- 2 days ago
From the wilds of Costa Rica to suburban America, a lovable, quirky cast of parrots will reveal their unforgettable tales and the bittersweet world they share with humans. Nature explores the difficulties of caring for parrots.
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00:24With huge brains and hollow bones,
00:27they navigate the canopy.
00:31Every cell is engineered for flight.
00:39They speak a language all their own
00:42and form lifelong bonds that can last for 80 years.
00:48Their wings can carry them 50 miles in a day.
00:53This is a creature who lives without borders
00:57in a world we can hardly fathom.
01:00And yet millions live among us.
01:05This is their story.
01:35Music
01:37As day breaks over Santa Barbara, a cockatoo named Dolly calls to her flock.
01:45Oh, Dolly.
01:47Good morning, pretty bird.
01:49Good morning, pretty bird.
01:51Good morning, pretty girl.
01:51Pretty girl, you're just up and all sparky, huh?
01:55Hi, pretty bird.
01:56Hi.
01:57Dolly likes to wake up about 6.30 or 7 in the morning.
02:01Want some breakfast?
02:02Hi, pretty bird.
02:03Hi, pretty bird.
02:04Hi, pretty bird.
02:05Hi, pretty bird.
02:07I rush to get her before she wakes up all the neighbors.
02:10They're very nice people and I want to keep it that way.
02:16With voices designed to reach across the forest, cockatoos can be a challenge for the average
02:21homeowner.
02:23The screaming is really hard.
02:25I finally got gun range earphones.
02:29And that doesn't completely deaden it.
02:32You can still hear it.
02:32It just doesn't make your eardrums hurt.
02:34Hi, pretty bird.
02:36Dolly was in a bird collection and the gentleman just wasn't really ready to deal with a Moluccan
02:41cockatoo.
02:42She was sort of damaged when I got her emotionally.
02:45I had a friend that took me over there to see if I wanted to adopt Dolly.
02:49And I just took one look at her and she took one look at me and I knew I had
02:52no choice.
02:53You know, she was going to be mine.
02:55She was three when I got her.
02:57It'll be 16 years in March.
02:58She is going to live to be 80 or 90.
03:02And I am 74.
03:04So that's, we don't have many more years together.
03:06And I'm very, that's my biggest concern.
03:10I take Dolly everywhere I can.
03:13She loves going in the car.
03:15I think it's an experience, probably like flying.
03:19You know, they see the scenery rushing by.
03:25Dolly's headed to a local sanctuary where she boards a few days each week.
03:29You want to go bye-bye?
03:30This is Lavanya's survival tactic.
03:34When Dolly's at home with Lavanya, it's all about Dolly.
03:37There's no talking on the phone.
03:39There's no having company.
03:41And after about three or four days of that,
03:42poor Lavanya has to take care of her own needs as well.
03:46Put your hand.
03:46So I can go to appointments and get things done
03:49and have a little time to do some of the things I like to do, visit friends.
03:52You're going to go bye-bye?
03:53Bye-bye pretty bird.
03:54Bye-bye pretty bird.
03:56Hey Jamie, we're back.
03:57Jamie McLeod founded the Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary nine years ago
04:01when she noticed there was a problem with unwanted parrots.
04:05Okay, we'll see you in a couple days.
04:06All right.
04:07Good morning, darling.
04:08She began to realize many of the birds she was selling were being rehomed.
04:13I was a breeder for more than 30 years.
04:16Amazons, macaws, cockatoos.
04:18When people typically would keep the birds two to four years,
04:22it became apparent that not everybody's cracked up to own one.
04:25They live 80 years.
04:27Crunch those numbers out and there's a lot of unwanted parrots out there.
04:31Hi, guys.
04:33I felt I was contributing to a problem
04:35and started focusing on rehoming all the unwanted ones.
04:40There we go.
04:41We currently have more than 60 birds and we're beyond capacity.
04:46We're turning people away.
04:48Okay, you ready for your breakfast?
04:49Let's go, girl.
04:50People abandon them on our porch.
04:52There you go.
04:53They threaten to euthanize them if I don't take them.
04:56Many of the birds that we have now have been adopted out numerous times
05:01and they come back.
05:03It's a huge problem.
05:05Oh, these are very funny.
05:07People don't always understand that when a bird forms a bond with you,
05:10it's actually a mate bond.
05:11Are you ready?
05:12They're not just part of your life.
05:14They become your life.
05:16I rarely go away on vacation.
05:19They literally are my life.
05:22People will come in and they'll say,
05:24I want a bird that talks, that's quiet and that doesn't bite.
05:29And that species has not yet been discovered.
05:32Come on over here.
05:33Come on.
05:34Come on.
05:34Come on over here.
05:35Come on over here.
05:37Come on over here.
05:38Come on over here.
05:39Come on over here.
05:39Come on over here.
05:40Come on over here.
05:41Come on over here.
05:41Her original owner taught her most of her vocabulary.
05:45Everybody loves the Amazons because they sing and they talk,
05:48but nothing can bite you harder than an Amazon parrot.
05:51One day you're cuddling it and the next minute you're missing part of your face.
05:55Squeeze those little birdie legs.
05:57Wee, little little birdie.
05:58Wee, little little birdie.
05:59Wee, little little birdie.
06:00Wee, little little birdie.
