Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio Cale and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Trills a Lot Bryant, and there's
Speaker 1: Jerry Roland, who's bright plumage is sticking me in the
Speaker 1: face right now. And this is that was a great part. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is Stuff you Should Know about parrots, which
Speaker 1: is a surprisingly interesting topic. Chuck. Nice one, nice pick.
Speaker 1: That's good. Just do that, dude, the whole time. We're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna hammer out like a means of communication,
Speaker 1: just with that sound throughout this episode. Okay, oh, man'd
Speaker 1: be kind of great. You already broke character, Chuck, I
Speaker 1: think to the relief of every single person listening to
Speaker 1: So you were surprised, huh yeah, I mean, I know
Speaker 1: parents are knee or whatever, but I and I knew
Speaker 1: that they were probably one of the smartest animals, or
Speaker 1: some of them are. Some are just you know, dumb
Speaker 1: as door knobs, but there are plenty that are really smart.
Speaker 1: They make up for the really dumb ones. Um. But
Speaker 1: I just I know I didn't know that they were
Speaker 1: quite this this neat and also one of my new
Speaker 1: favorite things is like watching little happy birds run like
Speaker 1: hop around and sing. And there's a lot of parrots
Speaker 1: that do that. It's like one of their traits, Like
Speaker 1: they're really cute. Uh kind of animal. I love it.
Speaker 1: In your mid forties, you're turned onto the joy of
Speaker 1: birds chirping and jumping around. I didn't say I was
Speaker 1: turned on by it, turned onto it. Oh gosh, there's
Speaker 1: a big difference between those two. Uh. Have you ever
Speaker 1: had any experience with parrots or known bird people? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: so tangentially I was um UM's grandma has or had
Speaker 1: a parrot. She passed a year or so ago, but
Speaker 1: her parrot is still alive. Um she had a couple,
Speaker 1: Brutal and Brutus, and Brutal was fine, but Brutus terrorized
Speaker 1: you me when she was growing up, I mean like
Speaker 1: terrorized her. And they didn't see her for many years.
Speaker 1: And when I was when I visited and met her
Speaker 1: grandma and Brutus, Brutus like at first was just kind
Speaker 1: of like oh hum. And then he you could tell
Speaker 1: the moment he recognized Jumie and he lunged at her.
Speaker 1: He was like, you, I remember you. After all those years,
Speaker 1: he still just did not like umi for some reason. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got some parrots and bird stuff that
Speaker 1: I'll pepper throughout when it's applicable. But you know, bird folks,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a bird person. My experience has
Speaker 1: been bird people are just sometimes a little eccentric. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Bird people are definitely a certain type, just like cat
Speaker 1: people are a certain type and dog people are certain types.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of people and dog people sure. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that makes bird
Speaker 1: people seem eccentric is there's far fewer of them. But
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I didn't realize it
Speaker 1: could be. That could be also like the extensive stacks
Speaker 1: of paperback fantasy novels that just line their floors throughout
Speaker 1: their house. That too. Yeah. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize is that birds are the fourth
Speaker 1: um fourth most popular pet in the United States, which
Speaker 1: makes sense if you think about it, But I never
Speaker 1: really thought about all mine. Mine just stops after dogs,
Speaker 1: which are number one. Yeah, I mean dogs, cats, what
Speaker 1: is it? Fish? And then birds. I would expect goats
Speaker 1: to be somewhere on there, but I think people just
Speaker 1: love seeing goats and not necessarily owning them. Yes, sure,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people who own birds
Speaker 1: come especially parrots, come to feel the same way after
Speaker 1: they've bought a parrot, as we'll see. Yeah, so should
Speaker 1: we dig into this thing I thought we already had.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of different kinds of parrots. Uh,
Speaker 1: they are, I mean, they're close to four hundred species
Speaker 1: of the order. And I'd look this up in a
Speaker 1: couple of places. Uh, citize for mese. Mm hmm, what
Speaker 1: did you get? Uh, yeah, I thought you were gonna
Speaker 1: say Citi signs, but yeah, that's that's how I would
Speaker 1: have said it, okay. Uh, And we're talking like you know,
Speaker 1: if you think of a parrot, you probably think of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a macaw or an African gray. But if you've
Speaker 1: seen a parakeet or a lorikeet, or a cockatiel or cockatoo,
Speaker 1: those are all parrots as well. Yeah, so I love
Speaker 1: birds as well. There's there's a lot of different kinds
Speaker 1: of birds that are parrots, and um, some of them
Speaker 1: just don't even really look like it. You're like, no,
Speaker 1: that's an eagle, or I think that's a kind of vulture.
Speaker 1: Like they're very they're really varied um order um. But
Speaker 1: they all have in common a couple of things that
Speaker 1: will see, one of which is a short beak that's
Speaker 1: curved usually uh, which is very very powerful. And then
Speaker 1: they also have a certain kind of toe arrangement called
Speaker 1: the zygodactyl toe arrangements talk more about in a little bit,
Speaker 1: but other than that, they are really kind of very
Speaker 1: like I was saying, in size and shape and color um,
Speaker 1: and even down to some kinds of species. They can
Speaker 1: be varied among the male and the female so much so.
Speaker 1: I think there's one, Oh, I can't remember which one
Speaker 1: it was, um, but it was a kind of parrot,
Speaker 1: smallish parrot where the males and the females look so
Speaker 1: totally different color wise that they were thought to be
Speaker 1: different species for a very long time. That's right, that's
Speaker 1: the Solomon Island electus. Thank you, show off, but thank you.
Speaker 1: So you know, like you said, they vary in size.
Speaker 1: There are some that are so big, like uh, the
Speaker 1: Coca poa in New Zealand that can be like a
Speaker 1: seven pounder. Did you see any videos of those guys?
Speaker 1: They're great. They can't even fly there so big, No,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't even they bound along their wings.
