Sentience in Parrots And what about emotion and sentience in parrots? It is difficult to quantify these. However, many who have lived with parrots for a long time can attest to the presence of both of these attributes. Most parrots in the wild have complex social lives, complicated societal (flock) interactions, and form a monogamous bond for life with their mates (although exceptions have been noted, as with humans!). Therefore, separation from their mate, or from their chicks (such as in the process of “pulling chicks” so that they can be hand-raised, or in the separation of pairs for sale) is likely to be very traumatic. In fact, the extinction of the Carolina parrot in the United States has been blamed to a large part on the fact that when hunters shot one parrot, its mate refused to leave, in an apparent mourning behavior, and so became an easy target itself. Parrots who trust their caregivers often view them as mates, and can show marked dedication, trust, and love towards them. There, I’ve done it… the unthinkable ..I’ve waxed “anthropomorphic” and ascribed human traits to non-human beings. But the fact is, we rarely know what infants are thinking, but we still have no difficulty ascribing emotions to their actions (many of which probably represent reflexes). Besides, parrots have been on this planet millions of years longer than humans; should we perhaps refer to the attribution of some of these apparent emotional responses to human toddlers as “psittacimorphism”?

There are several short videos on-line including

The closeness of the relationship achievable between parrot and human has been beautifully set forth in the book The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship by Joanna Burger, in which her Amazon parrot, Tiko, helps to nurse her back to health while she recovers from Lyme Disease. The intricate and touching relationship between the two, even in health, is described lovingly and in detail by Ms Burger and it is not likely an imagined relationship, since the author is not only an ornithologist herself, but Distinguished Professor of Biology at Rutgers University.

So, as with Dr. Pepperberg and the 2005 Consortium of Neuroanatomists, it is not just parrot lovers, but experts of the scientific community who have finally begun to explore and document the richness, development, and complexity of the psychosocial and intellectual lives of parrots . They show us that, far from being mere colored puppets sitting on pirates’ shoulders, or icons parroting words for beer or travel commercials, they are intelligent, highly social, curious and communicative creatures, devoted to family, who need these psychosocial traits to be requited just as much as they do the physical needs of food to eat, water to drink, and wood to gnaw on.

When these needs of the Parrot Within are not met, the level of mistreatment can easily rise to the level of animal abuse. In cases where it is especially severe (see below), the term “Animal Cruelty” seems warranted.

Rosemary Low, who has contributed a vast and unparalleled work to our knowledge – and to both our consciousness and our conscience – about parrots, may have summed all this up best in one of her many books (The Loving Care of Pet Parrots – Hancock House, 1999):

“Through our birds, we can instill in others the importance of being at one with the natural world. We can use our association with certain birds in our home to show how birds have an intelligent awareness that equals our own. They are therefore as deserving of respect as any human being — more so, some might say, since they are at one with their world. We are not ….

We can educate our children and friends’ children by showing them the intelligent, thinking actions of our parrots. We can explain that they have the same emotions as us, the same ability to think through problems, and revise their behavior accordingly … They recognize individual people as readily as we do, just as they recognize individual members of their flock … We can learn to communicate with them, and they with us …

They deserve our respect; they are not automatons; they are beings covered in feathers who learn … how to use and perfect many skills. They give immense pleasure to countless humans. Alas, comparatively few humans give joy to parrots.”

The quotations of R. Low and W. Berry are used with permission

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Stewart Metz was born in New York City and went to Yale (undergraduate and then Med School). After finishing his medical and specialty [Fellowship] training in Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Washington in Seattle, he was appointed Tenured Professor of Medicine at both the University of Colorado (Denver) and University of Wisconsin (Madison), where he was Head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, and the Diabetes Program.

In 1992, he became fascinated by parrots — especially cockatoos, and, in particular, the Seram (“Salmon-crested”) Cockatoo. After six months of intensive study about the responsibilities in caring for captive parrots, he acquired his first parrot in 1993, followed by four more.

In 1997, struck by the paucity of knowledge about Seram Cockatoos, Stewart began to research what little was known about these birds . In 2001, he quit medicine to work full-time as a volunteer towards the welfare of parrots. In 2002, he was appointed Director and CEO of the Indonesian Parrot Project (then called Project Bird Watch). He has authored over 40 articles related to parrots and another in bio-medical research.

The Indonesian Parrot Project is an all-volunteer, 501©3 not-for-profit charity registered as a corporation in California and Washington states. Its primary mission is to conserve and protect the endangered wild cockatoos and parrots of Indonesia, Ultimately, the goal of the IPP is to change attitudes of the people of Indonesia and elsewhere, to regard these creatures as priceless treasures for all generations, and as intelligent sentient beings.

Follow Stewart’s blog: http://www.pipress.org/author/stuart/

www.indonesian-parrot-project.org.