Hey! So tomorrow morning I’m getting on my flight to the Bahamas! I’ll be gone for eight days with no phone or internet access, so I won’t be able to update at all - even though I’d love to be posting all the great pictures I’ll have! :)
Once I come back I’ll be sharing the photos and videos that I took, as well as anything new I learned.
Alex: Redefining what it means to have a “bird brain.”
The other day, while searching my local Barnes & Noble for dolphin related resources (a hunt which was unexpectedly disappointing), I picked up the book Alex & Me. Written by Irene Pepperberg, the researcher whose groundbreaking work shed new light on animal cognition and communication, the book chronicles her experiences with Alex the African Grey parrot, how she came to be involved in animal research, and the revelations she had about the abilities of our feathered friends. These discoveries changed the way parrots, and African Greys in particular, are perceived in regards to their intelligence, something we are still trying to understand.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Alex, this marvelous bird passed away in 2007 at 30 years old, quite young for his species. He was part of Pepperberg’s research into the cognitive abilities of African Greys for his entire life, and his abilities have helped her and other scientists draw spectacular conclusions about just what they are capable of.
African Greys in recent years have become increasingly popular as pets, but have been kept in captivity since the early days of world exploration. Their mimicry abilities surpass those of other parrots by leaps and bounds, often “talking” in voices that sound startlingly human. They acquire enormous vocabularies that encompass both words and sounds. A cheeky Grey can easily fool a family that their phone or doorbell is ringing, and many, I’m sure, do. What Pepperberg set out to discover is whether these birds are just copycats, simply regurgitating the noises they find most interesting, or if is there some deeper level of comprehension.
What Pepperberg’s research proved quite definitively is that the Grey’s ability to understand human language and concepts goes far beyond what was previously assumed. At the end of his life, Alex could correctly identify objects by color, shape and material (matter, as he knew it); he could count to eight; he understood the concept of “same vs. different;” and his personality won the hearts of people across the world.
If you were to watch a video of Alex in action, it becomes amazingly clear that his speech is more than imitation. He often says things such as “Want nut” or “Want water,” and will not cooperate until his demands are met. Give him something that other what he asked for and he would throw it on the floor. When he no longer wanted to answer questions of “What color?” or “How many?” he would signify his loss of interest by saying “Wanna go back.”
I would go into more detail about his abilities in regards to what he could identify, name, count, etc., but this post would turn into a novel on its own. In addition to her findings, there are countless heartwarming anecdotes in Pepperberg’s book, many of which had me laughing out loud. Alex’s personality leaps of the page, and I often find myself smiling as I read more about him.
If you are at all interested in birds, I would heartily suggest picking up this book. While it is about science, it is not written for scientists, which makes it enjoyable to read rather than a chore, as I often find many nonfiction books to be. Even if you are familiar with Greys and their intellect, you will still be surprised to learn at just what Alex was capable of. I was, and continue to be with the turn of each page.
Alex & Me by Irene M. Pepperberg. Harper Collins, 2008.
As I continue researching dolphins in preparation for my upcoming trip, there are a few things that have surprised me. The thing I found most startling is not the facts we know, but the ones we don’t. In this day in age, it’s strange to think that there are things we don’t understand about our natural world. It’s easy to forget that there are mysteries of our planet that still elude us. While we know substantial amount about dolphins and how they work, so to speak, when it comes to their intelligence and the complexity of their social interactions we have just barely scraped the surface.
In the wild, male bottlenose dolphins will often form “gangs” of three. These bonds are long-lasting friendships, and these dolphins will travel, hunt, and socialize together for many years. These gangs will create alliances with one another, as well as enemies. Fights between them have been witnessed to last for over an hour, and they can be very brutal. But while these battles can be quite vicious, the bonds between the dolphins can last a lifetime. One dolphin in Shark Bay, Australia, Snubby, lost a friend after many years of swimming together. His appetite dwindled, and he steadily began to lose weight. Considering the level of cognition in dolphins, it seems that Snubby was exhibiting signs of depression over the loss of his companion.