06:01Wee.
06:02Scary bird.
06:03Rawr.
06:06Rawr.
06:07Kona, who has such a wonderful vocabulary
06:09and is so animated and everybody wants to adopt her,
06:12actually removed this part of her owner's nose.
06:16I love you.
06:18Once they start to hit sexual maturity,
06:20they have drastic behavioral changes.
06:22You're not going to bite me right now, are you?
06:23Come on, pretty girl.
06:24Let's go.
06:24Up, up, up.
06:24Oh, yeah, you are.
06:26Bye.
06:28Being injured by a parrot, you can't be angry with them.
06:31If you take them into your life,
06:33that's one of the things that you need to accept.
06:35It's still a wild animal.
06:43In a cage or soaring above the canopy,
06:47parrots are still considered wild.
06:50Unlike dogs and cats,
06:51they haven't been domesticated over thousands of years.
06:55Captive bred parrots are just a few generations
06:57from their wild cousins.
06:59They have complex social lives
07:01and large brains, like primates.
07:05Dr. Tim Wright from New Mexico State University
07:08has discovered their language skills
07:10are remarkably advanced,
07:12and they learn to speak much as humans do.
07:16Learning how to sound like others
07:18seems to be very important for these parrots.
07:20If you sound like others,
07:21you're a member of their group.
07:23They are very tightly bonded with each other.
07:25Here in captivity,
07:27they're trying to recreate that bond
07:28with whoever's around.
07:31Wright's research has revealed
07:33that they speak in regional dialects,
07:35and some are even bilingual.
07:38But human encroachment
07:40is making it increasingly difficult
07:42to study these birds.
07:44The yellow-naped amazons
07:45are not doing that well in the wild.
07:46There's been a very rapid decline.
07:48The parrots often nest
07:50in lone trees on ranches.
07:52Sadly, this is a risky place
07:54to raise their young.
07:56They're not recognizing the danger
07:57posed by these new human predators.
08:00The ranch hands often will poach the parrots.
08:04They're out in the fields every day.
08:05They watch the parrots.
08:06They know what they're doing
08:07and have a good sense
08:09of where they're putting their nests,
08:10and they know when
08:11there might be chicks there.
08:14These birds are certainly
08:15touchy around their nests,
08:17so we just try to keep our distance.
08:20Oh, yeah.
08:21She's going back.
08:22She's going back down now.
08:30There she...
08:31Yeah, she's going in.
08:33Tail first.
08:42Wright has been studying nest cavities
08:44in order to learn how parents
08:46teach language to their young.
08:48Okay, have it.
08:50He tries to keep his contact
08:52with the birds to a minimum.
08:54If we do climb up,
08:56we do it quickly
08:56and get out of there.
09:01Oh, it's a deep one.
09:03Ah!
09:04There are two eggs in there.
09:05The female will sit on these eggs
09:07for about three weeks,
09:08and then the chicks will hatch.
09:09And that's when the rough time comes.
09:12It's hard to say whether these chicks
09:14will be left in the nest
09:15and fly free,
09:16or become pets.
09:20I've been trying to study
09:21their nesting behavior,
09:23and I can't do that
09:24if people are taking the chicks
09:25out of the nest.
09:27So it's sort of a double,
09:29double heartbreak for me.
09:34We were visiting a night roost
09:36to record the vocalizations there,
09:38and I heard a strange sound.
09:43It wasn't quite human.
09:45Someone was saying hello,
09:46or hola.
09:47Hello?
09:49Permiso.
09:50I'm sorry, hola.
09:51In fact, it was a parrot.
09:57Look at you.
10:01Hey.
10:03You are yelling at Amazon.
10:05I talked with the manager of the ranch,
10:08and he told me a little bit about her history.
10:12So I've had it about nine months.
10:14It was a chick taken from a nest this year,
10:18from a nest a little bit south.
10:26So you just have to climb up the tree,
10:28and stick your hand in,
10:29and take it out.
10:31I asked how much a chick like this would sell for,
10:34and he said, well, when they're very young,
10:36just out of the nest,
10:37they might sell for $30 or $40.
10:39A bird that was a little bit older
10:40and in good health, like Lorita,
10:42would sell for about $100.
10:45She's learned a lot of human language words,
10:47Spanish words.
10:48She laughs.
10:50She calls hello or hola.
10:51But when there are other parrots in the area,
10:54she'll also call to them.
10:57Normally, one parrot might fly over
10:59and join the flock.
11:01But Lorita can't do that.
11:03She's in a cage.
11:12Baby parrots, like Lorita,
11:14have been taken from the nest for thousands of years.
11:17But today, nearly one-third of wild parrots are endangered.
11:26The illicit trade in exotic birds
11:28has become a multi-billion dollar business.
11:57In 1992, the U.S. banned the importation of wild birds.
12:01But before then, it was wild parrots
12:05that filled our pet stores.
12:07For many parrots, this is how life began.
12:12Jimmy Gentile opened his pet shop in 1975.
12:22We kind of specialize in what I call
12:25No Pets Allowed Pets are unique companion animals.
12:28We don't do dogs or cats.
12:33Liz Hartman moved to Boston in the 80s to attend vet school.
12:38I worked part-time for Jimmy at the pet shop.
12:40I really was just a cage cleaner.
