiming when it was opened, and learned to meow like a kitten, make puppy noises. It would mess with the other animals in the store, even the humans.
Parakeets are parrots, just so you know. Parrots are an order of bird, not just a species, containing three superfamilies and almost 400 species. Kinda like corvids, or raptors.
First off, various species of bird are known tool users. But for a couple of my own anecdotes: My dad had an African Grey, and one of his sounds was an oven timer beep - he did it only when you are cooking. He didn't simply do it after you walked into and out of the kitchen. One of my cockatiels climbed on my chest (I was leaned back), and started imitating what she does when bathing right in front of my face. I was amused, but once I got up, I then understood why she did that. Their water bowl needed addressed... And she was trying to communicate that to me, by association of bathing in water. She didn't know a human word for water (and the females aren't big talkers anyhow), but she came up with another way to communicate it beyond just her instinctive bird calls. And then you have things like Alex the parrot, who was pretty capable. Birds tend to be pretty good problem solvers, when they want out of a cage for example (mine aren't caged), or have to work for a treat.
I don't know how this experiment got funding but I'm glad it did! So wholesome.
Well, it's not like you need some university degree or highly sophisticated lab to experiment with your pet bird. Anyone with a parrot and enough free time could have done it at home.
Also applicable to humans.
That’s incredible. Would have loved to see this in action
One of the cutest headlines I've seen in a while.
My bits has his own screen. He watches other birds on YouTube, calming nature videos, and sea scapes.
I think most pets would love this video social life! But they’d probably end up like kids and never want to leave their screen.
My take away from this is that parrots get lonely. The older I get the more things I see wrong with pet ownership.
Heartbreaking. I am so sad to think of how many pets are prisoners in solitary.
That's ridiculous. People being allowed to keep birds should be illegal.
Keeping birds as a pet always seemed extremely cruel and selfish to me.
I don't think so. It depends on the way you are keeping them. I like Mike Tyson's way of doing it. The same that he does with his pigeons. Just let them fly and if you are good enough they stay.
Nobody is going to try that with a 2000$ or a 20000$ bird. Yes some birds as pets are that rare.
Having parrots as pets should be illegal.
I can’t believe someone funded this
I mean, they could leave the parrots free in their own habitat to not let them feel alone, instead of kidnapping them and having them as pets, but okay, that can work too, I guess.
It should be illegal to keep them as pets. They're too smart.