Speaker 1: They don't work for flying, but they use them for
Speaker 1: stability because they mostly climb trees. But they're yeah, they're
Speaker 1: ground dwelling. They look like little furry or feathery mammals
Speaker 1: basically sort of. I don't know why that hasn't been
Speaker 1: a Disney character yet. I don't either, because they also
Speaker 1: seemed to be very sweet. I saw some uh New Zealand, um,
Speaker 1: like I guess researchers who were tracking them, and I
Speaker 1: don't even think they put this one Coca poa under
Speaker 1: when they took a blood sample. It was just laying
Speaker 1: in their lap and I think it was just like
Speaker 1: just basically like yeah, just hanging out, you know, like
Speaker 1: go ahead, just take the blood and let me let
Speaker 1: me go again. So they're super super chill um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they would make a perfect Disney character for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So those are the big daddies. Um. There are ones
Speaker 1: from New Guinea that are just a few inches, way
Speaker 1: less than an ounce. I think the highest Innthe macaw
Speaker 1: is generally the biggest just in size. Uh. They can
Speaker 1: be three and a half feet long. Um, they can
Speaker 1: have four with wingspans and I think the kind of
Speaker 1: trademark characteristic when you think of parrots though, or the
Speaker 1: vibrant colors. Um, you know, some are like the gray
Speaker 1: African gray is mainly just gray that has a little
Speaker 1: bit of red. But when you think of parrots, you
Speaker 1: think of those really brightly colored blues and greens and
Speaker 1: reds and little rosy cheeks and stuff like that. Yeah, which,
Speaker 1: and I mean they're obviously the reason why parrots have
Speaker 1: very bright colors is to attract mates. Like that's basically
Speaker 1: the reason for anything to have a bright color, unless
Speaker 1: it's showing that it's poisonous. And as far as we've
Speaker 1: ever found, parrots are not poisonous. But one of the specialties,
Speaker 1: do you think, right, dead by dawn? One of the
Speaker 1: specialties of the pigments in parrots. It's apparently not found
Speaker 1: in other birds. The chuck is that those pigments have
Speaker 1: antibacterial properties, which I guess keep them from getting like
Speaker 1: wing rot or something like that. Yeah, there's um, there's
Speaker 1: so I think it's called citico boy, here we go.
Speaker 1: Citico Fulvin's are those pigments, and they're found only in
Speaker 1: parts There aren't even any other birds to have these. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean other birds have colors, but they don't
Speaker 1: have that specific kind of anti bacterial agent color pigment, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. And you mentioned the toes. That is a
Speaker 1: um you know, along with I think like owls and woodpeckers,
Speaker 1: and I think there are some other birds that hive
Speaker 1: these zygodactyl feet. But that means they have the usual
Speaker 1: four toes, but most birds have three in one arrangement,
Speaker 1: like three up front, one in the back. In this case,
Speaker 1: they have two upfront, two in the back. So Juliet
Speaker 1: helped us put this together, and she basically points out
Speaker 1: that like this means they have two sets of opposable thumbs.
Speaker 1: So that's why they're really good climbers, and they can
Speaker 1: hold on to a branch like it's you know, until
Speaker 1: the sun comes up dead by down style exactly. And
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a parrot work a nut or
Speaker 1: seed or something with the combination of the beak in
Speaker 1: those four toes, it's pretty pretty dexterrous. Yeah. That's also
Speaker 1: again how those coca posts can climb trees without any
Speaker 1: ability to fly. They I mean, they can maneuver, they
Speaker 1: can hang and believe there's an upside down hanging type
Speaker 1: of parrot, which I'm not sure why it hangs upside down,
Speaker 1: maybe just to show off that it has zygodactyl toes.
Speaker 1: But they can do a lot with those things. And yeah,
Speaker 1: in combination with their beak there, they're really working it.
Speaker 1: Apparently their beak as well. Um, that sharp, short curved
Speaker 1: beak that that all parrots have is extremely powerful. Um.
Speaker 1: They move independently of one another lower beak in the
Speaker 1: upper beak, so it can exert a lot of force. Um.
Speaker 1: And and that really helps out because a lot of
Speaker 1: their food are like really hard nuts and seeds and
Speaker 1: things like that, but they they're nothing in the face
Speaker 1: of a parrots beak. Yeah, it's if you've ever been
Speaker 1: chopped down on by a parrot, it's rough. Yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: take a chunk of skin out. Yeah, they were. When
Speaker 1: I worked in Arizona, that restaurant in Yuma, Julianna's Patio Cafe.
Speaker 1: It was an outdoor cafe and they had the owner, Julia,
Speaker 1: had parrots and I think they were like five of them,
Speaker 1: just kind of behind where you eat on these stands,
Speaker 1: not even caged. And they were mean, the snakes, not
Speaker 1: to her they were, but if you were not her
Speaker 1: and you went up and you were like, oh, let
Speaker 1: me give you a little ear scratch. One of those
Speaker 1: things could just fly its little head around and chop
Speaker 1: down on your finger and it feels like it's in
Speaker 1: a vice. Yeah, well you're lucky. They could have taken
Speaker 1: your finger clean off. Probably there's there's anecdotal stories that, um,
Speaker 1: that we are not able to verify. But this, it's
Speaker 1: definitely worth mentioning that a large parrot could snap a
Speaker 1: broomstick with its beak, which is, if you read it,
Speaker 1: it's really impressive. When you say it out loud, you
Speaker 1: feel very foolish a little bit. I mean, sure, I
Speaker 1: guess it depends on the broom but it's it's really old, rotted,
Speaker 1: termite rotted broomstick. Yeah, let's just say it's really really
Speaker 1: a lot of force. Um, and my finger can vouch
Speaker 1: for that. Was that some of the peppering you alluded
Speaker 1: to earlier, that's one one kind of pepper, one grain
Speaker 1: of pepper. Got I had a bird that'll come up later.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for that one. Um. So Chuckie, you're
Speaker 1: saying that, like, um, they wouldn't bite Julia Julianna Julianna
Speaker 1: Julia because she was part of their flock. As we'll
Speaker 1: see um. And it turns out that there are some
Speaker 1: parrots get along with other species of parrots and even
Speaker 1: other species of birds and other kinds don't so much
Speaker 1: so that when you read like a parrot owner's guide,
Speaker 1: they're basically like, if you're gonna get you know, other
Speaker 1: birds do not get this kind with this kind. And ironically,
Speaker 1: love birds are famously mean to other species of birds.
Speaker 1: But if you're in their flock, then you're you're one
Speaker 1: of them. And that's one thing that one reason why
Speaker 1: parrots make such great pets for so many people is
Speaker 1: because they imprint with humans really well, and are you're
Speaker 1: just a member of their family and they're a member
Speaker 1: of your family. That's just the way it is to
Speaker 1: the parrot. If you're an outsider interloper, yeah, they'll take
Speaker 1: your finger off like it's an old broomstick. So Yumi
Speaker 1: was never ingratiated herself, I I guess not, which just
Speaker 1: surprising because everybody likes you, you know, I know, like
Speaker 1: animals flocked to her like snow white. Basically, yeah, she's
Speaker 1: always she's got this lamb following around. Now. I don't
Speaker 1: know where that thing came from. It is cute, it
Speaker 1: is the lambing is coming soon, unfortunately for the boy.
