The Third Leader: Parrot fashion
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Farewell to a dead parrot. Alex, the prodigiously vocal African Grey, has fallen, if you and he will forgive me, off the perch suddenly at home, his two by three foot cage in an American university laboratory. He was 31.
Alex, assisted by Dr Irene Pepperberg, did much to combat the rampant parrotism which has judged the species capable only of parroting. Not for Alex the limitations of a one-legged pirate's shoulder and "pieces of eight, pieces of eight". He had that way with phrases like "good morning" and "I love you", but he had also mastered more than 100 words, and could use them to identify 50 different objects. Something of a pollymath, then.
He was expected to live until he was 50. What happened? He seemed well enough when Dr Pepperberg bade him goodnight, but was found dead the next morning.
He could be a touch demanding: "If he said: 'Wanna banana', but was offered a nut instead, he stared in silence, asked for the banana again, or took the nut and threw it at the researcher."
But laboratory staff were known to be devoted.
He was also bossy with the two younger parrots in the lab, Griff and Wart, often commanding them to "talk better", but they're not squawking.
I would suggest, just to cover all eventualities, that the cage is examined carefully to see if his ladder had been moved.
In the end, though, I wonder, despite Alex's lauded work in furthering our knowledge of his species and helping humans with language difficulties, whether, with another 20 years of it to come, he decided he had said enough.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments