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Animals That Speak

southernhybrid said:
I have two pet birds who do speak. They say bye bye to me when they see me leaving the house. The say night night when I put them to bed. One says "Hi guy" whenever I walk into the room. She also says, "Stop that Kermit" if our two dogs bark, .............
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That is a missed opportunity. The best use of a talking bird is for shocking people by teaching it curse words and lewd expressions.

Or from an old Buffett song... "...set him on my shoulder and open up my trusty old mind. I'm gonna teach him how to cuss, teach him how to fuss and pull the cork out of a bottle of wine."
 
These remarkable parrots solved murder crimes, as witnesses telling all.


Prosecutors are using statements from a parrot as evidence in an upcoming rape and murder trial, it has been reported.

Elizabeth Toledo, 46, was allegedly raped and murdered in the city of San Fernando in the eastern Argentine region of Great Buenos Aires in December 2018.

A police officer was reportedly guarding the murder scene on December 30 while waiting for forensics experts to arrive when he heard the parrot say: "No, please, let me go."... The police believe the parrot was repeating its owner's last words as she was allegedly beaten and ...

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/parrot-who-heard-owners-last-22083622
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK6bSkJ66K8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Nf1zWJzTU
 
skepticalbip said:
southernhybrid said:
I have two pet birds who do speak. They say bye bye to me when they see me leaving the house. The say night night when I put them to bed. One says "Hi guy" whenever I walk into the room. She also says, "Stop that Kermit" if our two dogs bark, .............
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That is a missed opportunity. The best use of a talking bird is for shocking people by teaching it curse words and lewd expressions.

Or from an old Buffett song... "...set him on my shoulder and open up my trusty old mind. I'm gonna teach him how to cuss, teach him how to fuss and pull the cork out of a bottle of wine."
Click to expand...

My parrots have never been interested in learning what I want them to learn. They've always chosen which words or phrases to repeat. When we rescues the Grey, he could make the exact sound of a beer can opening up. His former slave was an alcoholic. The other thing that he said frequently was, "Damn bird". He stopped saying it shortly after we rescued him.

I know that some people are able to train parrots to do and say certain things, but I've never been able to teach my birds a damn thing. One used to say, "Apple, want some apple" whenever he saw me eating an apple, he wanted a piece. He doesn't even say that now and there are only certain types of apples that he likes. He's a spoiled brat.
 
Jarhyn said:
So, something that has been happening recently is that people have been teaching animals to talk. The prime example I could hold up is @whataboutbunny on TikTok https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeAuULtq/.

This is an example of a dog whose learning of language is being documented. This is a dog at least as communicative as an ape, and the dog is not even very old. There are also cats and all manner of other critter that has been convinced to start using language.

What implications do you all think this may have on the fact that we eat them?
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I have been mostly pescetarian for quite a while.

In an alternate universe, I could imagine a downtrodden ethnic group being slaughtered and eaten as meat. This would not be regarded as too terribly despicable by the humans that practiced this custom, and even the humans that it was done to would probably have so thoroughly internalized the belief that they were inferior that they would merely be grateful for a comfortable pasture and abundant grain. People would go around saying, "Did you hear that someone taught one of the meat-humans to speak?" and "Yeah, it's eerily people-like. It's almost like they are sentient." "But doesn't this make it slightly unethical to eat them?" "Maybe, but they are probably just mindlessly imitating us like parrots. Here, have some barbecue human-butt! It's good for ya!"

See Don't mind meat? The denial of mind to animals used for human consumption, by Nick Haslam.

It is kind of cool how quitting meat, aside from seafood, altered my perceptions. It is not unpleasant. It is like discovering a new friend.

You'll pry smoked nova out of my cold, stiff, dead fingers. Fish probably are not actually sentient, and if they are, then they can suck it up.
 
So, we have been hosting a mat with buttons similar to Bunny's for some number of months.