Speaker 1: Uh well, let's take a little break there then and
Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little bit about Uh,
Speaker 1: parrots in the wild. Want to learn about astortic how
Speaker 1: to take the perfect, but all about fractal get Kiscon's
Speaker 1: hunt the Lizzie Border murders. That they kind of all
Speaker 1: runs on the plane every day. We should know. Word up, Jerry. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Chuck, we were talking. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: parrots in the wild UM, which is where they used
Speaker 1: to be um more often than not, and still are.
Speaker 1: Like there's something like three hundred and about three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty known species of parrots UM. But a lot
Speaker 1: of them are dying off really quick, as we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: But the thing about parrots were learning is that they're
Speaker 1: really resilient, Like they can adapt and find homes and
Speaker 1: make homes for themselves in new climates. So you'll find
Speaker 1: them typically in their preferred area around the tropics, around
Speaker 1: the equator, typically in the southern hemisphere, but you're also
Speaker 1: going to find them like living up in mountain ranges,
Speaker 1: high up on rocky outcrops. Um. You'll find them in
Speaker 1: Chicago's Hyde Park. There's a bunch of Connecticut. They're kind
Speaker 1: of all over the place. Even though no native species
Speaker 1: UM from the United States are are still around, there's
Speaker 1: still plenty of like wild feral parrots that live out
Speaker 1: in the US. Yeah. When I was in Australia, UM,
Speaker 1: we had a couple of down days and you know,
Speaker 1: my buddy Scotty, our friend Scotty, came over to join us,
Speaker 1: and um we Scotty and I went down to wine
Speaker 1: country south of south of Melbourne, which is just some
Speaker 1: of those beautiful land I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: And we were at a wine winery overlooking this huge
Speaker 1: vineyard and then like the sort of woodland jungle, and
Speaker 1: I saw these huge white birds flying around down there,
Speaker 1: and we were the only people there. We were there
Speaker 1: in the off season, so everywhere we went, we were
Speaker 1: the only two people kind of tasting. And so we got,
Speaker 1: you know, to hang out with the the winemakers, which
Speaker 1: is cool, and they said, uh, there was a cockatoose
Speaker 1: and I was like, I was just a naive American.
Speaker 1: I didn't know they just flew around Australia like that.
Speaker 1: And I said, just so you know those like they
Speaker 1: sell those in stores for a lot of money in
Speaker 1: the United States, And I said, it's just crazy to
Speaker 1: me that they're just flying around. Yeah, apparently there was
Speaker 1: a time not terribly long ago where you could see
Speaker 1: beautiful green cockatoos um or parakeets i'm sorry, flying around
Speaker 1: the United States until we drove them to extinction about
Speaker 1: a hundred or so years ago. Yeah, the Carolina went
Speaker 1: in there, a North Carolina parakeet, the Carolina parakeet. Yep.
Speaker 1: It was just this gorgeous, green, beautiful parakeet that was
Speaker 1: native to the United States. Um and I saw some things. So,
Speaker 1: you know. Passenger pigeons were also famously um uh, driven
Speaker 1: to extinction. The last Carolina parakeet died in the same
Speaker 1: cage that the last passenger pigeon, Martha died in at
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Zoo. So the Cincinnati Zoo had the honor
Speaker 1: of keeping captive the last passenger pigeon and the last
Speaker 1: Carolina parakeet and killing them. Right, They had this one
Speaker 1: zookeeper who was in charge of strangling the last one
Speaker 1: just to give it over with because they couldn't couldn't
Speaker 1: stand the tin in any longer. You know, They're like,
Speaker 1: just get it over with. Oh, I've got a joke
Speaker 1: that is, so I'm not going to tell because I
Speaker 1: would upset bird lovers, So tell me later. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you later. Uh So, these parents, they mainly stay up
Speaker 1: in the trees. Obviously, they do come down if they
Speaker 1: were going to drink something and sometimes if they need
Speaker 1: to find something to eat if they can't get it
Speaker 1: up there, And they generally do this kind of follow
Speaker 1: the humans patterns of kind of hanging out and doing
Speaker 1: the stuff during the day and sleeping at night unless
Speaker 1: you're a coca peo or a night parrot, and they
Speaker 1: are nocturnal, which is um. I think they're the only
Speaker 1: two of the species. What's neat about those coca posts?
Speaker 1: Who is um? They be from being nocturnal, the eyes
Speaker 1: have migrated from the sides of their heads towards the
Speaker 1: front of their face, and they've developed this kind of
Speaker 1: puffy feathers around their eyes. So they're also known as
Speaker 1: the owl parrot because they've started to kind of resemble
Speaker 1: the owl, and the owl is typically nocturnal as well.
Speaker 1: Are you going to get a Coca peo. I think
Speaker 1: I might. Actually, there's only a hundred and fifty left me.
Speaker 1: I could probably be arrested, but at the very least,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give it a shot. You know. So
Speaker 1: they are omnivores and they will generally eat seeds and
Speaker 1: nuts and plants and fruits and things and insects. But
Speaker 1: if they need to eat, you know, a parrot's gonna
Speaker 1: do what a parent's gonna do. This is crazy, and
Speaker 1: this is you know, this can cause problems. I think
Speaker 1: the African gray can feast on corn, which has caused
Speaker 1: problems with corn crops in New Zealand. This is the
Speaker 1: crazy part. Uh. In the kind of mid eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, keys k e a s We're discovered
Speaker 1: to be and this is sort of horrifying. Eating sheep
Speaker 1: and attacking sheep in the middle of the night. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I guess it was in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: because they're not they're not nocturnal. But in my mind,
Speaker 1: it's a horror movie and it happens in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night to me the most, the like the
Speaker 1: middle of the day makes things even more horrific. Things
Speaker 1: aren't bad. Things aren't supposed to happen in the middle
Speaker 1: of You're supposed to happen at night in the woods,
Speaker 1: you know, good point, not not in the middle of
Speaker 1: a field in the day. So seeing some parrots attack
Speaker 1: and eat a sheep in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: that's bad news. But those things, actually they look a
Speaker 1: lot like eagles more so than parrots to me. So
Speaker 1: you give them a pass. Yeah, that's fine. What I'd
Speaker 1: like to see. I'd like to see them all try
Speaker 1: to carry off a sheep together with teamwork, you know,
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's how it goes. Well, there's
Speaker 1: your cartoon that's like a ziggy cartoon. I think they
Speaker 1: I think they put parrot repellent on because you know,
Speaker 1: they back in the day, they would just kill them
Speaker 1: all and let God sort of ount. That's what happened
Speaker 1: to the Carolina parrot key. Yeah exactly. But they, you know,
Speaker 1: eventually they were like, we can't just kill these keys,
Speaker 1: Like we're a more evolved you know, humankind at this point,
Speaker 1: and we got to stop this stuff. We gotta protect them.
