All language subtitles for Nature.Parrot.Confidential.2013.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].eng

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NARRATOR: With huge brains
and hollow bones,

they navigate the canopy.

Every cell

is engineered
for flight.

They speak a language
all their own

and form lifelong bonds
that can last for 80 years.

Their wings
can carry them

50 miles in a day.

This is a creature
who lives without borders,

in a world
we can hardly fathom,

and yet millions
live among us.

This is their story.

NARRATOR: As day breaks
over Santa Barbara,

a cockatoo named Dolly

calls to her flock.

WOMAN: Oh, Dolly.

Good morning pretty bird,
good morning pretty bird,

pretty girl, you're just
up and all sparky, huh?

-DOLLY: I'm a pretty bird.
-Hi!

Dolly likes to wake up about
6:30 or 7:00 in the morning.

Want some breakfast?

-DOLLY: Hi, pretty bird!
-Hi, pretty bird.

-DOLLY: Hi, pretty bird!
-Hi, pretty bird.

I rush to get her before
she wakes up all the neighbors.

They're very nice people
and I want to keep it that way.

[Dolly squawking]

NARRATOR:
With voices designed

to each across the forest,
cockatoos can be a challenge

for the average homeowner.

MICHEL: The screaming
is really hard.

I finally got
gun range earphones.

[Squawking]

And that doesn't
completely deaden it.

You can still hear it, it just
doesn't make your eardrums hurt.

Dolly was in a bird collection,

and the gentleman just wasn't
really ready

to deal with
a Moluccan cockatoo.

She was sort of damaged when
I got her, emotionally.

I had a friend
that took me over there

to see if I wanted to
adopt Dolly.

And I just took one look at her
and she took one look at me

and I knew I had no choice,
you know.

She was gonna be mine.

She was three
when I got her,

it'll be 16 years in March.

She is going to live
to be 80 or 90.

And I am 74, so, that's --

we don't have
many more years together.

And I'm for--
That's my biggest concern.

I take Dolly
everywhere I can.

She loves
going in the car.

I think it's an experience
probably like flying.

You know, they see the scenery
rushing by.

[Dolly chattering]

NARRATOR: Dolly's headed to
a local sanctuary,

where she boards
a few days each week.

This is Lavanya's
survival tactic.

When Dolly is at home with
Lavanya, it's all about Dolly.

There's no talking on the phone,
there's no having company.

And after about
three or four days of that,

poor Lavanya has to take care of
her own needs, as well.

Watch you head!

MICHEL: So I can go to
appointments and get things done

and have a little time to do

some of the things I like to do,
visit friends.

-We're gonna go bye-bye!
-DOLLY: Bye-bye, pretty bird.

MICHEL: Bye-bye, pretty bird!

Hey, Jamie, we're back.

NARRATOR: Jamie McLeod founded
the Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary

nine years ago,
when she noticed there was

a problem with
unwanted parrots.

-I'll see you in a couple days.
-All right.

Good morning, Dolly!

NARRATOR: She began to realize

many of the birds
she was selling

were being re-homed.

McLEOD: I was a breeder for more
than 30 years.

Amazons, Macaws, Cockatoos.

When people typically would keep
the birds two to four years,

it became apparent

that not everybody's cracked up
to own one.

They live 80 years --

crunch those numbers out

and there's a lot of unwanted
parrots out there.

Hi, guys!

I felt I was contributing
to a problem,

and started focusing on
re-homing all the unwanted ones.

MAN: There we go!

McLEOD: We currently have

more than 60 birds

and we're
beyond capacity.

We're turning people away.

Okay, you ready
for your breakfast?

Let's go, girl!

McLEOD: People abandon them
on our porch,

they threaten to
euthanize them

if I don't take them.

Many of the birds that we have
now have been adopted out

numerous times,
and they come back.

It's a huge problem.

People don't always understand

that when a bird
forms a bond with you,

it's actually a mate bond.

They're not just
part of your life,

they become your life.

I rarely go away on vacation --

they literally are
my life.

People will come in
and they'll say,

"I want a bird that talks,
that's quiet

and that doesn't bite,"

and that species has not yet
been discovered.

Come on over here!
Come on! Come on!

Come on over here!

BIRD: Come over here!
Come over here!

-Come on over here.
-Come over here.

-Come on over here.
-Come over here.

Her original owner taught her
most of her vocabulary.

Everybody loves the Amazons
cause they sing and they talk,

but nothing can bite you harder
than an Amazon parrot.

One day you're cuddling it,

and the next minute you're
missing part of your face.

Squeezethose little
birdie legs!

KONA: Squeeze those
little birdie --

Squeezethose
little birdie legs!

Squeeze!

Scary bird, roar!

[Kona roars]

Kona, who has
such a wonderful vocabulary

and is so animated and everybody
wants to adopt her,

actually removed this part of
her owner's nose.

KONA [singing]:
♪ I love you true dear

McLEOD: Once they start to hit
sexual maturity

they have drastic
behavioral changes.

