HOME | DD

Description
This is a research report i did for physics. I did it on animal intelligence and more specifically on the African Grey Parrot Alex.

Have you ever looked at your pet cat, dog, bird, or other pet and wonder what they were thinking, are they intelligent, or are they aware of what life is? For many years we humans as species have always prided our self's with being the only known intelligent animal on the planet. But now days there are animals that are indeed labeled as intelligent; those animals include species of dolphins, parrots, other primates, and others. But of course this realization didn't happen over the course of a few years or so. It took scientist and other people decades to get to this point in knowing about non-human intelligence in other animals. Possibly one of the biggest if not the biggest successful attempts was with Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her African Grey Parrot named Alex.

Before the 1960s, most people thought that we human were the only animals to have intelligence and consciousness. There are of course have been tried attempts by scientists and people to show the world that other animals are indeed intelligent, but most of them failed to show intelligence in their tried animal/s. An example of that was in the 1900s. The German horse, Clever Hans could answer questions asked by his trainer, Wilhelm von Osten, to crowds of people, that had a number as an answer. He would tap the answer out with his hooves and stop at the right number. People were amazed at this, a horse that could add and subtract. But the truth behind it is that when Hans reached the correct number, Osten would involuntary tilt his head just barely and Hans took that as a signal to stop. This may not have proven intelligence, but it did show that Hans had highly developed visual perception and the ability to decide that the head tilt was a sign to stop, does show evidence of animal intelligence.

In the mid 1970s, Dr. Irene Pepperberg was starting to go full force as a Biologist instead of a Chemist, in which she had a PhD. She knew right away what animals she would working on, birds. Because she had good past experiences with them, knew how to handle them, and knew that they learned songs and that parrots could mimic words. She chose an African Grey, because they were already known to be able to learn more easily and that they were the clearest talkers. So in June 1977, Dr. Pepperberg went to Noah's Ark pet store in Chicago to get an African Grey. The bird director there, pick the most convenient bird he could grab in a cage of 8 one-year-old Greys. That bird was named Alex, which stood as an acronym for Avian Learning Experiment. The little ounce of gray feathers would later break down so many animal intelligence barriers.

Over the course of thirty years, Dr. Pepperberg and Alex would break down countless barriers and prove hundreds of people wrong about animal intelligence. "Dr. Pepperberg, listing Alex's accomplishments, said he could identify 50 different objects and recognize quantities up to 6; that he could distinguish 7 colors and 5 shapes, and understood the concepts of "no," "bigger," "smaller," "same," "different," "over," and "under." Hold a tray of different shapes and colored objects in front of him… he could distinguish an object by its color, shape and the material it is made of. (Dr. Pepperberg said she frequently changed objects to make sure Alex wasn't just memorizing things and that she structured experiments to avoid involuntary cues from his examiner)."(Smith). Of course while achieving all of these accomplishments, there has been many trips to the veterinarian, addition of two other Greys to the studies, having to move all over the country several times in finding a lab spot, student interns helping, and a deep bond formed between the two.

Sadly though after thirty successful and trying years for Dr. Pepperberg and Alex, "Alex passed away on September 6, 2007 of a sudden, unexpected catastrophic event associated with arteriosclerosis ("hardening of the arteries"). It was a fatal arrhythmia, heart attack or stroke, which caused him to die suddenly with no suffering. There was no way to predict his demise. All of his tests from a recent physical examination, including his cholesterol level and asper levels, came back normal earlier that week. His death could not be connected to his current diet or his age; our veterinarian said that she has seen similar events in young (<10 year old) birds who also were on healthful diets. Most likely, genetics or the same kind of low-level (impossible to detect in birds as yet) inflammatory disease that is related to heart disease in humans was responsible."(Alex Foundation). His death was a worldwide event. The Alex foundation and Dr. Pepper berg's inboxes were flooded with emails giving their gratitude and saying how Alex had effected their life, even though most of them had never met the two. Calls constantly kept coming through and meetings were always trying to be set up for her, and magazines including The new York Times (3 times), Nature, and the Economist. His successor ended up being one of the other Grey's named Griffin.

"Alex left us as a magician might exit the stage: a blinding flash, a cloud of smoke, and the weaver of wizardry is gone, leaving us awestruck at what we'd seen, and wondering what other secrets remained hidden… He left at the height of his powers. To some what he did seemed magical, or at least otherworldly. Indeed, he had given us a glimpse of another world, one that has always remained beyond our view: the world of animal minds." (Pepperberg). Alex did indeed change forever the way we humans view animal intelligence now. He was in his prime and proved millions of people wrong about animal intelligence and was still twenty years from his expected life expectancy of fifty years. We can only wonder and speculate what more he and Dr. Pepperberg could of learned and discover in those twenty more years.