Speaker 1: So they've looked for ways to to keep from having
Speaker 1: to do that, and one of them is that parrot
Speaker 1: repellent on the cheep's bellies, which it's probably like that
Speaker 1: stuff you tried to use on your fingernails to keep
Speaker 1: from biting them. I used to coat my fingers in that.
Speaker 1: But you just slather in a sheep's belly and call
Speaker 1: it a day. Yeah, it's very better. One thing I
Speaker 1: did want to add though, when you were talking about
Speaker 1: their range and they can end up in weird places.
Speaker 1: I remember when we would do commercial shoots in Pasadena, California,
Speaker 1: and we would have the Unlucky Parrot Location, which is
Speaker 1: basically anywhere in Pasadena. On any given day, you could
Speaker 1: be near a bunch of parrots making a ton of
Speaker 1: noise and you can't shoot, You know how it is
Speaker 1: with sounds like you can't you can't pay the guy
Speaker 1: to turn off his blower or his lawnmower. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you can't. Yeah, I want two and free reign at
Speaker 1: the craft services table. But yeah, those uh, those Pasadena parrots,
Speaker 1: they have disrupted many film shoot so um. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: you're like, well, wait a minute, there's not native parrots
Speaker 1: in the United States. How are there a bunch of
Speaker 1: parrots in the trees in Pasadena? Well, people let their
Speaker 1: parents go, or people die in their parrots escape or
Speaker 1: what have you. Um And like I was saying before,
Speaker 1: it's like they're really resilient. And once they start forming
Speaker 1: breeding pairs, even though they have like a really low
Speaker 1: reproduction rate. Um as we'll see in a second, they
Speaker 1: they can they can survive. They can make new niches
Speaker 1: for themselves, which is pretty cool. But they're all there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot in Florida, Texas, and California. I think
Speaker 1: every kind of species that has a population is supported
Speaker 1: in all three of those states. Right in the Connecticut
Speaker 1: one is just a that's a very weird thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In Chicago's Hyde Park too, it's like the roof caves
Speaker 1: in on people's houses in the winter in Chicago. There's
Speaker 1: so much snow and it's so cold, Like, how are
Speaker 1: parrots surviving? But apparently they do. It's crazy, so they
Speaker 1: live And this is this is pretty great. This is
Speaker 1: where stuff you should know things intersect or love of uh,
Speaker 1: collections and groupings of animals, sounds of assemblage. Yeah, pandemonium
Speaker 1: of parrots is what it's called. For good reason, like
Speaker 1: I said, because they are super noisy and can be
Speaker 1: aggravating in large numbers. When they're out in the wild
Speaker 1: and they live together, they help each other out, they
Speaker 1: feed with each other, they look out for each other,
Speaker 1: they keep track of each other, and they communicate with
Speaker 1: each other. All those squawks and screams that you hear
Speaker 1: when a bunch of when a pandemonium is gathered, is
Speaker 1: them talking to each other. And they might be saying,
Speaker 1: you know, film crew, or they might be saying snake
Speaker 1: or monkey like look out. Yeah. I also have the impression,
Speaker 1: from spending hours and hours of watching beautiful parrots of
Speaker 1: all types seeing and be happy um that that they're
Speaker 1: just basically sharing how they're feeling at any given points
Speaker 1: sometimes too, and that a lot of times it's real positive.
Speaker 1: You know, they're talking about how great things are beautiful
Speaker 1: the day is. I could be anthropomorphizing, but it really
Speaker 1: really seems that way. They just seem like kind of
Speaker 1: a happy, happy type of animal. I'm like, I want
Speaker 1: to buy into that too. I'm with you. Just go ahead.
Speaker 1: It's like, prove me wrong. I'll give you ten years,
Speaker 1: and in those in the ten year span, I'll enjoy
Speaker 1: these parrots for what I think they're doing. I agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all laughed at you early on, and
Speaker 1: now she's got that lamb following her around, right like
Speaker 1: miracles can happen. We have to get some of that
Speaker 1: um that nail biting stuff to slather on the lamb's
Speaker 1: belly in case it runs into some keys. Uh. So
Speaker 1: they mate and they have little babies. They are generally monogamous,
Speaker 1: and males and females work together to raise the kid
Speaker 1: and to care for the little baby. From the moment
Speaker 1: that it's an egg, they will sit on it for
Speaker 1: eighteen to thirty days and even take turns. I think
Speaker 1: the mom usually does most of the sitting while the
Speaker 1: male goes out and get some food. But the male
Speaker 1: can also be like, why don't you why don't you
Speaker 1: stretch your leg, you stretch your toes? Yeah exactly, so
Speaker 1: um yeah, But for the most part, the male gets
Speaker 1: the food or something like that. But the um lovebirds
Speaker 1: also are like famously monogamous, and they so much so
Speaker 1: that when they're separated, when a breeding pair of separated,
Speaker 1: when they're brought back together, um all, first of all,
Speaker 1: they'll start to like lose energy and get real depressed
Speaker 1: and sad. And then when they're brought back together. They
Speaker 1: reform their bond by feeding one another with their beak.
Speaker 1: It's very cute, isn't That's sweet? Um? Yeah, I kind
Speaker 1: of have have a thing for love birds now. They're
Speaker 1: just super cute and pretty and so you know what,
Speaker 1: you know, what birds are not monogamous, which one's casual
Speaker 1: sex birds raw lowbirds. Yeah, but good for them, you know.
Speaker 1: So sure they're just out there doing their thing, not
Speaker 1: hurting anybody, as long as they're upfront about what they're
Speaker 1: in there for. You know, Rob Blow, is this from
Speaker 1: his sex scandal from like years ago. No, I just
Speaker 1: think of Rob Blow is like being difficult to pin
Speaker 1: down and you know, love and life, having having a
Speaker 1: good time, just doing his thing. That's what I think.
Speaker 1: He's really worked to change that image over the past
Speaker 1: three decades. He really has not with me, but I
Speaker 1: recognize what he's been trying to do. Okay, famous lothario
Speaker 1: Rob Blow. Oh well, I also dated myself because I
Speaker 1: would say a good third of our listeners are like,
Speaker 1: who's this Rob Low guy. It's like, oh yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: he was, so they might know them. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: it's like Mad magazine making fun of Spiro Agnew when
Speaker 1: we were little, and we're like, who who is the
Speaker 1: Spiro Agnew? Right? To us, Rob Low is the sax
Speaker 1: player from st Almost Fire who made a sex tape
Speaker 1: to them. He's the happy dad and uh Parks and
Speaker 1: wreck guy. I also think of him as literally dude
Speaker 1: from um west Wing. I don't remember what his character's
Speaker 1: name was, No need to email, I can look it
Speaker 1: up myself. I never saw that show. Oh you didn't.