You're not gonna bite me right
now are you?

Up you go.
Let's go, up up up.

Oh, yeah, you are!

KONA: Goodbye! Goodbye!

McLEOD: Being injured
by a parrot,

you can't be angry with them.

If you take them
into your life,

that's one of the things
that you need to accept.

It's still a wild animal.

NARRATOR: In a cage
or soaring above the canopy,

parrots are
still considered wild.

Unlike dogs and cats,

they haven't been
domesticated

over thousands of years.

Captive bred parrots
are just a few generations

from their wild cousins.

They have
complex social lives

and large brains,
like primates.

Dr. Tim Wright from
New Mexico State University

has discovered

their language skills
are remarkably advanced,

and they learn to speak
much as humans do.

WRIGHT: Learning how to
sound like others

seems to be very important
for these parrots.

If you sound like others,
you're a member of their group.

They are very tightly bonded
with each other.

Here in captivity, they're
trying to recreate that bond

with whoever's around.

NARRATOR: Wright's research
has revealed

that they speak in
regional dialects --

and some
are even bilingual.

But human encroachment

is making it

increasingly difficult
to study these birds.

Yellow-naped Amazons are not
doing that well in the wild.

There's been
a very rapid decline.

NARRATOR: The parrots often nest
in lone trees on ranches.

Sadly, this is a risky place
to raise their young.

WRIGHT:
They're not recognizing

the danger posed by these
new human predators.

The ranch hands
often will poach the parrots.

They're out in the fields
every day,

they watch the parrots,
they know what they're doing

and have a good sense of where
they're putting their nests,

and they know when
there might be chicks there.

These birds are certainly touchy
around their nest,

so we just try to
keep our distance.

Oh yeah, she's going back,
she's going back down now.

Yeah, she's going in,
tail first.

NARRATOR: Wright has been
studying nest cavities

in order to learn
how parents

teach language
to their young.

WRIGHT: Okay, hold it!

NARRATOR: He tries to keep his
contact with the birds

to a minimum.

WRIGHT: If we do climb up,

we do it quickly
and get out of there.

Oh, it's a deep one.

Ah, there are
two eggs in there.

The female will sit on these
eggs for about three weeks

and then the chicks will hatch,

and that's when
the rough time comes.

It's hard to say whether these
chicks will be left in the nest

and fly free,
or become pets.

I've been trying to study
their nesting behavior,

and I can't do that

if people are taking the chicks
out of the nest,

so it's -- it's sort of
a double, uh,

a double heartbreak
for me.

We were visiting a night roost

to record
the vocalizations there,

and I heard
a strange sound.

Hola!

It wasn't quite human,

someone was saying
"hello," or "hola."

WRIGHT: Permisso!

[Lorita talks back]

WRIGHT:
In fact, it was a parrot.

Look at you!

Hi!

You are
a yellow-naped Amazon.

I talked with
the manager of the ranch,

and he told me a little bit
about her history.

[Manager speaking Spanish]

WRIGHT: So, they've had it
about 9 months,

it's a -- it was a chick taken
from the nest this year,

um, from a nest
a little bit south.

[Manager speaking Spanish]

WRIGHT: He said, you just
have to climb up the tree

and stick your hand
in and take it out.

[Speaking Spanish]

I asked how much a chick
like this would sell for,

and he said, well,
when they're very young,

just out of the nest, they might
sell for $30 or $40.

A bird that was
a little bit older

and in good health like Lorita

would sell for about $100.

She has learned a lot of human
language words, Spanish words.

She laughs,
she calls "hello" or "hola,"

but when there are other parrots
in the area,

she'll also call to them.

Normally, one parrot

might fly over
and join the flock.

But Lorita can't do that.

She's in a cage.

[Lorita squawking]

NARRATOR:
Baby parrots like Lorita

have been taken from the nest
for thousands of years.

But today, nearly one third of
wild parrots are endangered.

The illicit trade
in exotic birds

has become a multi-billion
dollar business.

In 1992,

the U.S. banned

the importation of
wild birds.

But before then,

it was wild parrots

that filled
our pet stores.

For many parrots,
this is how life began.

Jimmy Gentile opened
his pet shop in 1975.

GENTILE: We kind of specialize
in what I call

"no pets allowed" pets,

or unique companion animals --
we don't do dogs or cats.

NARRATOR: Liz Hartman moved to
Boston in the '80s

to attend vet school.

HARTMAN: I worked part-time
for Jimmy at the pet shop,

I really was just
a cage cleaner.

There was a bird there,
a yellow-naped Amazon,

that I thought was
so cool.

I thought, "Oh, man, I really
want to take this bird home,

I really want to own it."
And Jimmy said,

"You really should get a baby
and hand feed it,

because that's how
you bond with them."

GENTILE: I had ordered
a bunch of baby birds,

taken from the nest
in Honduras.

A day came when they called me
and they said,

"Your chicks are available."

So, I went to the airport,
picked up the box.

HARTMAN: I was so excited,

I couldn't wait,
I was beside myself.

