Parrot in 2000: The Alex Studies
[232] [desk-parrot-1] In 2000, the field log for Parrot is headed “The Alex Studies.” The figure kept beside that heading is 400. It is a count or a date from the work, not a rank of the species’ worth. A zoo birthday card does not replace the log. Tourism, conflict payments, quotas and captive loans are dated economic bands in the market chapter -- not live prices and not a best-species prize.
Zygodactyl hookbills whose social brains, mimicry and nest-cavity needs collide with the cage trade. Did Alex the parrot really use words as labels? Irene Pepperberg’s papers treated English tokens as categories, not circus tricks. Alex (1976–2007) identified colours, shapes and same/different above chance. The debate is about the ceiling, not whether the tasks happened.
Why did African greys move to CITES Appendix I in 2017? Wild capture for pets plus forest loss cut Psittacus erithacus. Appendix I ended most commercial international trade in wild greys. Every Strigops is named and managed on predator-free New Zealand islands. Supplementary feeding and nest cameras make it closer to intensive care than to a hands-off reserve.
Are London’s ring-necked parakeets a conservation win? They are an introduced boom, not a restored native. Cavity competition with starlings and bats is the local argument. Why do so many macaws remain threatened? Cavity trees come down with forest. The pet trade added a second cut. Spix’s macaw went extinct in the wild before a 2019–20s reintroduction attempt in Bahia.
Keep 2000, “The Alex Studies,” and 400 together or the note on Parrot stops being that year’s record.2000
Figures to keep
- Year of the note
- 2000
- Figure to keep
- 400
- Species
- Parrot
- Line in the log
- The Alex Studies
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