Speaker 1: It's good. I think you'd like it, all right. Even
Speaker 1: if you don't like Aaron Sorkin, you'd like west Wing.
Speaker 1: He's a little wordy for me, Yeah, sure, yeah, a little,
Speaker 1: a little over the top every single second of every
Speaker 1: single show. But west Wing was his. It was. It
Speaker 1: just worked perfectly for him. Yeah. I don't want to
Speaker 1: knock Aaron Sorkin. I'll just say he has a fondness
Speaker 1: for typing. But so there was this one, this one,
Speaker 1: this one Rob Low sketch on Sara Live. I know
Speaker 1: we've talked about before, but remember when Aaron Sorkin was
Speaker 1: busted with mushrooms in the airport. No, so this that
Speaker 1: news came out on a week when Roblow was hosting
Speaker 1: Sara Live. So they did one of those famous like
Speaker 1: walk and talk shots from West Wing and in the background,
Speaker 1: suddenly suddenly it converts from like the West Wing that
Speaker 1: they're walking through and now they're being chased in a
Speaker 1: black and white movie by a giant like iguana. And
Speaker 1: so they they're still walking talking about, you know, the
Speaker 1: administration of the president, but they're also kind of jogging
Speaker 1: running away looking behind them at this giant iguana has
Speaker 1: really really great stuff. So how many breaks have we taken? Charles?
Speaker 1: Just one? Do you want to take another one? Or
Speaker 1: keep going a little more? I think maybe let's wait
Speaker 1: one minute. Let's talk about their uh intelligent and altruism,
Speaker 1: and I think that's those are two lovely topics. Well,
Speaker 1: before we do that, I've got one more thing about mating.
Speaker 1: So um they actually when they reproduce, they'll they'll lay
Speaker 1: between like two and eight eggs at a time, and
Speaker 1: their incubation period can be really fast, like eighteen days
Speaker 1: thirty days. But they also usually only have a couple
Speaker 1: of um chicks survive, and they spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time and energy raising their young almost to a humanlike degree,
Speaker 1: not not for eighteen years, but for up to like
Speaker 1: four years. In some cases, the offspring, the chicks will
Speaker 1: you know, grow up with the parents. Um, so they
Speaker 1: actually have a very low reproductive rate. So it's a
Speaker 1: big problem when humans come along and you know, kill
Speaker 1: off pair of populations because they're slow to recover. They're
Speaker 1: slow to reproduce. So just put that that little pin
Speaker 1: in your hat and smoke it. I just can't get
Speaker 1: that one right these days. So parents are super smart,
Speaker 1: like we talked about. And there are a couple of
Speaker 1: really great examples of how and how they display this.
Speaker 1: And one is is they can use tools like they
Speaker 1: have seen parrots use sticks to like scratch their heads
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Uh, this one is amazing. They
Speaker 1: found that cockatoos have been observed using sticks to drum
Speaker 1: on logs as part of a courtship sort of mating ritual.
Speaker 1: Because nothing women love more than a drum solo. You know,
Speaker 1: I know it really just every woman alive thinks of
Speaker 1: drum solo is the greatest musical thing you can do.
Speaker 1: That's usually when I go to the bathroom to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a hats off, but yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of whatever that don't happen much anymore. No, you
Speaker 1: don't see those, but um, the one that knocked my
Speaker 1: socks off, chuck was Um, there's at least oh the
Speaker 1: greater vassa parrot. They will use little pebbles or whatever
Speaker 1: to grind up seashells, and the male does this, and
Speaker 1: the male will eat the seashell and re urgitated into
Speaker 1: like this vomity calcium rich paste as an offering to
Speaker 1: pair of female he's trying to make with, which sounds
Speaker 1: gross and weird until you realize that other birds eat
Speaker 1: calcium rich shells or chew on them or whatever to
Speaker 1: to strengthen the shells of their own eggs. But parrots
Speaker 1: are the only known birds to actually use tools to
Speaker 1: grind the shells up to make them easier to digest.
Speaker 1: And the males offering it to the woman is a
Speaker 1: like a basically like, hey, look at how well I'm
Speaker 1: taking care of you and our kid. I'm regurgitating seashells
Speaker 1: for you that I'm grinding up. That's astounding tool used.
Speaker 1: Like you just do not see that elsewhere except in
Speaker 1: like maybe primates here there. Well, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: want to talk about cool, their altruism is something that
Speaker 1: you don't see much in the animal kingdom at all.
Speaker 1: Um very few non human species show this trait, and
Speaker 1: no birds before just a couple of years ago. We're
Speaker 1: even on this list. They even tested crows out because
Speaker 1: they're super smart, I think in and they gave them
Speaker 1: an altruism tests and they're like, nope, you guys failed
Speaker 1: the test. But they did this. And this was from
Speaker 1: just January of last year in current biology, ironically, like
Speaker 1: just a couple of months before the coronavirus hid. They're like,
Speaker 1: they don't have anything to talk about this month exactly,
Speaker 1: they're doing some important work. And they did this um
Speaker 1: exercise where they got these birds together, these parrots, and
Speaker 1: that they put them in pairs and they basically put
Speaker 1: a wall between them with a hole, and they were separated,
Speaker 1: and one of them had a token and one of
Speaker 1: them had that you would trade for food, but one
Speaker 1: of them didn't. One of them had the food and
Speaker 1: one of them had the token. So these birds literally
Speaker 1: figured out how to work together to exchange like here,
Speaker 1: you take this token because you've got the food, feed yourself.
Speaker 1: But remember me, if the roles are ever reversed, right,
Speaker 1: which is a totally different thing. It's a reciprocity. So
Speaker 1: these these mccaus showed that there was it. The African
Speaker 1: gray is the one that passed. Yeah, and they're typically
Speaker 1: known as like possibly the smartest birds of all time.
Speaker 1: But um, the like in addition to like, here you go,
Speaker 1: have this, have the like, take this token and get
Speaker 1: yourself some food even though I'm not getting anything back.
Speaker 1: When the when the roles were reversed, the birds would
Speaker 1: do the same thing, so they would get their turn
Speaker 1: basically later on. And so yeah, you have altruism and
Speaker 1: reciprocity tool use. Um. They're also very famous for mimicry too,
Speaker 1: which a lot of birds can mimic sounds. I saw
Speaker 1: a video of a minor bird um in the wild,
Speaker 1: I guess being filmed with a camera as well as
Speaker 1: a video camera, because it made an exact sound of
Speaker 1: a digital camera taking a picture. It was astounding. It
Speaker 1: sounded like they dubbed the sound of a camera over
Speaker 1: this bird. I wonder about that on some of these videos.