I packed up that bird
and went home with it.

MAN: When she brought him home,
I remember.

We had discussed it,
and at first

I was totally against it,

because I knew how long
parrots lasted.

He was totally into it,
he thought it was great.

They're messy,
I've been in the pet stores.

In the beginning you had to
wrap him up in a towel,

cause he would
try to bite you.

It was our first experience
at parenthood.

RUSS: I eventually
warmed up to the idea,

and we couldn't help but
sit there and just look at him,

it was so amazing to see
this wild bird in our house.

NARRATOR: Basil's early years
were trouble-free.

YOUNG LIZ:
Good morning, Basil.

LIZ: The first four years
were lovely and blissful.

I would come down
in the morning

and open Basil's cage.

Whenever we were home, he was
basically free to crawl around,

and he mostly
stayed on his cage.

RUSS: The quickness at which
he could pick up anything,

he was so amazing.

I think he was wicked smart.

He loved the interaction.

[Young Russ and Basil
imitating explosion]

We thought, "We're gonna
love this bird to death,

and we're going to do
whatever we need to do

to make this bird happy
for the rest of it's life."

NARRATOR: Parrots usually bond
with one person.

For Basil,
that person was Russ.

LIZ: He was so bonded to Russ.

Russ traveled overseas a lot
for business,

and he'd been gone
for about a month.

BASIL: Hi!

YOUNG LIZ:
You must be exhausted.

LIZ: He got home at night
and we went to bed.

YOUNG LIZ:
Good night, Basil.

LIZ:
Everything seemed fine.

We woke up the next morning

and...

Hello!

Basil had plucked all of
the feathers off of his chest.

[Basil squawking]

Like, just plucked it bald.

He'd never plucked before, ever.

It was devastating to us
because we didn't know

what was going on.

We later determined
he was so angry

that he was willing to go
through the pain

of pulling
his own feathers out.

LIZ: It wasn't down to the skin,
but just the grey down.

I mean, there had to be

some sort of emotional response
to Russ coming home.

I think
he was making a point.

You have to
be there for them.

They are social animals.

I can't even imagine
anything more complex.

They're up there
with the apes and the humans.

NARRATOR: If Basil was
still in the wild,

he would already have
found a mate by now.

They'd rarely be apart.

Their mated bond would nurture
the next generation,

ensuring the survival
of the species.

A wild parrot

is seldom alone.

Even in flight,

a mated pair is almost never
out of earshot.

For a wild parrot,

solitude is rare.

In a Boston suburb,
a parrot has been left behind.

WOMAN: The family lost the home,
the bank had taken possession,

and I received a call.

[Lou squawks]

The bird had been left behind

for approximately four days.

It was four days

since anyone had been last seen
coming or going from the home.

It did have water,

it did not have bird food
available,

there was other pet food
in the home.

To just be left behind
in a cage,

it has to affect them --
they're not stupid.

I've heard the stories
that these animals go through

and for me
it's utter heartbreak.

Did you give me a call earlier?

I did, it's been three or four
days since I've seen anyone here

and I've heard some bird noises.

Okay, I'm gonna go take a look
and see if I see anything.

Guys I can't, I just need you
to stay outside

if you don't mind for now.

[Squawking]

MAN: Thanks, Lisa.

MAN: Ah, an umbrella cockatoo,
our favorite species.

This is the only animal
we found in the house.

Aw, hey.

CULLITY: So, you can
take care of him for us, Marc?

-Thank you.
-Sure, no problem.

Thanks.
Bye, little guy!

MAN: Part of the evaluation
process when we get a bird,

if we don't know his name,
we wait for him to tell us.

He'll say hello, and then
usually say his name.

In this case
the bird never told us.

So, we just named him after
a good friend of ours, Lou.

He seems really nervous with me,
maybe he'll be better with you,

wanna get him out?

NARRATOR: Marc Johnson
and Karen Windsor

have devoted their lives

to rescuing parrots.

WINDSOR:
Every bird has a story.

Every bird has a history,

especially
an emotional history.

They carry their baggage.

I think there are probably
a lot of forgotten birds

in a lot of dark corners
of the world.

Hey, hi. Hi.

It's hard economic times

and our animals
sometimes pay the price.

WOMAN: I spoke to you
on the phone last week

about putting my parrot, Max,
up for adoption,

he will be ten years...

MAN: ...friends
who could not keep them.

The blue and gold
is very aggressive...

WOMAN: and due to a divorce
I am being forced

to move into an apartment
which will not allow...

MAN: I've been in contact
with the vet

and I'm planning on euthanasia
if there is no...

JOHNSON:
Everyday we get e-mails,

and that's the hardest part
of our life now.

We have to say no a lot.

WOMAN:
...as I want to make sure

they don't end up suffering
or being mistreated...

WOMAN: ...she's driving my
husband and children crazy...

MAN: I cannot
live like this anymore,

I hope to hear from you.

NARRATOR: Johnson has witnessed
the proliferation of parrots

over the years.