12:43There was a bird there, a yellow-naped Amazon,
12:46that I thought was so cool.
12:48I thought, oh, man, I really want to take this bird home.
12:50I really want to own it.
12:52And Jimmy said, you really should get a baby and hand-feed it,
12:55because that's how you bond with them.
12:57I had ordered a bunch of baby birds taken from the nest in Honduras.
13:02A day came when they called me and they said,
13:04your chicks are available.
13:05So I went to the airport, picked up the box.
13:08I was so excited.
13:10I couldn't wait. I was beside myself.
13:13I packed up that bird and went home with it.
13:18When she brought him home, I remember it.
13:20We had discussed it, and at first I was totally against it,
13:23because I knew how long parrots lasted.
13:27He was totally into it.
13:28He thought it was great.
13:29They're messy.
13:31I've been in the pet stores.
13:32In the beginning, you had to wrap him up in a towel,
13:35because he would try to bite you.
13:36It was our first experience at parenthood.
13:39I eventually warmed up to the idea,
13:41and we couldn't help but sit there and just look at him.
13:44It was so amazing to see this wild bird in our house.
13:50Basil's early years were trouble-free.
13:53Good morning, Basil.
13:54The first four years were lovely and blissful.
13:57I would come down in the morning and open Basil's cage.
14:02Whenever we were home, he was basically free to crawl around,
14:05and he mostly stayed on his cage.
14:07Good bird.
14:08The quickness at which he could pick up anything,
14:11he was so amazing.
14:13Hi.
14:14I think he was wicked smart.
14:16He loved the interaction.
14:20We thought we're going to love this bird to death,
14:22and we're going to do whatever we need to do
14:25to make this bird happy for the rest of its life.
14:29Parrots often bond with one person.
14:32For Basil, that person was Russ.
14:36He was so bonded to Russ.
14:38Russ traveled overseas a lot for business,
14:40and he'd been gone for about a month.
14:42Hi.
14:43He must be exhausted.
14:45He got home at night, and we went to bed.
14:48Good night, Basil.
14:49Everything seemed fine.
14:52We woke up the next morning, and...
14:56Basil had plucked all of the feathers off of his chest.
15:01Like, just plucked it bald.
15:03He'd never plucked before, ever.
15:05It was devastating to us,
15:07because we didn't know what was going on.
15:09We later determined he was so angry,
15:12that he was willing to go through the pain
15:14of pulling his own feathers out.
15:17He wasn't down to the skin, but just the gray down.
15:20I mean, there had to be some sort of emotional response
15:23to Russ coming home.
15:24I think he was making a point.
15:26You have to be there for them.
15:28They are social animals.
15:31I can't even imagine anything more complex.
15:35They're up there with the apes and the humans.
15:43If Basil was still in the wild,
15:46he would already have found a mate by now.
15:48They'd rarely be apart.
15:52Their mated bond would nurture the next generation,
15:55ensuring the survival of the species.
15:59A wild parrot is seldom alone.
16:03Even in flight, a mated pair is almost never out of earshot.
16:10For a wild parrot, solitude is rare.
16:18In a Boston suburb, a parrot has been left behind.
16:22The family lost the home.
16:24The bank had taken possession, and I received a call.
16:30The bird had been left behind for approximately four days.
16:35It was four days since anyone had been last seen coming
16:38or going from the home.
16:43It did have water.
16:45It did not have bird food available.
16:47There was other pet food in the home.
16:52To just be left behind in a cage, it has to affect them.
16:55They're not stupid.
17:12I've heard the stories that these animals go through,
17:15and for me, it's utter heartbreak.
17:26Did you give me a call earlier?
17:27I did.
17:28It's been three or four days since I've seen anyone here.
17:30Okay.
17:31And I've heard some bird noises.
17:34Okay.
17:34I'm going to go take a look and see if I see anything.
17:35All right.
17:36Guys, I just need you to stay outside if you don't mind me now.
17:39Bye.
17:40Ah, an umbrella cockatoo.
17:47Our favorite species.
17:48It's the only animal we found in the house.
17:51Oh, hey.
17:54So you can take care of him for us, Mark?
17:56Sure, no problem.
17:56All right.
17:57Thanks.
17:58Bye, little guy.
18:02Part of the evaluation process when we get a bird,
18:05if we don't know his name, we wait for him to tell us.
18:08He'll say hello and then usually say his name.
18:10In this case, the bird never told us.
18:13There you go, buddy.
18:13So we just named him after a good friend of ours, Lou.
18:16He seems really nervous with me.
18:18Maybe he'll be better with you when I get him out.
18:20Mark Johnson and Karen Windsor have devoted their lives
18:24to rescuing parrots.
18:26Every bird has a story.
18:28Every bird has a history,
18:29especially an emotional history.
18:32They carry their baggage.
18:35I think there are probably a lot of forgotten birds
18:38in a lot of dark corners of the world.
18:43It's hard economic times
18:44and our animals sometimes pay the price.
18:50I talked to you on the phone last week
18:52about putting my parrot, Max, up for adoption.
18:55He will be ten years...
18:55...took him to my class from friends
18:56who could not keep them.
18:58The blue and gold is very aggressive...
18:59...and due to a divorce,
19:01I'm being forced to move into an apartment
19:02which will not allow...