Today, one of our three cats is away for a spay appointment. We took her in when she had obviously been nursing, and we are not the sort who believes we need more cats in this world making more and more all willy-nilly, as wonderful as the ones we have are.

Another of our cats is pissed, specifically today, and is being quite vocal about why:

Thwomp outside

Want thwomp.

Goomba (I love you) Thwomp.

Thwomp Thwomp Thwomp.

Goomba Thwomp.

We are using this to explain to him "mad"
 
laughing dog said:
Jarhyn said:
So, something that has been happening recently is that people have been teaching animals to talk. The prime example I could hold up is @whataboutbunny on TikTok https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeAuULtq/.

This is an example of a dog whose learning of language is being documented. This is a dog at least as communicative as an ape, and the dog is not even very old. There are also cats and all manner of other critter that has been convinced to start using language.

What implications do you all think this may have on the fact that we eat them?
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Speak for yourself - I don't eat dogs or cats.

As humans learn more about other species, we are getting more evidence that many animals are not "dumb" but sentinent beings capable of recognizing themselves and others as separate entities and who communicate.
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I have never understood why that wasn't bleeding bloody obvious to everyone.

It's certainly been my assumption since as long as I can remember that humans are only quantitatively different from other animals. There are zero qualitative differences.

Sure, I am smarter than a cat. But dogs are (in general) smarter than cats. And for that matter, I am smarter than most humans.

Whether it's ethical to eat another animal (of any species) has fuck all to do with intelligence. It's about whether or not we recognise them as part of our social group.

A pet dog is very much a part of the family; Therefore eating him is unethical. A cow or pig probably isn't a family member, or a part of our extended social group, so it's OK to have him for dinner.

If a human is sufficiently 'other', it's OK to eat him - at least according to many societies. The modern developed world generally includes all primates as 'us' for these purposes, though some developing nations still have sizable populations that don't resile from eating non-human primates.

Where we draw the line is a matter of "us" vs "not us"; Intelligence, speech and/or language can help to contribute to building a case for an individual, group, or even whole species to be promoted to "us", but it's not of central importance, and as the existence of cannibalism shows, it's certainly not sufficient on its own.

If it gets an individual (or her species) recognition as "one of us", then it's going to render her ethically inedible; If not, not. It's certainly difficult to maintain a claim that any individual is "not us" after having had a conversation with that individual - but history shows that it certainly isn't impossible, even with other members of our own species.
 
What happens when it says 'me wnt be free from you'.

A gorilla or chimp was taught a sign language and appeared to adapt it to new situations.

Are we prepared for 'humans go fuck yourselves and leave us alone'?
 
steve_bank said:
What happens when it says 'me wnt be free from you'.

A gorilla or chimp was taught a sign language and appeared to adapt it to new situations.

Are we prepared for 'humans go fuck yourselves and leave us alone'?
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I don't think any of them would, though I can't speak for any other people's cats.

If only because Thwomp really hated her time in the outside (and rather likes us) and Goomba is downright terrified of outside, both from what Thwomp has told him in cat, and from his own experiences, and he has told us as much in English.
 
steve_bank said:
What happens when it says 'me wnt be free from you'.

A gorilla or chimp was taught a sign language and appeared to adapt it to new situations.

Are we prepared for 'humans go fuck yourselves and leave us alone'?
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Cats already say that. Some of us like that. Give a cat a box to get away from you in, and you have made a good friend.
 
SigmatheZeta said:
steve_bank said:
What happens when it says 'me wnt be free from you'.

A gorilla or chimp was taught a sign language and appeared to adapt it to new situations.

Are we prepared for 'humans go fuck yourselves and leave us alone'?
Click to expand...
Cats already say that. Some of us like that. Give a cat a box to get away from you in, and you have made a good friend.
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Interesting enough, our newest cat did exactly the opposite. We gave her a box to be close to us in, and got a friend for life.