It all began with a want ad.

JOHNSON: In the 1980s
I had a small pottery studio.

I had a deep admiration
for the rainforest

and I wanted to get a pet,

AND I thought something exotic
would be fun,

so I bought a parrot
in the Want advertiser for $900.

Wally was a blue and gold macaw.

He was a wonderful bird.

People would come in and see I
had a parrot and they would say,

"Oh, I have a cousin
that's got one of those,"

"My brother's got
one of those,"

"I've got one of those
that I don't want anymore,

would you like my parrot?"

Not knowing
how big the problem was,

I thought, well, this is great,
because people were

giving parrots that were
worth lots of money.

We were being besieged by birds.

Before I knew it I had 30 of
them with more coming every day.

It turns out, people were giving
me their parrots

because they're
very difficult pets.

And I was the only game in town.

Nobody else would take
unwanted birds,

so people came to visit me.

Before I knew it I had
outgrown the pottery studio,

and I had to figure out
some way of dealing with it.

NARRATOR:
Johnson closed the studio

and moved to a house
in the suburbs.

JOHNSON: From that point on

it was, if you build it
they will come.

The birds took over the house.

Every single room
had half a dozen birds in it.

The pantry, the spare rooms,
the bedrooms.

WINDSOR: When I first came
to volunteer,

I found parrots in the kitchen,

parrots in the living room,
parrots in the bathroom.

JOHNSON: Within no time
we had over 300 parrots.

NARRATOR: The house had become
a sanctuary.

With more requests each day,

Johnson ran out of space --
again.

[Rooster crowing]

JOHNSON: As luck would have it,

we came across this
abandoned chicken farm.

I kind of stumbled on this place
by accident.

It's a wreck but I think it's
what we've been waiting for.

WINDSOR: This is gonna be
an enormous amount of work.

It's too much.

JOHNSON: It scared the hell
out of Karen,

but I saw it as
a golden opportunity.

NARRATOR: Within two years,

they had tripled the size
of the sanctuary.

But in no time,
even the new facility

would be bursting
at the seams.

Where were all these unwanted
parrots coming from?

From South America, Africa,
Asia, Indonesia,

parrots were streaming in
from the wild.

When it became illegal to import
wild birds to the U.S.,

domestic breeding
filled the void.

Today, the practice of
breeding parrots

is not without
controversy.

WOMAN: Anybody with $40

can walk into any Petco
and buy a parrot.

There are no regulations.

Anybody can have as many of them
as they want,

they can breed them,
they can sell them.

I'm not one to talk,
because I did it.

Hand feed everybody.

This was a long time ago,

there wasn't any such thing
as a rescue or a sanctuary,

there was no need for it.

NARRATOR:
Phoebe and Harry Linden

were once highly
respected breeders.

It all started
nearly 40 years ago.

HARRY: In 1971,
I saw in the paper

somebody was advertising they
had to get rid of a parrot.

And I basically rescued him
from this guy.

And then I started finding out

that they were bringing in
birds from the wild.

You could go down and you could
buy at wholesale price

just about any bird you'd want.

I got another parrot,
and another parrot.

Before you knew it,

we had so many birds
in the house

we couldn't live there anymore,
I had to get another house.

NARRATOR: 40 years ago,

if you purchased a parrot,

it would almost certainly be
a parrot from the wild.

Capture and transport

took a terrible toll.

It's been estimated

that more than 70% of
wild-caught parrots

died before ever reaching
the pet store.

HARRY: I felt bad about
these wild caught parrots,

and I thought,
if we bred these birds,

then people would not need to
pull them out of the wild.

I named the business
Santa Barbara Bird Farm.

PHOEBE: When we started
to breed parrots,

I quit my job
and just hand-fed birds.

Harry and I decided
not to have human children,

and I just found that I could
like zip open my heart

and pour it into these
baby birds.

HARRY: We wanted to keep
every single one of them.

NARRATOR: The Linden's had
an excellent reputation

and a long waiting list.

They were hands-on
with the chicks,

and carefully screened
potential buyers.

But in the late '70s
the landscape began to change.

A TV series came out
called "Baretta."

This detective had a medium
sulfur-crested cockatoo

that made it look like
the coolest pet you could have,

they don't scream,
they don't pick their feathers,

they do what
you tell them to do.

Go look in that window

and tell me if somebody's
getting stabbed.

PHOEBE: The word got out there,
how charming,

how companionable
parrots were.

The phone started ringing
off the wall.

Demand bloomed overnight.

All of a sudden,
you could get one anywhere.

In the beginning
it wasn't like that.

We started to hear about

rescues and sanctuaries.

And we started to realize that,

wow, there are
unwanted parrots.

When we saw that
there was going to be

a tremendous amount of
fallout from that,

we decided to stop breeding.

We shut breeding down forever.

NARRATOR: The Linden's decided
to close the business

and instead focus on building

the best facility they could
for the birds they still had.

HARRY: This new aviary

can actually have
foraging potential

with the trees and the grass.