Relationships between female dolphins are less understood, and are incredibly varied. Their patterns of association are inconsistent, as well as variable from dolphin to dolphin. Some females tend to be loners, swimming mostly on their own rather in groups. Others may swim with a few others, while others still act like the social butterflies of the dolphin world, drifting from group to group as they please. What is known, though, is that young females will often stay with their mothers into adulthood, continuing the pod matrilineally, while males will go off on their own and form the groups described earlier.
Because of our limited abilities to observe bottlenose dolphins in the wild, research of their complex social behavior is ongoing. We can only gather so much knowledge in a confined research facility, where dolphin relationships are drastically altered due to the change in environment. At the same time, the vastness of the ocean and the fact that humans were not build to live in it are great hindrances in our quest to learn more. It may be many more years still before we understand just how the dolphin social world works. Or, perhaps, it will remain a mystery.
Culture and the ability to transmit novel learned behavior from one generation to the next was once believed to be a trait unique to humans, but researchers are starting to realize that culture may be far more common in nature than we ever thought possible. 7 animals that have culture
Octopuses play, and play is something that intelligent animals do. At the Seattle Aquarium, my colleague Roland Anderson and I figured out a situation in which they might play: a boring situation. We gave them an empty tank and a floating pill bottle and waited to see what would happen. Nothing happened the first time, but, after the fourth time, a couple animals did something we call “play.” The octopus blew a jet of water at the pill bottle and that caused it to go over a water jet in the tank and come back to the octopus. These two individual animals did it in a sequence over 20 times. That’s just exactly the kind of thing we do when we bounce a ball. When you bounce a ball, you are not trying to get rid of the ball, you are trying to figure out what you can do with the ball.
…
They are very strong, and it is practically impossible to keep an octopus in a tank unless you are very lucky. One of the early researchers said if you leave a floating thermometer in a tank, it will last about five minutes. Octopuses simply take things apart. I recall reading about someone who had built a robot submarine to putter around in a large aquarium tank. The octopus got a hold of it and took it apart piece by piece. There’s a famous story from the Brighton Aquarium in England 100 years ago that an octopus there got out of its tank at night when no one was watching, went to the tank next door and ate one of the lumpfish and went back to his own tank and was sitting there the next morning. The aquarium lost several lumpfish before they figured out who was responsible.
“Due to development and human intrusions on the coast the nearest established rookeries for harbor seals are roughly 100 miles to the north and south of Casa Cove thus limiting the harbor seal’s ability to breed, nurse, and raise their young.” - Carly Slawson, volunteer with APRL’s SealWatch
“Must we humans be so selfish that we would deny the seals a small spot on the coast they can call their own. Those who want the seals removed so children can have the beach have certainly not asked the children what they want. Most children would prefer to see seals living happy on a beach than to see them removed. The people who are victimizing these seals are both anti-nature and anti-children. They have their own agenda of greed and prejudice,”
- Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and star of the hit TV show Whale Wars
This is what I will be doing on my trip! Minus the scuba gear, that is. But basically I will be part of a research team going out into the water in groups to observe dolphin pods as they interact with each other. I’m sure it will be an absolutely magical experience.
Live footage from the top of Bobst Library at N.Y.U.
Who knew the spectacle of a bird sitting on a nest could be so gripping?
Outside John Sexton’s 12th-floor president’s office at New York University, Violet the red-tailed hawk sits. She sits some more. She turns her head to the right, cleans a feather. She pecks at a twig. The breeze ruffles her head.
Violet gets up. She rolls a speckled egg ever so gently with her curved, pointed black beak. She settles back down slowly with a satisfied shimmy.
Once in a while, she tilts her head toward the camera.
Halfway across the country at a fish hatchery in Decorah, Iowa, a bald eagle has been tending her fuzzy chicks before a camera. Here in the middle of Manhattan, home to Pale Male and many fellow members of his species, there is now a hawk cam.
Its stars are Violet (named for one of the university’s colors) and her mate, Bobby (named for Bobst Library, atop which Dr. Sexton’s office sits). And in a few weeks, if all goes well, their hatchlings.
Dr. Sexton said that about nine months ago, before he caught sight of the birds, he started noticing twigs accumulating on the sandstone ledge outside his picture window. Soon they formed a nest — “A little bigger than a good-size Christmas wreath.”
Then he saw the hawks. They startled his guests. “One of them would come in to land, and it gave the effect of flying right at you at the window. I learned to warn people.”