19:03I've been in contact with a vet
19:04and I'm planning on euthanasia if there is no...
19:06Every day we get emails
19:09and that's the hardest part of our life now.
19:11We have to say no a lot.
19:21Johnson has witnessed a proliferation of parrots over the years.
19:25It all began with a want ad.
19:28In the 1980s, I had a small pottery studio.
19:32I had a deep admiration for the rainforest
19:34and I wanted to get a pet.
19:36I thought something exotic would be fun.
19:39So I bought a parrot in the wine advertiser
19:42for $900.
19:45Wally was a blue and gold macaw.
19:48He was a wonderful bird.
19:52People would come in and see I had a parrot
19:54and they would say,
19:55Oh, I have a cousin that's got one of those.
19:58My brother's got one of those.
20:00I've got one of those that I don't want anymore.
20:02Would you like my parrot?
20:04Not knowing how big the problem was,
20:06I thought, well, this is great
20:07because people were giving me parrots
20:09that were worth lots of money.
20:11We were being besieged by birds.
20:14Before I knew it, I had 30 of them
20:16with more coming every day.
20:19It turns out people were giving me their parrots
20:21because they're very difficult pets
20:22and I was the only game in town.
20:25Nobody else would take unwanted birds
20:26so people came to visit me.
20:29Before I knew it, I had outgrown the pottery studio
20:31and I had to figure out some way
20:33of dealing with it.
20:38Johnson closed the studio
20:40and moved to a house in the suburbs.
20:43From that point on, it was,
20:45if you build it, they will come.
20:47The birds took over the house.
20:48Every single room had half a dozen birds in it.
20:51The pantry, the spare rooms, the bedrooms.
20:55When I first came to volunteer,
20:58I found parrots in the kitchen,
21:00parrots in the living room,
21:01parrots in the bathroom.
21:03Within no time, we had over 300 parrots.
21:05The house had become a sanctuary.
21:08With more requests each day,
21:11Johnson ran out of space again.
21:17As luck would have it,
21:19we came across this abandoned chicken farm.
21:21I kind of stumbled on this place by accident.
21:26It's a wreck, but I think it's what we've been waiting for.
21:28This is going to be an enormous amount of work.
21:31It's too much.
21:32It scared the hell out of Karen.
21:34But I saw it as a golden opportunity.
21:38Within two years,
21:40they had tripled the size of the sanctuary.
21:42But in no time,
21:43even the new facility would be bursting at the seams.
21:47Where were all these unwanted parrots coming from?
21:52From South America, Africa, Asia, Indonesia,
21:57parrots were streaming in from the wild.
21:59When it became illegal to import wild birds to the U.S.,
22:03domestic breeding filled the void.
22:06Today, the practice of breeding parrots
22:08is not without controversy.
22:14Anybody with $40 can walk into any pet co and buy a parrot.
22:18There are no regulations.
22:20Anybody can have as many of them as they want.
22:22They can breed them.
22:24They can sell them.
22:25I'm not one to talk because I did it.
22:28May I have a seat, everybody?
22:30This was a long time ago.
22:32There wasn't any such thing as a rescue or a sanctuary.
22:35There was no need for it.
22:37Phoebe and Harry Linden
22:39were once highly respected breeders.
22:41It all started nearly 40 years ago.
22:44In 1971, I saw in a paper
22:47somebody was advertising they had to get rid of a parrot.
22:49And I basically rescued him from this guy.
22:52And then I started finding out they were bringing in birds from the wild.
22:56You could go down and you could buy at wholesale price just about any bird you'd want.
23:00I got another parrot and another parrot.
23:03Before you knew it, we had so many birds in a house, we couldn't live there anymore.
23:06I had to get another house.
23:09Forty years ago, if you purchased a parrot, it would almost certainly be a parrot from the wild.
23:15Capture and transport took a terrible toll.
23:18It's been estimated that more than 70% of wild-caught parrots died before ever reaching the pet store.
23:25I felt bad about these wild-caught parrots.
23:28And I thought if we bred these birds, then people would not need to pull them out of the wild.
23:33I named the business Santa Barbara Bird Farm.
23:36When we started to breed parrots, I quit my job and just hand-fed birds.
23:42Harry and I decided not to have human children.
23:44And I just found that I could zip open my heart and pour it into these baby birds.
23:50We wanted to keep every single one of them.
23:52The Lindens had an excellent reputation and a long waiting list.
23:56They were hands-on with the chicks and carefully screened potential buyers.
24:02But in the late 70s, the landscape began to change.
24:06A TV series came out called Beretta.
24:09This detective had a medium sulfur crested cockatoo that made it look like the coolest pet you could have.
24:15They don't scream. They don't pick their feathers.
24:17They do what you tell them to do.
24:19Go look in that window and tell me if somebody's getting stabbed.
24:22The word got out there how charming, how companionable parrots were.
24:26The phone started ringing off the wall.
24:28Demand bloomed overnight.
24:31All of a sudden, you could get one anywhere.
24:33In the beginning, it wasn't like that.
24:36We started to hear about rescues and sanctuaries.
24:38And we started to realize that, wow, there are unwanted parrots.
24:42When we saw that there was going to be a tremendous amount of fallout from that, we decided to stop
24:48breeding.
24:48We shut breeding down forever.