PHOEBE:
We're in the position now

where we want to take back

any baby who we raised
who needs a home.

So, they get to live a life

where they can make
their own decisions, exercise,

have access to fresh air,
fresh food.

HARRY: A lot of breeders like
ourselves just stopped breeding,

but we still have some of
the parrot mills out there

that produce a lot of babies
every year,

and so there's still
going to be parrots out there

who are gonna run into problems
in the future

and have to be put up
for adoption.

PHOEBE: People who really care
about parrots

don't buy birds --
they adopt.

We need to take care of
the parrots who are here,

the best way that we can,

and conserve the parrots
in the wild.

NARRATOR: It is the paradox
of the parrot.

As numbers dwindle in the wild,

the number of rescues
in captivity

continues to increase.

With sanctuaries struggling
to stay afloat,

the fate of unwanted parrots

is becoming more precarious
every day.

WOMAN: The step-father died,

and the daughter called up
and asked us to take Fagan.

-Hello?
-Hey.

-Here he is.
-Okay, thank you.

'Kay, thank you.

NARRATOR: In a Detroit suburb,

a parrot named Fagan has found
his way to Marie Crowley.

Good boy, good boy.

CROWLEY: When I took Fagan out
of the carrier,

it was pretty obvious
that he had

a big self-mutilation wound
on his abdomen.

You really chewed yourself up
buddy, huh?

I noticed that he smelled
heavily of nicotine.

You smell, you stink.

He obviously hadn't been bathed
in a long time.

Did they smoke, hmm?

He was just covered in goop.

You are a dirty, dirty bird.

Need a bath.

There you go.

I noticed my hands
were just disgusting.

They were covered in nicotine,

my hands were stained
for two days after.

I gotcha, there you go.

It's all done.
[Purrs]

Yes, the yuckies are over,
there you go.

I knew that the conditions
that he was coming from

were really, really poor.

Good boy.
Shh.

NARRATOR: After living in
a smoke-filled house

for nearly 25 years,

Fagan presented a challenge
for Dr. Orosz.

WOMAN: Let's listen to the
chest, can you let me listen?

OROSZ: When Fagan
walked through the door,

I saw a bird in crisis.

His feathers were greasy
with nicotine.

He had a large patch

where he had been mutilating
on his chest.

He was basically a mess.

-Back of his throat, see that?
-Ah, okay, mm-hmm.

He's from a home where the lady
smoked all the time, right?

It was those little
dime-store cigars.

Oh, great.

CROWLEY: It became pretty clear
that he was actually

physically addicted to
the nicotine.

He started having seizures.

We had to detox him from
the nicotine,

and then he had this large area

where he's been mutilating
his body.

Those are very difficult things

to overcome in birds,
very difficult.

In discussions with
psychiatrists,

the closest thing
I can think of

is that it could be
something like cutting.

When they do physical damage
to themselves,

it's a kind of
a release effect.

We had to help him
with his stress.

Here, buddy, come put
this collar on, okay?

Good job.

CROWLEY: Fagan has been in
a collar so long

that he is okay with
putting a collar on,

he doesn't really argue
or fight about it.

Fagan was really malnourished
his whole life.

It took weeks
to get him to eat properly.

There are no sanctuaries

for parrots in Michigan,

there's just some people like me

who try and take them in
as best they can.

They don't have
anywhere else to go,

so they end up in this
little suburbia neighborhood

where you'd never expect to see
a parrot -- in my basement!

[Birds squawking]

I have 26 birds here.

The situation
is less than ideal.

But we do everything we can --
we've put up air filters,

full-spectrum lighting, and then
I keep palm trees down there

'cause I figure
if the palm trees stay alive,

then the lighting is
at least adequate.

Every bird here
has to be fed and watered

three to four times a day,
their cages have to be cleaned.

It's a labor of love.

NARRATOR:
Like most parrot rescues,

Crowley's non-profit,
Feathered Friends of Michigan,

barely scrapes by.

Most sanctuaries and rescues

across the United States
are full,

so we all make do

with the bad situation
as best we can.

Come here. Come here.
Let's take your collar off, huh?

It's important Fagan
gets some time

out of his collar every day,

so that he can work on
preening his feathers

and flapping his wings
and climbing.

He's been in a collar so long,
he falls a lot.

Because he can't open his wings
to catch himself

like a bird should.

So, we're gonna work on building
those muscles back up over time.

Would you like to dance?
Yeah?

You would like to dance?
[Laughs]

[Playing reggae music]

♪ My head up to the sky

♪ Ooh, la la, la la, la la

♪ I'm going to keep my head up
to the sky ♪

♪ Won't let life
pass me by ♪

♪ 'Cause after the rain
comes down ♪

♪ The sun will always
come back around ♪

♪ And I'm going to keep
my head up to the sky ♪

Yeah, we gotta read this one.
This is a long one, man.

NARRATOR:
Fagan isn't comfortable
with other birds yet,

and with his health issues,
Marie needs to keep

a close watch.

So, he lives with the family.

