Therapy birds give patient something to live for

I filmed the most amazing interaction between parrots and humans last month: I was with a rescuer who does parrot therapy in hospitals. She had introduced me earlier to Carlos, a quadriplegic who had given up on life until she brought her parrots to meet him. He was so inspired by their beauty that he decided to learn to paint using a brush held in his mouth. His subject? Macaws, of course!

Alex, the cockatiel’s, reaction to Carlos and/or my filming was pretty amazing. He started squawking loudly using a lot of mostly indecipherable sentences. Every once in a while you’d catch a word but most of it sounded like a bad transistor radio from the 70s. He also got pretty agitated, shaking his topknot up and down, and began pacing along the back of the chair, switching sides and seemingly taking both ends of some argument he was having with himself. Dana was kind of horrified and told him to calm down. I, of course, was loving it and asked her to just let him go because I was getting great footage and he wasn’t hurting himself. She said he’s never acted like that before.

I wonder if it was meeting Carlos, who is locked up in a cage constructed of his own physical limitations. Did it remind Alex of his former life locked in a cage? Or am I completely wrong and he was just hamming it up for my video camera? I thought I caught the word “professor” several times. I teach at a local university and I wonder if someone had referred to me as the professor before I got there.  Could he possibly already know that word and have used it just because I mentioned “students”? It was the first time I’d met Alex and also his first time in the hospital. Since he’s a rescue, Dana’s not sure exactly what he was exposed to previously. Looking forward to more meetings with Alex to see if he acts up again.

I’ve filmed about 4 hours worth of footage for my documentary on parrots, which I’ve decided to call FreeFlight. As I mentioned to Dana, the parrot rescuer I’m following, I’m not at all a parrot expert – just an animal lover who wants to see better lives for these beautiful creatures. It just breaks my heart that humans treat them so cruelly. We have decimated their populations in the wild and then trapped them in cages where they are often abused.

I just finished putting together a trailer for the project and have posted it to Indiegogo, a site that helps filmmakers with donations, in the hope of raising some money to allow me to keep shooting. I’ve already gotten a $50 donation and can only hope they keep coming. In the meantime, I get to learn more about these amazing birds.

An added bonus to making this doc is that I get to pet Dana’s rescued parrots. I was afraid at first that I would hurt them. Accustomed to petting dogs who are a lot more substantial, the birds little bodies felt too delicate to pet. Dana encouraged me though, and I found they really like it. One cockatiel, Pinky, kept grabbing my finger in his beak and bringing it back to him in order to encourage me to keep up the good work, I guess. Another one, Alex, kept raising his wings a little and looking at me. Dana told me that he like to be petted under the winds (I just wasn’t listening again!) I tried it and he blissed out, then kept raising those wings again every time I came near.

I have to say that I think the bald spot the cockatiels have under their topknot is too funny. Until I saw Pinky’s and Alex’s, I had no idea they were bald under there. Much to my surprise, they seem to like being petted there also.

See No Evil: the Golden Monkeys of Rwanda

We were in Rwanda in January, 08 to track Mountain Gorillas. While we were at the base camp, we heard that a group of Golden monkeys were currently in the mountains and could be tracked also. We signed up immediately and were pleasantly surprised at how responsive they were to us. The small ones, in particular, repeatedly stopped their games to look at us, as though they wanted to be sure we were catching the action. The two wrestling monkeys you see in the video actually stopped playing at one point and moved about 50 yards away. They stood there and looked at us, waiting for us to regroup and get our cameras up again before they resumed the match. I noticed this behavior in baby seals when we were in the Galapagos. They seem to want human attention and somehow realize that raising a camera means they’re getting that attention. Or maybe it’s all the oohing and aahing over how cute they are.

We were told later that this is the only habituated group of Golden Monkeys in the world. According to the African Wildlife Foundation, they are a subspecies of the Blue Monkey. Although very rare, they do not currently have the endangered species designation. These little guys are much less famous (and therefore, much less supported monetarily) than the Mountain Gorillas. They are so human-like in their interactions - allowing them to become extinct would be a tragedy.
To find out more or to donate, check out:
African Wildlife Fund

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, all of the Animal rescue workers, myself included, advocated for implanting microchips in pets to facilitate the identification process and speed up reunification with their families. I even included footage of a local SPCA-run Microchip clinic in the “Deleted Scenes” section of my Katrina Tails DVD. Because we live in earthquake country (San Francisco), we decided to have one implanted in our Golden Retriever, Phoenix. We were afraid that an earthquake might strike while we were at work and he was home alone. Due to fire danger, it’s possible that we might be blocked by City officials from returning to our home, as people were in New Orleans after Katrina. I’m very sad to report that Phoenix developed mast cell tumors after the microchip implant and succumbed to cancer last December.

We don’t know, of course, that the microchip caused the tumors or the subsequent cancer. After all, many Goldens develop cancer, but pet guardians might want to read a few studies about the incidence of tumors in animals that underwent implants before deciding on a microchip.

Washington Post article
Anti-chip article
Cancer Study
Another opinion

Here’s one that is pro-microchip.

So, if we don’t use microchips, how will our pets be identified if they become separated from us during a disaster? I don’t know the answer. I’ve heard that tattoos in the ear tend to become so distorted as the pet grows, that they become indecipherable. We saw during Katrina, that pets’ collars can snag and be torn off, or even lost/removed by humans during the rescue intake process. What’s left? GPS? It’s expensive, and the monthly fee might make it prohibitive for many people. There’s also the question of whether or not it would still be working in the event of a major earthquake, as well as the danger that the collar containing the GPS might become separated from the pet. 

Here’s a company that makes a GPS system for pets. They’re a great company who was very supportive during the production of my video, Katrina Tails. They use their own technology, GPSTracks, rather than a third-party provider. I haven’t tried the system yet but you might think it’s worth considering. I’ve also included some disaster-preparedness sites in case you’re new to preparing your pet for a disaster.
Global Pet Finder

Pet Preparedness Sites:
Janet Roper, Animal Communicator
FEMA for Kids
FEMA for Adults
HSUS
American Red Cross