Speaker 1: This is I mean, I hope, but it was legit.
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It looked like a legit wildlife
Speaker 1: video or a clip from one. But a lot of
Speaker 1: birds can do that. But the thing is other birds
Speaker 1: can't do. What parrots can do is like their mimicry
Speaker 1: is at a whole different level compared to other birds.
Speaker 1: And they're basically the only bird we know of that
Speaker 1: can mimic a human voice. I think that's a great
Speaker 1: place for a cliffhanger, right, sure, all right, we'll come
Speaker 1: back and we'll talk more about mimicry right after this.
Speaker 1: I want to learn about a terrestortic college act how
Speaker 1: to take the bird. But but all about fractals getting
Speaker 1: Kiscon's hunt, the Lizzie Border murders, that they kind of
Speaker 1: all runs on the plane every day. We should know.
Speaker 1: Word up, Jerry. All right, so we're back and we're
Speaker 1: talking about birds vocalizing and mimicking things. Uh, they have
Speaker 1: voices that vary by region, which is really neat. They
Speaker 1: have different dialects basically, and if a parent moves to
Speaker 1: a new area where they have a different kind of dialect,
Speaker 1: they will adjust, you know what Julia refers to as
Speaker 1: their accents to fit in, which is really really amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is amazing and apparent. I was reading up on
Speaker 1: a study about that chuck and they found that a
Speaker 1: bird that lives, like, these dialects will be kind of regional,
Speaker 1: but some regions butt up against one another. So if
Speaker 1: you're in a nest that um is adjacent to two regions,
Speaker 1: they'll kind of use it. They'll go back and forth.
Speaker 1: And they found like the differences in the basic structure
Speaker 1: of the calls are different enough that that they're dialectical.
Speaker 1: But then within these nests there's different variations, slighter variations
Speaker 1: within the dialects, so like they're they're communicating into some
Speaker 1: really astounding degrees. And like I was saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: parrots in particular the only one smart enough to mimic humans.
Speaker 1: And one of the reason is that they do this
Speaker 1: is they're able to manipulate their tongue, which is one
Speaker 1: of the things that we do to produce speech. So
Speaker 1: they're not just they're not just mimicking a sound like,
Speaker 1: they're actually forming words very similarly to how humans do. UM.
Speaker 1: They are also capable of hitting like pitches, lower pitches
Speaker 1: that are more in step with how human the human
Speaker 1: voice sounds, so it sounds more like human that they're mimicking.
Speaker 1: But then also they seem to have an additional layer
Speaker 1: um in their brain and the region of their brain
Speaker 1: that they used to to mimic um that other animals
Speaker 1: don't have that other birds don't have, which implies that
Speaker 1: they're just smart enough to do this too. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I had a cockateal. Oh some pepper. Everybody had a
Speaker 1: cockateal when I was a kid. I was like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like we had this bird for a few years,
Speaker 1: but I was definitely in the you know, ten eleven
Speaker 1: twelve year old range, and our little gray cockateal was
Speaker 1: named Dolly, and I, you know, knew that you could
Speaker 1: teach cockatiels to say things. So I was, my brother
Speaker 1: and I were all over this. You know, no one
Speaker 1: else in the family really cared. But we got a
Speaker 1: record to teach us how to do this. And it
Speaker 1: involves tons and tons of repetition. You can't just go
Speaker 1: up to a bird and teach it to say something
Speaker 1: a couple of times and they'll do It. Requires a
Speaker 1: lot of repetition, and so we taught. By the end,
Speaker 1: Dolly could say hello and hello Dolly, and Dolly could
Speaker 1: do the wolf whistle like uh oh yeah, like when
Speaker 1: someone walked in the room, uh I. Dolly learned to
Speaker 1: do the charge in it. And and then the one
Speaker 1: I was most proud of is I taught Dolly to
Speaker 1: do the co co co co like a jungle bird.
Speaker 1: And it was my favorite thing that Dolly could do.
Speaker 1: So Dolly would sit on my shoulder and like kind
Speaker 1: of nibble up my ear lobes and watch TV and
Speaker 1: stuff and peck at my hair and that was sort
Speaker 1: of the ex tent of it. It was a tremendous mess.
Speaker 1: Uh And you know, we're I guess we can go
Speaker 1: and talk about that. If you have a a bird,
Speaker 1: it's it's feathers and poop and seeds everywhere. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: because when you have a parrot, you're supposed to give
Speaker 1: it a lot of time outside of the cage, which
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk a little more extensively about that. But yes,
Speaker 1: they're a big mass for sure. But Dolly learning to
Speaker 1: talk was one of the coolest things I did as
Speaker 1: a kid. And people love to hear parrots say things.
Speaker 1: They if you go and type parrot into YouTube. The
Speaker 1: third thing that comes down is the next offering is
Speaker 1: parrots cursing, because it's just funny. People want to see
Speaker 1: a parrot tell someone to you know, buzz off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: buzz off if you're lucky, if they haven't lived in
Speaker 1: a frat house for a few years. Um, more often
Speaker 1: than not, they just straight up curse. And every once
Speaker 1: in a while you'll see a story about some parrots
Speaker 1: that had to be moved from like a wild I've
Speaker 1: preserved because they were cursing at like the people who
Speaker 1: came by to see them or whatever, and teaching little
Speaker 1: kids bad manners. I mean, they're all kinds of videos.
Speaker 1: It's it's very fun. Kids. Ask your parents if you
Speaker 1: can watch parrot talking videos, because some of them curse.
