Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
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.
What is the kakapo recovery model?
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.
Do parrots “talk” in the wild?
They learn contact calls in flocks. Human-word mimicry is the lab and living-room version of a general vocal-learning kit shared with songbirds and hummingbirds.
The parrot future is a triad of climate, take and attention -- not a product roadmap.
Risk scores here track conservation pressure relative to other types. High resilience types sit in a calmer band; CR/EN types do not.
Conservation risk
Parrot sits in a watch band in this atlas (resilience 46/100). African greys, macaws and kakapo sit on the threatened side; some urban parakeets are booming.
Teaching snapshot as of September 2026 — not a live IUCN feed.
Safeguards
Listing and enforcement
CITES, ESA, RFMOs and national parks only work when patrols and papers move.
Site protection
A breeding lake, ice type or cavity tree cannot be replaced by a logo.
Prey and forage base
Seals, krill, ungulates, bamboo and sardines are the quiet half of the parrot budget.
Disease and toxin watch
Ebola, KHV, TTX, lead and rodenticides are type-specific ceilings.
English-language science capacity
The field sites in the techDeep lens still train the next census -- they are a safeguard only if funded.
What monitoring automates first
Census and acoustics
Camera traps, radar and moorings already take hours that used to be only notebooks.
Trade-document checks
eBCD and permit databases can flag a loin or a skin faster than a paper file.
Outbreak mapping
Flu and Ebola desks now run on shared dashboards -- still needing a human closer.
Visitor flow
Ticketing and hide cameras can be scheduled; habituation ethics cannot be fully automated.
Structural shifts
Climate as habitat law
Ice, bleach and river heat are now listing factors, not background weather.
From fortress to corridor
National parks plus gene flow -- panda belts, tiger landscapes, wolf packs on roads.
Fame as a take risk
Nemo, Jaws, Koko and Cecil still move capture, fear and donations in the same year.
English science is not the range
The localLens is a reading aid. Range-state languages still hold the living animal.
Outlook
Near term
Expect more listings, more cameras and more conflict paperwork -- not a sudden best-species ending.
Medium term
Sites that keep forage and enforcement will hold; single-lake and single-forest types stay brittle.
Long view
The parrot body plan will remain recognisable. The map of secure versus threatened populations will not.
Keep exploring
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