CROWLEY: My son was
learning his colors.

What's red?

Good job, Fagan!

And whenever
we went over a color,

Fagan would go up and tap it
with his beak,

so, we brought these out and --

What's green?

He does like to differentiate
between the colors.

Good.

What I'm trying to do is give
his mind a way to exercise,

it's another form of enrichment

that's been shown to reduce
anxiety in parrots.

What's yellow?

It's a non-sexual way for me to
interact with him.

That will kind of
break the cycle

of the mated bond that
he's trying to create with me.

If Fagan was in the wild,
he would have a flock,

he would find a mate and they'd
crawl up into a tree cavity

and build a nest
and have babies.

But in captivity,

that causes a lot of frustration
for birds like Fagan.

What's red?
Good job!

Yeah.

What's yellow?

Unfortunately for
the African Grey's,

their intelligence level
ended up being

somewhat their undoing
in captivity.

-MAN: What toy?
-ALEX: Truck.

-MAN: That's right!
-WOMAN: Good birdie.

-What is it?
-ALEX: Key chain.

Good boy!

NARRATOR: In the '90s,
Alex showed the world

that parrots are capable of more
than just mimicking.

-WOMAN: What toy?
-ALEX: Nail.

NARRATOR: Irene Pepperberg's
work with Alex was seminal.

PEPPERBERG:
Tell me what color, what color?

-ALEX: Yellow.
-Yellow, that's right.

CROWLEY: When the work
with Alex came out,

everybody wanted to
buy an Alex.

The breeding of them
skyrocketed.

But Alex isn't your everyday
African Grey,

he's a bird that was trained for
hours a day for years on end.

Most African Greys don't talk.

They mostly love to make really
obnoxious microwave sounds,

and phone sounds --

stuff that people
find hard on their ears.

So, they end up getting
surrendered a lot.

I think as long as Alex is at
the top of the YouTube charts,

he's gonna be at the top of
my surrender charts.

NARRATOR: In the wild,
Fagan's intelligence

would be put to task.

In flight, his large brain

would measure space,
wind and speed.

He'd calculate distance
and sources of food.

If confronted,
he'd take flight.

These wild instincts
are still very much intact

for birds like Basil.

The first four years,
like I said, were wonderful.

Kiss kiss!

He was sweet, he was handleable,
he was lovely,

and then adolescence set in.

He just became progressively
more aggressive.

I'd be sitting at the dinning
room table Sunday morning

reading the paper,

and he would seek me out.

It got to the point

where I could not
leave the cage open at all.

If I were in the house
and the cage was open,

he would immediately climb down
the cage to attack my feet.

He just decided
I was the person he hated.

He would lunge at her,

he would fly out of
the cage at her.

LIZ: One morning I got up,
I opened the door to his cage

and then I turned around
to open the window,

and he just flew at me,

he was hanging off
my ear.

You just didn't know, he could
be all sweet and happy,

turn around and bite you.

When we had the kids,
Basil wasn't quite ready

to have these foreigners.

They didn't know any better,

they thought they could walk up
just like I did.

LIZ: My daughter was
four years old at the time

and she was feeding him

a cracker,
and he nailed her.

[Screaming]

I heard the screaming,
I came running down the stairs.

It was awful.

RUSS: That was when we started
to realize that

perhaps Basil wasn't going to

warm up so much
to the kids.

I didn't think I could keep this
animal as a pet anymore.

NARRATOR: No one knows the
number of parrots in captivity.

Estimates range from
10 to 40 million in the U.S.

While many live in stable homes,

thousands are surrendered
each year.

What happens to the parrots
who fall through the cracks?

Abandoned for four days
in an empty house,

Lou is one of
the lucky ones.

At Foster Parrots, Lou's next
chapter is about to begin.

With no clues about his past,

providing the right care
will be a challenge.

No one knows how old he is,
how many homes he's had,

or if he's ever seen
anther parrot.

[Birds squawking]

How must it feel

for a bird like Lou,
entering a sanctuary

for the first time?

Thousands of sounds,
hundreds of birds,

each calling out with
its own story.

BIRD: Hi.

Pretty bird.

WINDSOR: When we walk through
the facility,

it's important that
everybody understand

that what they are seeing
is a tragedy.

What we are looking at

is the failure of humans
as companions

to parrots.

NARRATOR: Any new arrival
gets a full physical.

It's especially critical for
a bird with no medical history,

like Lou.

JOHNSON: Was left in
an abandoned home.

MAN:
Was there food and water?

There was a bag of dog food.

Dog food?
Nice.

Poor Lou.
Okay, buddy.

Let's look at your plumage, Lou.

Sounds like you had
a tough life, huh?

Any avian vet realizes that

the stress our captive parrots
are under

is immense.

There you go.

Pretty good weight
for his species.

We take these birds into our
homes and we cut their wings.

This guy's pretty scared,
his heart rate's off the chart.

Probably over
300 beats a minute.

We house them in cages

and we don't allow them to be
with their own species.

You can imagine the stress
on these animals.