24:51The Lindens decided to close the business and instead focus on building the best facility they could for the birds
24:58they still had.
25:00This new aviary can actually have foraging potential with the trees and the grass.
25:05We're in the position now where we want to take back any baby who we raised who needs a home.
25:10So they get to live a life where they can make their own decisions, exercise, have access to fresh air,
25:17fresh food.
25:18A lot of breeders like ourselves to stop breeding.
25:21But we still have some of the parrot mills out there that produce a lot of babies every year.
25:25And so there's still going to be parrots out there who are going to run into problems in the future
25:28and have to be put up for adoption.
25:31People who really care about parrots don't buy birds. They adopt.
25:36We need to take care of the parrots who are here the best way that we can and conserve the
25:41parrots in the wild.
25:47It is the paradox of the parrot.
25:51As numbers dwindle in the wild, the number of rescues in captivity continues to increase.
25:59With sanctuaries struggling to stay afloat, the fate of unwanted parrots is becoming more precarious every day.
26:11The stepfather died and the daughter called up and asked us to take Fagan.
26:18Hey, here he is.
26:20Okay, thank you.
26:21Okay, thank you.
26:23In a Detroit suburb, a parrot named Fagan has found his way to Marie Crowley.
26:30Good boy. Good boy.
26:32When I took Fagan out of the carrier, it was pretty obvious that he had a big self-mutilation wound
26:37on his abdomen.
26:38Oh, you really chewed yourself up, buddy.
26:41I noticed that he smelled heavily of nicotine.
26:43Smell.
26:44He stink.
26:45He obviously hadn't been bathed in a long time.
26:48Do they smoke?
26:49Mm-hmm.
26:50He was just covered in goo.
26:51You are a dirty, dirty bird.
26:53Need a bath.
26:56There you go.
26:58I noticed my hands were just disgusting.
27:01They were covered in nicotine.
27:02My hands were stained for two days after.
27:04I gotcha.
27:05There you go.
27:07It's all done.
27:08Yes, the yuckies are over.
27:09There you go.
27:10I knew that the conditions he was coming from were really, really poor.
27:14Good boy.
27:16All right.
27:16After living in a smoke-filled house for nearly 25 years, Fagan presented a challenge for Dr. Oros.
27:23Okay, let's listen to the chest.
27:24Can you let me listen?
27:25When Fagan walked through the door, I saw a bird in crisis.
27:29Right, okay.
27:30His feathers were greasy with nicotine.
27:33He had a large patch where he had been mutilating on his chest.
27:38Good boy.
27:39He was basically a mess.
27:42See that?
27:43Ah, okay.
27:43See that?
27:44Mm-hmm.
27:44He's from a home where the lady smoked all the time, right?
27:47Those little dime store cigars.
27:49Oh, great.
27:49It became pretty clear that he was actually physically addicted to the nicotine.
27:54He started having seizures.
27:55Smoke on the feathers.
27:56We had to detox him from a nicotine, and then he had this large area where he's been mutilating
28:03his body.
28:04Those are very difficult things to overcome in birds, very difficult.
28:08In discussions with psychiatrists, the closest thing I can think of is that it could be something
28:14like cutting.
28:15When they do physical damage to themselves, it's a kind of a release effect.
28:19We had to help him with his stress.
28:22Come here, buddy.
28:24Put this collar on, okay?
28:25Okay.
28:26Good job.
28:27Fagan has been in a collar so long that he is okay with putting a collar on.
28:30He doesn't really argue or fight about it.
28:33Ah, everybody loves Philip.
28:34Fagan was really malnourished his whole life.
28:37It took weeks to get him to eat properly.
28:42There are no sanctuaries for parrots in Michigan.
28:46There's just some people like me who try and take them in as best they can.
28:50They don't have anywhere else to go, so they end up in this little suburbia neighborhood
28:55where you'd never expect to see a parrot in my basement.
28:59I have 26 birds here.
29:02The situation is less than ideal, but we do everything we can.
29:06We've put up air filters, full-spectrum lighting, and then I keep palm trees down there because
29:10I figure if the palm trees stay alive, then the lighting is at least adequate.
29:15Every bird here has to be fed and watered three to four times a day.
29:19Their cages have to be cleaned.
29:21It's a labor of love.
29:22Like most parrot rescues, Crowley's nonprofit, Feathered Friends of Michigan,
29:27barely scrapes by.
29:29Most sanctuaries and rescues across the United States are full, so we all make do with the
29:35bad situation as best we can.
29:38Come here.
29:39Come here.
29:39Let's take your collar off, huh?
29:41It's important that he can get some time out of his collar every day so that he can work on
29:46preening his feathers and flapping his wings and climbing.
29:51He's been in a collar so long, he falls a lot because he can't open his wings to catch himself
29:56like a bird should.
29:57So we're going to work on building those muscles back up over time.
30:00Would you like to dance?
30:02Yeah.
30:03Would you like to dance?
30:16I'm going to keep my head up to the sky.
30:21Won't let life pass me by.
30:24Cause after the rain comes down, the sun will always come back around.
30:30And I'm going to keep my head up to the sky.
30:33Yeah, we've got to read this one.
30:35Yeah.
30:35This is a long one, man.
30:37Fagan isn't comfortable with other birds yet.