Speaker 1: Uh if there are some funny ones too with parrots
Speaker 1: and alexis um talking to Alexa, and I think one
Speaker 1: of them that was a parrot that the lady um,
Speaker 1: the owner went back and ordered or was checking on
Speaker 1: things that were ordered, because this parrot would order stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the parrot kept trying to order a fart shopping
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean she just said what's on
Speaker 1: the shopping list? And Alexa said, bird seed fart, Right,
Speaker 1: that's pretty great. I want to know what Alexa would
Speaker 1: would imagine that to be well, I mean, if I
Speaker 1: think if you say to burp or fart they'll do it, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't tried that, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to write after this, do you really haven't. I haven't
Speaker 1: very impressed. I'm forty four years old and I've never
Speaker 1: tried that. Al Right, well I'm almost fifty, so you'll
Speaker 1: come back around and think it's funny again. You know
Speaker 1: what's funny, Chuck? You have mastered one of the I
Speaker 1: think sixty things that the Kama Sutra says every person
Speaker 1: should master before they die, and that is to train
Speaker 1: a parrot to talk is one of them. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had no idea I ran across that. So, um, we
Speaker 1: can't talk about parents, and especially talk about parent intelligence
Speaker 1: and not talk about Alex the parrot, which who we
Speaker 1: have talked about before he showed up in our How
Speaker 1: Zero Works episode, because he's, as far as anyone knows,
Speaker 1: the I think, if not the only bird, possibly the
Speaker 1: only other non human animal who's demonstrated a grasp of
Speaker 1: the concept of zero. Um, that's a really weird concept
Speaker 1: that that most non humans can't grasp, or possibly any
Speaker 1: other non humans can't grasp, Alex could, which kind of
Speaker 1: goes to show you what a smart part he was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they figured in the end, Alex was about
Speaker 1: as smart as a five year old person, and uh
Speaker 1: not from like the depth of vocabulary. Alex knew about
Speaker 1: a hundred words, which is sounds like a lot compared
Speaker 1: to Dolly. But I think the Guinness record is a
Speaker 1: parakeet named Puck who learned about sevent dred words and change,
Speaker 1: so a hundred is good. But Alex could understand concepts
Speaker 1: like bigger and smaller and same and different, and would
Speaker 1: make up his own word combinations, like I think the
Speaker 1: first time Alex a cake, Alex called it yummy bread,
Speaker 1: which is really pretty astounding and can maybe kind of scary.
Speaker 1: He supposedly is the first animal to ask an existential question,
Speaker 1: which he saw himself in the mirror, and he asked
Speaker 1: what color? And so his his handler and researcher I
Speaker 1: Irene Pepperberg, who wrote many, many papers from the seventies
Speaker 1: to the early two thousands. UM about Alex, whose name
Speaker 1: it turns out as an acronym for Avian language experiment.
Speaker 1: It's a little saddened by that, you know, like the
Speaker 1: robot whose name is like an acronym for someone science
Speaker 1: E just kind of dehumanizing. UM. But Alex. Um, he
Speaker 1: he asked like what color, and they took it to
Speaker 1: mean like he was asking about himself, like he he
Speaker 1: recognized himself in the mirror. And apparently parrots frequently talk
Speaker 1: about themselves in third person, like that that parrot or
Speaker 1: that para. Keep Puck hell right right, who held the
Speaker 1: record for the most words, Um, he talked about himself
Speaker 1: in third person. And apparently he once said it's Christmas
Speaker 1: and that he was happy about it being Christmas, and
Speaker 1: Puck loved everybody. That's great, Yeah, but I mean it's like,
Speaker 1: that's pretty intelligent. If this parrot understands what that it's
Speaker 1: Christmas day and everybody's happy that he loves everybody, it's
Speaker 1: a I'm I'm just impressed with parrots. In addition to
Speaker 1: being cute, they also have brains, brains and looks. That's right,
Speaker 1: So I think we gotta at least talk about the
Speaker 1: notion of pirates having parrots. Uh. It is not necessarily
Speaker 1: just a movie trope or a book trope from literature.
Speaker 1: It makes sense in a way. Um, they may have
Speaker 1: wanted when they're out at sea some companionship having a
Speaker 1: dog or a cat or a goat, or a lamb
Speaker 1: following you around on a ship isn't a great idea?
Speaker 1: Like a bird kind of makes sense. And they could
Speaker 1: eat the hard attack and the crackers and and sip
Speaker 1: on the rum, and it makes sense to have birds.
Speaker 1: They were they were they were going places where they
Speaker 1: might have been. Like I don't know if there's any
Speaker 1: hard evidence, but nothing about it seems like there's no
Speaker 1: way that could have been true. No, what what I
Speaker 1: saw is that, um, that that's possibly the case, but
Speaker 1: that the Age of Discovery was at the second time
Speaker 1: that Europe fell in love with parrots as pets, and
Speaker 1: that the initial trend started when Alexander the Great invaded
Speaker 1: India and took some parrots back to Greece with them,
Speaker 1: and they ended up spreading to Europe. And actually the
Speaker 1: Alexandrine parrot is named after Alexander the Great because it's
Speaker 1: apparently one of the ones that he brought back with them.
Speaker 1: And then parents just I guess fell out of fashion.
Speaker 1: And uh, then when people started going to like Brazil,
Speaker 1: and and coming back from Brazil, they came back with
Speaker 1: parrots on their shoulders and the trend started again. I
Speaker 1: love it. I did mention that they were. They're not
Speaker 1: the easiest pet to take care of, the air messy.
Speaker 1: They are demanding, they're pretty needy. They need lots of attention.
Speaker 1: If they don't get it, they can be kind of
Speaker 1: disruptive and destructive. Uh, not trying to talk anyone out
Speaker 1: of getting a bird, but it's a lot too lots
Speaker 1: to bite off if you've never had one. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, like even even more of a commitment.
Speaker 1: I would think then, say, like getting a dog, not
Speaker 1: just because of the enormous amounts of attention that they
Speaker 1: need from you, but they're really long lived too, Like
Speaker 1: that's the deal. Much longer lived than than a dog
Speaker 1: or a cat. Like like in in the wild, parrots
Speaker 1: typically lived maybe thirty years. I think the the Cuca
Speaker 1: po cuca po um lives possibly ninety years in the wild.
Speaker 1: But in captivity parrots really live for a long time.
Speaker 1: Um forty fifty sixty years. There was a major Mitchell's
Speaker 1: cockatoon named Cookie. That's the oldest living documented parrot in captivity. Uh.
Speaker 1: He lived to eighty three. I think, yeah, like you,
Speaker 1: you often see parrots and people's wills because you have
Speaker 1: to pass them along to somebody and yeah, for the
Speaker 1: life of me Ida. I don't know what happened to Dolly.
Speaker 1: We had Dolly for a few years. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of one of those things when you're a kids sometimes
Speaker 1: you have pets that just go away and your parents
Speaker 1: are like, they're on the farm now, They're like Dolly,
Speaker 1: who stop asking questions. Let's never speak of Dolly again.
Speaker 1: Dolly may have gotten out, I don't know, but that happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, they they escape sometimes. Um. I mean, Umey's
Speaker 1: grandma's parent outlived her and they went to live with
Speaker 1: one of her friends who keeps birds. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like they're really long lived pets. But part of the
Speaker 1: reason why they think that there are or why they
Speaker 1: know there are feral parrot populations around the United States
Speaker 1: is because people people just let them go. They're like,
Speaker 1: I can't I had no idea what I was getting into.
Speaker 1: Just fly free parrot. I'm sorry that we ever met.