[Lou squawking frantically]

NARRATOR: Stress is known to
lower the immune system.

Clipped wings and cages

guarantee a sedentary life,
and avian vets

are finding that heart disease

is all too common
in captive parrots,

especially those with
poor diets.

Parrots can also carry
infectious diseases.

Lou will stay in quarantine
for 30 days,

to make sure he's not
contagious.

His test results will determine
his future.

With over 550 birds,

Foster Parrots
is well beyond capacity.

JOHNSON:
If we take another bird,

my volunteers
would kill me.

WINDSOR: 35 volunteers
and a staff of six.

That's not enough humans

to meet the needs of really
human-bonded birds.

Are you gonna step up?
Good girl.

WINDSOR: We cannot integrate

these parrots
with their own species.

And yet they don't fit into
a human society either.

What are we to do
with these birds?

'Cause they don't even
know they're birds.

JOHNSON: Peepers exhibits an
unusual feather picking profile.

She pulls the feathers

out of her head and neck
with her foot,

giving her that
vulture-like appearance,

that if she only knew

what she looked like,
she might not do so often.

You're still beautiful.

Being a domestically
raised bird,

she identifies with humans

and she also wants to
mate with humans.

That's not good peepers.

You just wants to be loved,
is that so wrong?

We received a call
from a woman

whose neighbor was keeping
peepers in an unheated porch

in the middle of winter.

You're a good girl.

Right now we take in birds when
it's a life and death situation.

I mean, you have to
take that bird in.

The care requirements
are so huge

you can never feel like
you've been successful.

WINDSOR: Is that for you?

JOHNSON: From the very first day

I got Wally,
the blue and gold macaw,

my resolve was to make his life
better, every day, and...

God, sorry...

Give me a sec.

I mean,
when people ask me

what is the right size cage
for a macaw,

there is no right size cage
for a macaw,

it's 35 square miles,
you know, it's like,

it's huge,
and it's the sky, it's...

WOMAN: The owner is
an older gentleman

whose wife passed away
about four years ago,

and the bird has been
pecking away at himself...

MAN: Hey, Marc, my mother died
three weeks ago

and I need to find a place
for a cockatoo...

WOMAN: It's killing me writing
to you like this

but I must find a new home...

JOHNSON: When I first started
Foster Parrots,

I thought we could take every
single bird that needed a home.

But of course,
the numbers were staggering,

to a point now where we have
over a thousand calls a year

for surrender.

NARRATOR: How wonderful
it would be if these parrots

could be released
to the wild.

But it's unlikely they'd have
the skills to survive

like their
wild cousins.

And the risk of spreading
disease would be too great.

With populations so low,
every parrot matters.

In Costa Rica, a scarlet macaw
is calling to his mother.

[Baby bird squawking]

MAN: I knew Geoffrey was special
from hatch.

He had a very cute peep.

They communicate with mum

well before they've hatched.

So, the babies will actually be
talking to mum

through the egg.

They hatch open
and they're so helpless,

they're all wet

and they still have
the little umbilical cord

attached to the egg.

We leave them about 12 hours,
to allow the yolk

to be used up.

So, little Geoffrey hatched out

and he was just so cute.

I could tell Geoffrey was
a smart one from hatch.

NARRATOR: The ARA Project is
breeding rescued macaws

in order to release their
offspring to the wild.

The parents, who are former pets
and rescued birds,

don't always know
how to raise their young.

CASTLES: Geoffrey's mother
was an ex-pet,

and his father was
poached from the wild.

His mum
is not a very good mum.

His parents abandoned him,
unfortunately.

So, for the first two months
of Geoffrey's life,

he had to live
in an incubator.

Geoffrey started off like
a little plucked chicken,

and then he started getting

his pin feathers coming through,

you'll get a little bit of
a tail come through,

and then you normally get
a little bit of a Mohawk.

They put on about
10% of weight every day.

Takes three months
of hand aring.

And then on top of that,
you've got up to a year

of looking after them.

Geoffrey came out beautiful red,
beautiful, beautiful deep red.

[Baby-talking]
Geoffrey? Are you Geoffrey?

NARRATOR: Geoffrey's species
of Macaw is in trouble.

The wild population is only
a fragment of what it once was.

Costa Rica is one of
the last strongholds.

ARA hopes to stop the extinction

by repopulating
the wild

with birds like
Geoffrey.

They recently released
a group of seven macaws.

Geoffrey will be next.

[Indistinct conversation]

CASTLES: We've released

over 100 scarlet macaws,
and we've had

over 85% survival rate.

Part of the process of them

learning how to survive
in the wild

is teaching the birds
what to eat.

The biologists
Rachel and Charlie

are going round

and they're collecting things
like beach almonds,

finding coral pods,

all of the foods
the birds are going to have to

learn to survive off.

You'll see them put
whole branches in the aviary,

and that's so
the birds can recognize,

"Oh, this leaf
means this food."

They start chewing on things,
finding out

what part of the fruit
or the seed tastes good.