30:39And with his health issues, Marie needs to keep a close watch, so he lives with the family.
30:46My son was learning his colors.
30:48What's red?
30:50Good job, Fagan.
30:52And whenever we went over a color, Fagan would go over and tap it with his beak.
30:55So we brought these out and what's green?
30:59He does like to differentiate between the colors.
31:02Good.
31:03What I'm trying to do is give his mind a way to exercise.
31:06It's another form of enrichment that's been shown to reduce anxiety in parrots.
31:10What's yellow?
31:11It's a non-sexual way for me to interact with him.
31:14Nope.
31:14That'll kind of break the cycle of the mated bond that he's trying to create with me.
31:19If Fagan was in the wild, he would have a flock.
31:21He would find a mate and they'd crawl up into a tree cavity and build a nest and have babies.
31:26But in captivity, that causes a lot of frustration for birds like Fagan.
31:31What's red?
31:32Good job.
31:33Yeah.
31:35What's yellow?
31:36Unfortunately for the African greys, their intelligence level ended up being somewhat their undoing in captivity.
31:41What toy?
31:43Truck.
31:43That's right.
31:44Go birdie.
31:44What is it?
31:45Can't check.
31:46Good boy.
31:47In the 90s, Alex showed the world that parrots are capable of more than just mimicking.
31:52What toy?
31:53Meow.
31:54Irene Pepperberg's work with Alex was seminal.
31:57Tell me what color.
31:58Yellow.
31:58Yellow.
31:59That's right.
32:00When the work with Alex came out, everybody wanted to buy an Alex.
32:05The breeding of them skyrocketed.
32:06But Alex isn't your everyday African grey.
32:09He's a bird that was trained for hours a day, for years on end.
32:13Most African greys don't talk.
32:16They mostly love to make really obnoxious microwave sounds and phone sounds.
32:20Stuff that people find hard on their ears.
32:23So they end up getting surrendered a lot.
32:26I think as long as Alex is at the top of the YouTube charts, he's going to be at the
32:29top of my surrender charts.
32:34In the wild, Fagin's intelligence would be put to task.
32:39In flight, his large brain would measure space, wind, and speed.
32:44He'd calculate distance and sources of food.
32:49If confronted, he'd take flight.
32:53These wild instincts are still very much intact for birds like Basil.
33:00The first four years, like I said, were wonderful.
33:03Kiss, kiss.
33:04He was sweet, he was handleable, he was lovely.
33:07And then adolescence set in.
33:10He just became progressively more aggressive.
33:14I'd be sitting at the dining room table Sunday morning, reading the paper,
33:19and he would seek me out.
33:21It got to the point where I could not leave the cage open at all.
33:25If I were in the house and the cage was open, he would immediately climb down the cage to attack
33:31my feet.
33:34He just decided I was the person he hated.
33:37He would lunge at her, he would fly out of the cage at her.
33:40One morning I got up, I opened the door to his cage, and then I turned around to open the
33:46window, and he just flew.
33:48It was hanging off my ear.
33:50You just didn't know. You know, it could be all sweet and happy.
33:54Turn around and bite you.
33:56When we had kids, Basil wasn't quite ready to have these foreigners.
34:01They didn't know any better, they thought they could walk up just like I did.
34:05My daughter was four years old at the time, and she was feeding him a cracker.
34:11And he nailed her.
34:16I heard the screaming. I came running down the stairs.
34:19It was awful.
34:20That was when we started to realize that perhaps Basil wasn't going to warm up so much to the kids.
34:27I didn't think I could keep this animal as a pet anymore.
34:33No one knows the number of parrots in captivity.
34:39Estimates range from 10 to 40 million in the U.S.
34:43While many live in stable homes, thousands are surrendered each year.
34:48What happens to the parrots who fall through the cracks?
34:53Abandoned for four days in an empty house, Lou is one of the lucky ones.
35:04At Foster Parrots, Lou's next chapter is about to begin.
35:10With no clues about his past, providing the right care will be a challenge.
35:18No one knows how old he is, how many homes he's had, or if he's ever seen another parrot.
35:28How must it feel for a bird like Lou, entering a sanctuary for the first time?
35:36Thousands of sounds, hundreds of birds, each calling out with its own story.
35:42Hi. Hi, bird.
35:46When we walk through the facility, it's important that everybody understand that what they are seeing is a tragedy.
35:55What we are looking at is the failure of humans as companions to parrots.
36:05Any new arrival gets a full physical.
36:08It's especially critical for a bird with no medical history, like Lou.
36:12It was left in an abandoned home.
36:14Was there even water?
36:16A bag of dog food.
36:17Dog food?
36:18Yeah.
36:18Nice. Poor Lou.
36:20Okay, buddy.
36:22That's lucky you're plumage, Lou.
36:23Sounds like you've had a tough life, huh?
36:26Any avian vet realizes that the stress our captive parrots are under is immense.
36:31There you go.
36:32Pretty good weight for his species.
36:34We take these birds into our homes and we cut their wings.
36:38This guy's pretty scared.
36:39His heart rate's off the chart, probably over 300 beats a minute.
36:44We house them in cages and we don't allow them to be with their own species.
36:49You can imagine the stress on these animals.
36:54Stress is known to lower the immune system.
36:57That's okay.
36:58Clipped wings and cages guarantee a sedentary life.