She showed up on our doorstep, day after day simply because we had some boxes there she could hide in from the weather.

Once she saw that we were not chasing her off, she started approaching and pawing at the door.

Once we let her in... she's seen an open door so many times. She is not interested in leaving. There's nothing here preventing her from doing so, yet she chooses to stay.

Often, she uses her "happy" and "I love you" buttons instead of the "mad" button.

She has boxes and places to hide, sure, but most days I find that I'm the thing she decides to loaf around on top of.

I'm prepared for "fuck off and leave us alone, or there shall be WAR."

I just don't see it happening across the board.

Maybe with cows and chickens? And probably not all of them, either. Hens and cows would probably be rather happy with our arrangement of taking most of the bulls and roosters off their hands.

It would be nice if we figured out how to grow those "brainlessly" though.
 
Cats imprint humans as family as kittens. Feral cats revert to their genetic programming as do dogs. Females form a group for protection. Males kill kittens to bring a female into heat. Just like their bigger cousins in the wild.

I worked at a small company where the owners wife brought a kitten in to live in the company. As the cat grew up it seemed to selectively pick individuals to hang out with. One guy would take the cat from my office to his, and the cat would go somewhere else. Pissed him off.

The cat learned to associate the sound of the lunchroom refrigerator door with food. The last person out had to set the alarm and put the cat in a room without motion sensors. I'd start opening the fridge door or crushing paper to make it sound like I was unwrapping something, and heds come a running.

I was eating lunch in my office and I'd put bits of meat up on things to see if he could get it. I put a piece of meat on a light switch, he jumped up and got it turning off the light switch.

Somebody complained to me the cat had gone around turning off light switches looking for food.

Cats know where food and comfort is. In the 80s I had two half Siamese cats I raised from kittens. If I was late feeding them they let me lnow they were unhappy, a specifc sound and posture. Cat talk.

There was the guy in Alaska who claimed he could wak around grizzly bears safely becuase he learned their body language.

He was found half eaten by bears.
 
steve_bank said:
Cats imprint humans as family as kittens. Feral cats revert to their genetic programming as do dogs. Females form a group for protection. Males kill kittens to bring a female into heat. Just like their bigger cousins in the wild.

I worked at a small company where the owners wife brought a kitten in to live in the company. As the cat grew up it seemed to selectively pick individuals to hang out with. One guy would take the cat from my office to his, and the cat would go somewhere else. Pissed him off.

The cat learned to associate the sound of the lunchroom refrigerator door with food. The last person out had to set the alarm and put the cat in a room without motion sensors. I'd start opening the fridge door or crushing paper to make it sound like I was unwrapping something, and heds come a running.

I was eating lunch in my office and I'd put bits of meat up on things to see if he could get it. I put a piece of meat on a light switch, he jumped up and got it turning off the light switch.

Somebody complained to me the cat had gone around turning off light switches looking for food.

Cats know where food and comfort is. In the 80s I had two half Siamese cats I raised from kittens. If I was late feeding them they let me lnow they were unhappy, a specifc sound and posture. Cat talk.

There was the guy in Alaska who claimed he could wak around grizzly bears safely becuase he learned their body language.

He was found half eaten by bears.
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That would be Timothy Treadwell. Not only he but also his girlfriend were eaten by grizzly bears. He was a animal rights activist, film documentary maker, and writer who convinced his girlfriend that bears were not dangerous if you understood them so persuaded her to go with him to film grizzlies in the wild.
 
I watch some of tgise naryre shows with the dreamy fanciful musisc as if lions and tigers have human feelings.

I imagine the producers of the shows may not have a clue what 'nature' is really all about.
 
bilby said:
skepticalbip said:
... convinced his girlfriend that bears were not dangerous if you understood them ...
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Bears are not dangerous if you understand them; I understand that it's a good idea to stay the fuck away from the places where bears live.

;)
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That is my understanding of bears too.

