 As we were walking back to take a break, I came across this young man with this beautiful parrot and he's going to speak a little bit about what he does and why it's important. The biggest misconception that we really get with animal intelligence is really that there are smarter animals and that there are dumber animals. That is not the case in nature. In that case, you would have to assume that by ranking animal intelligence on a hierarchy, you would have to assume that all animals, including humans, because humans are animals, that they were brought up, sprung up from the same environment for the same reasons and purposes. And that is just not the case. So when we're out here, because we do get a lot of attention as you probably see, a lot of people come up to us and ask us how smarter they are, smarter than a dog or as smarter as a pig. It's like they're just as smart as they need to be. Exactly. Every single animal, every single being on this planet evolved and developed in their environment. So when this parrot is in on that island, what's the breed of parrot? Well, he's an eclectus parrot, but the thing about these parrots is they live on islands off the coast of Australia, islands. So every island has their own subspecies of that parrot, and some are bigger than others, and they've developed different diets. He is the Solomon Island, he plucked this. There's four that are bred in the U.S. specifically. He's the smallest of all the subspecies, but the diet I can't tell you off the top of my head because it's very unique to that island. But the closest that we can get to is another thing for this type of bird. They require more fruits and vegetables for their diet because their digestive tract is a lot longer than other birds. So giving them seeds actually shortens the lifespan. When they first brought the birds here, another thing about these birds is the males look like this. The girls are actually red and purple. Beautiful animal. But they look so different that people for so long thought they were different species. So they tried mating the males with the males and the girls with the girls. And of course nothing happened, at least nothing I know of. But because of that, so when an animal has a short digestive system, it's better for digesting highly available nutrients like fruit and meat. But when an animal has a long digestive system, that's where it would be more akin to like plant foods. And certain birds have specific adaptations and enzymes in their bodies to digest seeds. So this is a bird that eats fruit. Yeah, mostly fruits and vegetables. Because these birds, most parrots of this size can live to be 70 years. 70 or 80. 70 years. The African gray, I don't know if I heard about African gray. The gray parrots, they're really popular because they talk a lot. They're smart. Scientists have actually talked about how to read, count. They can tell jokes and stuff. I've seen this firsthand. And I'm sure all parrots can do it. But they can live to be 7. If you give them just seeds, or mostly seeds, they will only live to be 30. You're like poison the animal. Yeah. Just seeds will actually shorten the lifespan by that much. And so that's why most birds that live here that are bred, oh, careful. But yeah, so like, yeah, giving them just seeds will actually shorten the lifespan by that much. But yeah, just like I said, he's a baby. He still has a lot to learn. He does this thing called free flight where he flies outside. He doesn't need this harness. He can fly outside, as you can tell. He really wants to go flying. This is our first time, one of the first few times being in the city. And I won't let him out. Because mostly there are falcons too, right? Yeah, there are falcons. Falcons, obviously. And one of them happens to be the fastest animal on the planet, the paragrid falcon. Reach speeds, God knows how fast. Probably over 100 miles. Yeah. They'll swoop up pigeons just like that. And seagulls. And yeah, I won't trust being out here. So that's why we pick certain spots where you can fly out on the beach. You can fly out in certain spots where it's safe. Especially not where there's cars in a lot of people. You know how. But yeah, for him to talk, his language is still in its early stages. I'm teaching him right now how to read. He's recording it. But yeah, he gets really scared sometimes because he is one and a half. And you have to think about him. Picture him as a one and a half year old. Zooming in. Oh wait, you want to do it on this side? Yeah, you just say hi. Hi, nice to meet you. Go ahead, just shake your hand. Hi, nice to meet you. Go ahead. Oh, he does get nervous when people are like looking at him staring at him. He still is really young. So these birds are very, they could tell what there's like three or four people looking at him. Oh yeah, of course, yeah, yeah. Especially because we have a lot of people walk up to us and they'll get straight in his face just like that. Unrenounced to them that he's a baby, so he's going to get shy. And the thing about birds is you can't tell their age just by looking at them. They'll be 70 years old right now. Yeah, and they look the same. Talking to comparative psychologists about saying words like smart and intelligent, they won't say words like smart. But what can these apes like communicate with you? Can they tell you like, they can tell you they're hungry probably. Can they explain the difference between meat and fish or something? Yeah, they can categorize foods and stuff. But you need to teach them and you need to expose them to that sort of stuff. And it also depends on the individual. Some are better at it than others, but they've only done it with a few apes. And they try to compare those apes to children. You probably hear a lot of studies where people say animals are a bird or an ape or a smart as a python. That's not true though. That's not true. I don't like those comparisons. And a lot of those experiments are flawed because they're really biased because you have the animal behind the bars who doesn't have any family, social structure, who is put up against the child who obviously grew up Westerners, who grew up in houses with families and stuff and they're being tested by humans. The apes don't have that. So when the apes perform worse than the babies, they say, oh, it's because humans have a higher intelligence. But then when the roles are switched, when the apes do something better than the humans, they'll say it's inconclusive. Yeah, that's how a lot of studies are conducted unfortunately. Thank you so much. I mean, I'm not quite sure. Did you want to talk about anything else? No, that was a... I didn't want to check up too much of your time. Thank you so much. What was your name again? Michael. Do you have any social media or anything you want to shout out? I have a small YouTube channel called Michael Gibbons. Okay, so spell that out for them. I'm Gibbons, G-I-B-B-O-I-N-S. Okay, sounds good. I'll put his channel link at the end here, guys. Definitely check it out. People will come to us. The same rights as you. No, no, no. I'm saying we should give them rights to freedom, you know, to choice. You know, not giving them the right to vote or the right to drive a car. These rights should depend on the animal's needs. Yeah. Different animals require them. Now, it gets kind of complicated when you're talking about... Everything's very subjective. Yeah. Yeah, especially when you're talking about all animals. Like, because, like I said, intelligence can't be ranked higher where one is higher than another. So, by that logic, you have to treat all animals... All animals are equally intelligent. So then, you have to treat pigeons equally. As they're in their environment. Yeah. Pigeons, rats. Rats are really intelligent, too. They can even regret their own decisions. And I would like rats, though. Yeah, well, I do. Oh, something like that. I know some people don't. I know a lot of people don't. Because they've only grown up to see them as an environment. I mean, if we're talking from an intelligence standpoint, rats have adapted to such a complex environment. They're really successful. A lot of animals that people don't like are unfortunately successful. Yeah, that's the problem. Thank you so much, man. Let me... I don't want to take up so much of your time. No problem. Let me get you some water from over here. Oh, no, that's fine. No, I have some homework. I'm sorry, guys.