Smart Parrot
Two weeks ago, an African grey parrot flew his Tokyo-area coop and was rescued by police … But he was no stool pigeon.
“I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me,” policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.
After a silent night in the pokey, he was taken to a local veterinary hospital. A few days later, he struck up a conversation.
“I’m Mr. Yosuke Nakamura,” the bird said, including his complete home address. He also sang for the staff.
Police investigated his alias.
“We checked the address, and what do you know — a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we’ve found Yosuke,” Uemura said.
Topics: Japan, linguistics
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:54 pm on Wednesday, May 21, 2008
2 Responses to “Smart Parrot”
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May 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pm
This isn’t so surprising about African greys. They’ve been known to understand and even communicate with human language — in a limited, parroty way, of course.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:22 am
African Grey Parrots are one of the most intelligent animals, some can even solve puzzles fast than a human can! I remember there being a parrot that have around a 800 word vocabulary, I think he’s called Einstein, but I’m not 100% sure.