A lot of it's instinct,
so a lot of them actually will

pick up an almond
for the first time and go,

"Oh, yeah, I know how to
crack this, that's fun."

It's boot camp, basically.

Macaw boot camp.

LIZ: We were going on vacation

and I was trying to figure out
what to do with Basil.

I have a friend who also has

a yellow-naped Amazon.

So, I offered to take him.

LIZ: Basil had never seen
another yellow-naped Amazon

in the 15 years I'd owned him.

[Birds groaning]

NARRATOR: Liz and Holly decide
to take a gamble with the birds.

By the time the Hartmans
returned from vacation,

Basil and Koko

were tightly bonded.

LIZ: We loaded him
into his travel cage

and started to walk
out of the house with him,

and her Amazon just starts
pacing back and fourth going no!

[Koko squawking, "No! No!" ]

LLER: You could hear
Koko calling

like he was losing
his best friend.

We were in tears,

we said, oh,
we can't have this happen,

this is heartbreaking.

I starting talking to Holly

about whether she would
adopt Basil.

So, she said yes.

You can't just
give away a friend.

You just can't do that.

LIZ:
I had a huge amount of guilt.

You take on
this living creature,

it's your
responsibility.

RUSS: It's not that we wanted to
give up Basil,

the kids were having
a hard time.

LIZ: He's just being a normal,
wild bird.

They're not pets --
you can call them a pet,

you can put them in a pet shop,

you can dress it up
all you want,

they're not pets.

Now, when you go over there
and see them,

they're best buddies.

[Birds cooing]

I definitely would not have
a parrot again.

I would never do it again, no,
for my own mental health,

and the mental health
of the parrot.

No.

NARRATOR: After a month
in quarantine,

Lou is given
a clean bill of health.

WINDSOR: Then we begin
the process of trying to

integrate him
with other birds.

In the wild they have
an entire rainforest,

they can choose
their own mate.

You put them together with birds
that are not of their choice,

and it just doesn't
always work.

NARRATOR: They start Lou outside
a large aviary.

From here, he can watch
the other cockatoos

from a safe distance.

After three weeks
on the outside,

it's time for Lou
to move into the aviary.

Without knowing Lou's past,
they can only guess,

and watch,
and hope.

WINDSOR: Lou, he's a little on
the quiet and reserved side,

we had to very carefully pick
his aviary mates.

He needed non-aggressive,

you know, kind of docile
aviary mates,

and so that's what
we set up for him,

an aviary with
five other cockatoos.

NARRATOR: After two weeks
inside the enclosure,

they feel it's safe to take Lou
from his cage.

Hi, buddy.

You're okay!

Here you go, buddy! Oh!

Oh, good boy!

NARRATOR:
And then the unexpected.

Another lone cockatoo,

Princess, a parrot with an
injured foot and a hazy history,

takes a chance.

In Costa Rica,

Geoffrey's big day
is finally here.

CASTLES: Being able to see
animals that you've raised,

free and wild,
this is the ultimate.

You do have that worry
in the back of your mind,

what happens if it doesn't
go well and he doesn't survive?

See? That's where
you're going soon.

CASTLES: It's not likely that
all of them are gonna survive.

Predators, accidents.

You can't predict
what they're gonna do

and it's always
the favorite ones

that you think
are gonna get lost.

Come on Geoffrey, Geoffrey!
Come on, Geoffrey!

Once the birds have lived in
the cage for x-amount of time,

it can be two months
or it could be six months,

depending molts, depending on
how quickly they adapt,

the time of year,
the food availability.

When all those factors
are right,

that's when we begin
the release.

We release the birds
individually,

so we can make sure each bird
has an equal chance of survival.

They're gonna let Geoffrey out,

they're gonna tempt him
into the box,

or try to --
he's quite cunning.

Geoffrey, this is your chance
at freedom, mate.

It can take
at least a few hours

to get the right bird
in the box.

I'll put a pile of
food in there.

And once they have Geoffrey
in the box,

they'll let him eat his food
in peace and quiet.

He's ready to go!

He's eaten all his almonds.

That's when they'll let
the outside door down.

Quite often we find that
the birds outside

come in,
and there's a big scrap.

This is gonna be interesting.

Geoffrey has now got
the advantage

of having these
outside birds established.

They show off quite a bit

and they're actually teaching
the birds in the aviary,

"look what I can do,"
you know,

"you're going to be able
to do this soon."

They're going to be able to help
show them where to eat,

teach them what to do,

show them
how to fly.

Geoffrey, I'm hoping will,
just fit into the flock

and everybody will think
he's awesome.

We'll have to hope for the best,
and that's all you can do.

Good luck mate,

this is your big shot.

He's a good flyer.

It would be far worse for him to
live 45-50 years in captivity

than to have a chance
at living life in the wild.

I hope he has a nice missus
and lots of babies --

a long happy
life in the wild.

And that's what I wish for all
of them, not just for Geoffrey.

To learn more about what you've
seen on this "Nature" program,

visit pbs.org.