Speaker 1: It's like flushing that baby python down the toilet a
Speaker 1: little bit, a lot bit actually, um. But the thing
Speaker 1: is is it's kind of so it's it's good on
Speaker 1: the one hand that that just doesn't automatically like kill
Speaker 1: the parrot that they can Actually they might find like
Speaker 1: a local population that they can join. They might find
Speaker 1: another one and star to local population as a breeding pair. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not like a death sentence to parrots, like you
Speaker 1: should never you know, just release your pet into the wild.
Speaker 1: That's that's just bad juju. But um, if you do
Speaker 1: with the parrot, it's not It's not a death sentence,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. One of the bigger problems of
Speaker 1: that is that you have still placed to demand on
Speaker 1: the bird market. Yes, and the bird market is not
Speaker 1: like there's not some nice family in you know, the
Speaker 1: central rural part of your state that breeds parrots, and
Speaker 1: that's where all the parrots come from. The parrots that
Speaker 1: you get typically have been stolen from a nest in
Speaker 1: Brazil and brought to the United States. I saw something
Speaker 1: like eight hundred thousand parrot chicks a year are removed
Speaker 1: from nests to feed the demand of the exotic bird market. Um,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them don't survive. They die on
Speaker 1: the way. And as I was saying before, the reproductive
Speaker 1: rate of parrots is low enough that once you get
Speaker 1: enough chicks removed from their native habitats, they're not getting
Speaker 1: replaced fast enough, and then that leads to a collapse
Speaker 1: of the population and it can mean extinction if that
Speaker 1: happens across the large enough range. Yeah, and there are
Speaker 1: plenty of countries, including the United States, that have done
Speaker 1: past legislation to try and put a dent in like
Speaker 1: this importing and poaching and stuff. But at the beginning
Speaker 1: of this year, there was a study in Global Change
Speaker 1: Biology that said that a third apparent species are threatened
Speaker 1: with extinction. I think a hundred and seventy one of
Speaker 1: the species are near threatened or critically endangered. The cacapa
Speaker 1: that you talked about, you mentioned that they're along like
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty of those left. Yeah, you really
Speaker 1: don't want the cacapa to go extinct. Luckily, they're new
Speaker 1: in New Zealand and New Zealand loves nature, so they're
Speaker 1: in a good spot. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: Are they trying to breed them? At least? I think
Speaker 1: they're protecting the heck out of them and they're just
Speaker 1: leaving them to breed amongst themselves. They live on three
Speaker 1: isolated remote islands that don't have any introduced predators, so
Speaker 1: they they're they're they're in a precarious place, but they're
Speaker 1: in about as good a place as they could be
Speaker 1: for the precarious state there in. Yeah, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just people poaching. It's uh, humans encroaching with
Speaker 1: developments and you know, less and less natural habitat. It's obviously, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the repercussions of climate change. When things like
Speaker 1: the Australian wildfires break out, it's a reduction of habitat
Speaker 1: and the poaching that's kind of put a real dent
Speaker 1: in the para population. Yeah, so they're saying, well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's so they've actually identified some hot spots of
Speaker 1: parent biodiversity around the world that said like, Okay, if
Speaker 1: these places, if the governments in these places like move
Speaker 1: to protect parrots, parrots are going to be okay. Um,
Speaker 1: So like the northeastern Andes, the Atlantic forest that stretches
Speaker 1: from Brazil Inland and Argentina and Paraguay. Um, if these
Speaker 1: places can can protect the parrots, their parents should be fine.
Speaker 1: So hopefully they will. And then the demand side, uh,
Speaker 1: if Europe in Japan will kind of get over their
Speaker 1: love of parrots or figure out a different way to
Speaker 1: get parrots a more sustainable way than that would have
Speaker 1: a big effect to Are they two of the biggest
Speaker 1: defenders from what I saw, Yeah, because that act the
Speaker 1: US pass cut poaching and half um from what I
Speaker 1: could tell, So it was like a really big had
Speaker 1: a big impact. But Europe in japan'ss continued on without
Speaker 1: that kind of legislation. I think it's great, well, not
Speaker 1: great for them, but great for us. Up with parrots, everybody,
Speaker 1: And if you want to get a little pop of
Speaker 1: joy out of your day, watch this one minute video
Speaker 1: called bird Sings in Synchrony with piano. Incredible cute, three
Speaker 1: exclamation points not incredibly cute. It is one of the
Speaker 1: sweetest things I've seen in a while. And you'll be like, yep,
Speaker 1: Josh's right. Birds can just be happy little souls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or bird's cursing that's one too. Uh. Are you got
Speaker 1: anything else that? Nothing else? Well, parrots everybody, Like I said,
Speaker 1: go wat some parrot videos and uh. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: it's time for listening mail. I'm gonna call this plugging
Speaker 1: another podcast. We don't often do this, and it's not
Speaker 1: from professional envy or anything. It was just, uh, we
Speaker 1: would be doing it all the time if we did
Speaker 1: it too much. Yeah, nice one. Hey guys, my name
Speaker 1: is vv goer g A you are. I've been listening
Speaker 1: to your show for the past six years. My physiotherapist
Speaker 1: working in the suburbs of Delhi, and part of my
Speaker 1: job is provide domicillary care where I have uh to
Speaker 1: go see my patients at their houses and therefore need
Speaker 1: to drive every day. You're one of my favorite podcasts
Speaker 1: to listen to, and I'll listen to you guys almost
Speaker 1: every day when I am driving through the chaotic traffic.
Speaker 1: It gave me some something worthwhile to listen to. It's
Speaker 1: interesting and I like your humorous, humorous conversational style. I
Speaker 1: wish after covid gets over, you would do a live
Speaker 1: show in New Delhi someday. Man, how about that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I think we could draw a crowd. I have
Speaker 1: a crowd of one at least. Yeah, Vivik will be there.
Speaker 1: I just want to know that someone is listening to
Speaker 1: you guys every day from the other side of the globe,
Speaker 1: and you inspired me to launch my own podcast. Uh
Speaker 1: if you would flee shout out to Vivik Gower, physiotherapist,
Speaker 1: podcast that is v I V E k g A.
Speaker 1: You are a physiotherapist podcast. Although it's in English which
Speaker 1: is Hindi and English, you guys will not understand the
Speaker 1: majority of it L O L, but keep doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Best Switches That is Vivik. Thanks a lot, Vavik,
Speaker 1: and good luck on your podcast. That was very nice
Speaker 1: of you to plug a chuck. Yeah, check it out
Speaker 1: in English and we'll see you in New Delhi someday.
Speaker 1: Don't know win, but someday sure. And if you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with this, like Vick did, you
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H