37:02And avian vets are finding that heart disease is all too common in captive parrots,
37:08especially those with poor diets.
37:11Parrots can also carry infectious diseases.
37:15Lou will stay in quarantine for 30 days to make sure he's not contagious.
37:20His test results will determine his future.
37:26With over 550 birds, foster parrots is well beyond capacity.
37:32If we take another bird, my volunteers would kill me.
37:36Thirty-five volunteers and a staff of six.
37:39That's not enough humans to meet the needs of really human-bonded birds.
37:44You're going to step up? Good.
37:46We cannot integrate these parrots with their own species,
37:49and yet they don't fit into a human society either.
37:54What are we to do with these birds because they don't even know they're birds?
38:00Peepers exhibits an unusual feather-picking profile.
38:03She pulls the feathers out of her head and neck with her foot,
38:07giving her that vulture-like appearance that if she only knew what she looks like,
38:12she might not do so often.
38:15You're still beautiful.
38:17Being a domestically raised bird, she identifies with humans,
38:21and she also wants to mate with humans.
38:23Oh, good.
38:24That's not good, Peepers.
38:26You just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?
38:29We received a call from a woman whose neighbor was keeping Peepers in an unheated porch
38:34in the middle of winter.
38:36You're a good girl.
38:38Right now, we take in birds when it's a life-and-death situation.
38:42And you have to take that bird in.
38:44Hey, Bugs.
38:45The care requirements are so huge.
38:48You can never feel like you've been successful.
38:50What's this chat? Is that for you?
38:52From the very first day I got Wally, the blue and gold macaw.
38:56You know, my resolve was to make his life better every day.
39:02And...
39:02Goodness.
39:06Give me a second.
39:10I mean, when people ask me what is the right size cage for a macaw,
39:15there is no right size cage for a macaw.
39:18It's 35 square miles.
39:20You know, it's like...
39:21It's huge.
39:22And it's the sky.
39:26It's...
39:30The owner is an older gentleman whose wife passed away about four years ago,
39:35and the bird has been pecking away at himself.
39:37My mother died three weeks ago, and I need to find a place for a cockatoo.
39:40It's killing me writing to you like this, but I must find a new home.
39:44When I first started Fossil Parrots, I thought we could take every single bird that needed a home.
39:49But, of course, the numbers were staggering,
39:52to a point now where we have over a thousand calls a year for surrender.
39:59How wonderful it would be if these parrots could be released to the wild.
40:04But it's unlikely they'd have the skills to survive like their wild cousins.
40:10And the risk of spreading disease would be too great.
40:14With populations so low, every parrot matters.
40:20In Costa Rica, a scarlet macaw is calling to his mother.
40:29I knew Geoffrey was special from Hatch.
40:32He had a very cute peep.
40:35They communicate with mum well before they've hatched,
40:38so the babies will actually be talking to mum through the egg.
40:42They hatch open, and they're so helpless.
40:45They're all wet, and they still have their little umbilical cord attached to the egg.
40:48We leave them about 12 hours to allow the yolk to be used up.
40:55So little Geoffrey hatched out, and he was just so cute.
41:01I could tell Geoffrey was a smart one from Hatch.
41:05The Aura Project is breeding rescued macaws in order to release their offspring to the wild.
41:12The parents, who are former pets and rescued birds, don't always know how to raise their young.
41:20Geoffrey's mother was an expert, and his father was poached from the wild.
41:26His mum is not a very good mum.
41:28His parents abandoned him, unfortunately.
41:31So for the first two months of Geoffrey's life, he had to live in an incubator.
41:37Geoffrey started off like a little plucked chicken,
41:39and then he started getting his pin feathers coming through.
41:42You'll get a little bit of a tail come through, and then you normally get a little bit of a
41:45mohawk.
41:46They put on about 10% of weight every day.
41:50It takes three months of hand-rearing, and then on top of that you've got up to a year of
41:55looking after them.
41:57Geoffrey came out beautiful red.
41:59Geoffrey.
42:00Beautiful, beautiful, deep red.
42:02Geoffrey.
42:06Geoffrey's species of macaw is in trouble.
42:09The wild population is only a fragment of what it once was.
42:14Costa Rica is one of the last strongholds.
42:19Aura hopes to stop the extinction by repopulating the wild with birds like Geoffrey.
42:26They recently released a group of seven macaws.
42:30Geoffrey will be next.
42:33Oh, those group lines.
42:35That was from the chair, wasn't it?
42:36It sounded like they were going along the top of about 530.
42:39They were really high up there.
42:40We've released over 100 scarlet macaws, and we've had over 85% survival rate.
42:48Part of the process of them learning how to survive in the wild is teaching the birds what to eat.
42:57The biologists, Rachel and Charlie, are going round and they're collecting things like beech almonds, finding corral pods.
43:04All of the foods the birds are going to have to learn to survive off.
43:08You'll see them put whole branches in the aviary, and that's so the birds can recognise.
43:12Oh, this leaf means this food.
43:15They start chewing on things, finding out what part of the fruit or the seed tastes good.
43:19And a lot of it's instinct.
43:21So a lot of them actually will pick up an almond for the first time and go,
43:24Oh yeah, I know how to crack this, that's fine.
43:27That's boot camp, basically.
43:29McCaw boot camp.
