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fruitynutbird
Fledgeling
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 226
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| Update on Alex |
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I'm happy to report that Arlene from Prof. Pepperberg's laboratory has responded to my request for an update on Alex's feather picking condition, as reported on the Animal Planet video a few months ago. Here is Arlene's response to my enquiry:
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Hi Andrew
Alex is very spoiled and not unhappy at all. At the moment he is ordering two students and myself around. He just came back from the atrium, he likes to look out the window and whistle at people going buy. His sessions run only 20 minutes, 2 times a day and the rest of the time he does what he wants. For the past few weeks we did not have any session as the students ended classes and took a short vacation; next week things should be back to normal. On weekends none of birds do sessions. The lab is covered 7 days a week from 9am to 7:00. I will see if i can find a article about the routines at the lab.
Most of the TV shows use very old footage of Alex when he was at the Univ. of Arizona. Since he has been living in New England, he has not plucked. If you go to our website there is recent pictures of him, and also the newsletter has pictures that I have taken of him.
Griff on the other hand does pluck. He will grow out his feathers and then he will pluck again. All the birds go regularly to the vet for check-ups.
I will send you some pics of Alex.
Thanks for writing
Arlene Levin
Pepperberg Lab Manager
I have uploaded these photos of Alex, which were only taken within the past week, onto my homepage here on Fluffies:
http://www.fluffies.org/en/flu.....php?id=370
I'm so glad to hear that Alex isn't being forced to study for excessive periods every day, but instead enjoys a lot of free play-time! Griff (full name = Griffin), whom Arlene mentions, is one of the other African Greys in Dr. Pepperberg's lab. From what Prof. Pepperberg said on the DVD, "Training Your Parrot the Alex Way" by Chris Davis, Griffin learnt to pluck from watching Alex pluck - back in the days when Alex feather-plucked at the University of Arizona. Here is a recent photo of all 3 African Greys (Alex, Griffon and Wart) in Prof. Pepperberg's lab, on The Alex Foundation website:
http://www.alexfoundation.org/index2.htm
Griffin is the one on the right hand side of the photo, and as can be seen, he has a slight feather plucking problem.
I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on all 3 African Greys at Prof. Pepperberg's laboratory. I feel the work she is doing there is immensely worthwhile, having broken through previously existing paradigms about the intelligence of parrots, and furthermore, continuing to expand the boundaries of what we know about the avian inhabitants who share our planet.
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Friday June 16, 2006 11:08 am |
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Cathy
Kamikaze pilot
Joined: 02 Apr 2005
Posts: 6673
Location: Omaha, NE USA |
Hey Alex!
Cool pics, thanks for posting them, as well as the update!
I myself just don't keep abreast of Prof Pepperbergs research & work, tho every once in awhile I'll hear something about it.
I think every bird has amazing potential, & just like with people, some have more learning capabilities than others. I would venture to say that the NORMAL household bird, not being in a lab setting, will most likely never realize their FULL potential. Which, of course, is OK too, as birds in their wild habitat will most likely never learn to speak in the human language. |
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Friday June 16, 2006 12:15 pm |
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