Smart Parrot?

Earlier on this blog, I mentioned how I spoke to the Phoenix Landing Foundation about how to Prepare for Your Companion Pet’s Future.

I have recently learned that parrots may be far more intelligent than anyone has previously imagined.  An African grey parrot named N’kisi is reported to have a vocabulary of almost 1,000 words.

According to Alex Kirby, Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists, BBC News, Jan. 28, 2004

He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

One N’kisi-ism was “flied” for “flew”, and another “pretty smell medicine” to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N’kisi said: “Got a chimp?”

He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: “You got to put this bird on the camera.”

Dr Goodall says N’kisi’s verbal fireworks are an “outstanding example of interspecies communication.”

I wonder what has happened in the three years since this article was published.

Special thanks to Prof. Wayne Scott (St. Mary’s University School of Law) for bringing this update to my attention.