43:35We were going on vacation and I was trying to figure out what to do with Basil.
43:40I have a friend who also has a yellow-naped Amazon, so I offered to take him.
43:46Basil had never seen another yellow-naped Amazon in the 15 years I'd owned him.
44:00Liz and Holly decide to take a gamble with the birds.
44:21By the time the Hartmans returned from vacation, Basil and Coco were tightly bonded.
44:28We loaded him into his travel cage and started to walk out of the house with him.
44:33And her Amazon just starts pacing back and forth going,
44:37No! No!
44:44You could hear Coco calling like he was losing his best friend.
44:50We were in tears.
44:52We said, Oh, we can't have this happen. This is heartbreaking.
44:55I started talking to Holly about whether she would adopt Basil.
44:59So she said yes.
45:01You can't just give away a friend.
45:04You just can't do that.
45:06I had a huge amount of guilt.
45:08You take on this living creature, it's your responsibility.
45:12It's not that we wanted to give up Basil. The kids were having a hard time.
45:16He's just being a normal wild bird.
45:19They're not pets.
45:20You can call them a pet. You can put them in a pet shop.
45:24You can dress it up all you want.
45:26They're not pets.
45:29Now, when you go over there and see them,
45:32they're best buddies.
45:35I definitely would not have a parrot again.
45:38I would never do it again. No.
45:40For my own mental health and the mental health of the parrot.
45:44No.
45:49After a month in quarantine, Lou is given a clean bill of health.
45:54Then we begin the process of trying to integrate him with other birds.
45:59In the wild, they have an entire rainforest.
46:03They can choose their own mate.
46:05You put them together with birds that are not of their choice,
46:09and it just doesn't always work.
46:14They start Lou outside a large aviary.
46:17From here, he can watch the other cockatoos from a safe distance.
46:26After three weeks on the outside, it's time for Lou to move into the aviary.
46:34Without knowing Lou's past, they can only guess, and watch, and hope.
46:42Lou, he's a little on the quiet and reserved side.
46:45We had to very carefully pick his aviary mates.
46:48He needed non-aggressive, you know, kind of docile aviary mates.
46:53And so that's what we set up for him.
46:54An aviary with five other cockatoos.
47:03After two weeks inside the enclosure, they feel it's safe to take Lou from his cage.
47:09Hi, buddy.
47:10Hi, buddy.
47:14You're okay?
47:15Here you go, buddy.
47:22Oh, good boy.
47:30And then, the unexpected.
47:37Another lone cockatoo, princess, a parrot with an injured foot and a hazy history, takes a chance.
48:05It's a big deal with him.
48:06I'm a young man.
48:06This has been a big deal with this scene.
48:08It's a little bit of a truck.
48:09And he's going to build up a truck.
48:10That's what they do, but I'm a little bit of a truck.
48:10I think it's even a truck.
48:10That's what we're doing.
48:11And I think it's really cool.
48:11And I was a little bit of a truck with the truck.
48:55In Costa Rica, Geoffrey's big day is finally here.
49:00Being able to see animals that you've raised, free and wild, this is the ultimate.
49:06You do have that worry in the back of your mind.
49:08What happens if it doesn't go well and he doesn't survive?
49:12See, that's where you're going soon.
49:15It's not likely that all of them are going to survive.
49:18Predators, accidents.
49:19You can't predict what they're going to do and it's always the favourite ones that you think you're going to
49:22get lost.
49:22Come on, Geoffrey.
49:23Geoffrey.
49:24Come on, Geoffrey.
49:26Once the birds have lived in the cage for X amount of time, it can be two months or it
49:30could be six months,
49:31depending on molts, depending on how quickly they adapt, the time of year, the food availability.
49:35When all those factors are right, that's when we begin the release.
49:40We release the birds individually so we can make sure each bird has an equal chance of survival.
49:47They're going to let Geoffrey out.
49:49We're going to tempt him into the box or try to.
49:51He's quite cunning.
49:53Geoffrey, this is your chance of freedom, mate.
49:57It can take at least a few hours to get the right bird in the box.
50:00I'll put a pile of food in there and once they have Geoffrey in the box, they'll let him eat
50:06his food in peace and quiet.
50:11He's ready to go.
50:13He's eating all his almonds.
50:14That's when they'll let the outside door down.
50:29Quite often we find that the birds outside come in and there's a big scrap.
50:34This is going to be interesting.
50:38Geoffrey has now got the advantage of having these outside birds established.
50:42They show off quite a bit and they're actually teaching the birds in the aviary,
50:45look what I can do, you know.
50:47You're going to be able to do this soon.
50:49They're going to be able to help show them where to eat, teach them what to do,
50:52show them how to fly.
50:57Geoffrey, I'm hoping, will just fit into the flock and everybody will think he's awesome.
51:04We'll have to hope for the best and it's all you can do.
51:10Good luck, mate.
51:11This is your big shot.
51:33It would be far worse for him to live 45, 50 years in captivity than to have a chance
51:39of living life in the wild.
51:49I hope he has a nice missus and lots of babies.
51:54A long, happy life in the wild.
51:56That's what I wish for all of them, not just for Geoffrey.
52:14Thank you for finding out.
52:46To learn more about what you've seen on this nature program, visit pbs.org.
52:59www.pbs.org
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