I have camped in several national parks and national forests across the country with my road-trip and camping partner. They wanted to go camping in Glacier National Park so I checked the park's literature to find what there was to see and found a statement in one of their pamphlets that there were only one or two bear "incidents" per year and only ten fatal bear attacks since 1967. The "incidents" were people only being mauled but not killed. We camped in Big Bend National park instead.

My rules to live by:
. Don't camp with grizzlies.
. Don't swim with alligators.
. Always stay alert for drop bears. ; )
 
A young black bear climbed a tree to which my tarp-tent was tied in Yosemite one night. I woke up to sticks hitting the tarp. Then, out of nowhere 2 dogs showed up and went ballistic at the base of the tree. Not much sleep that night.
The next day a ranger warned me that a panicked black bear cub falling out of a tree could be fatal… this was circa 1968, long before drop bears were a thing.
 
bilby said:
skepticalbip said:
... convinced his girlfriend that bears were not dangerous if you understood them ...
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Bears are not dangerous if you understand them; I understand that it's a good idea to stay the fuck away from the places where bears live.

;)
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Exactly.
steve_bank said:
I watch some of tgise naryre shows with the dreamy fanciful musisc as if lions and tigers have human feelings.

I imagine the producers of the shows may not have a clue what 'nature' is really all about.
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Oh, they do have human feelings. And humans have animal feelings.

The issue is more about the fact that no matter who or what someone or something happens to be, occasionally they get angry or frustrated enough to attack.

I mean, humans are dangerous too. I heard about one human who, after he bumped into someone, decided to ram that someone so as to kill them, and shoot at them. The person that human was attacking had to put them down to stop the attack!

It just happens that bears* haven't had that behavior selected against so long as to make it uncommon or unlikely, to impulsively do things that make things dead... Or to treat small fragile things like humans as if they were as durable and armored as a bear*.

*Or large cat as the case may be.
 
Jarhyn said:
bilby said:
skepticalbip said:
... convinced his girlfriend that bears were not dangerous if you understood them ...
Click to expand...
Bears are not dangerous if you understand them; I understand that it's a good idea to stay the fuck away from the places where bears live.

;)
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Exactly.
steve_bank said:
I watch some of tgise naryre shows with the dreamy fanciful musisc as if lions and tigers have human feelings.

I imagine the producers of the shows may not have a clue what 'nature' is really all about.
Click to expand...
Oh, they do have human feelings. And humans have animal feelings.

The issue is more about the fact that no matter who or what someone or something happens to be, occasionally they get angry or frustrated enough to attack.

I mean, humans are dangerous too. I heard about one human who, after he bumped into someone, decided to ram that someone so as to kill them, and shoot at them. The person that human was attacking had to put them down to stop the attack!

It just happens that bears* haven't had that behavior selected against so long as to make it uncommon or unlikely, to impulsively do things that make things dead... Or to treat small fragile things like humans as if they were as durable and armored as a bear*.

*Or large cat as the case may be.
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It is more that the behavior of attacking defensively anything they perceive as a possible threat to them or their cubs has been chosen for. Also, even though humans are not on their normal menu, they can perceive us as a meal if they are hungry enough.
 
skepticalbip said:
Jarhyn said:
bilby said:
skepticalbip said:
... convinced his girlfriend that bears were not dangerous if you understood them ...
Click to expand...
Bears are not dangerous if you understand them; I understand that it's a good idea to stay the fuck away from the places where bears live.

;)
Click to expand...
Exactly.
steve_bank said:
I watch some of tgise naryre shows with the dreamy fanciful musisc as if lions and tigers have human feelings.

I imagine the producers of the shows may not have a clue what 'nature' is really all about.
Click to expand...
Oh, they do have human feelings. And humans have animal feelings.

The issue is more about the fact that no matter who or what someone or something happens to be, occasionally they get angry or frustrated enough to attack.

I mean, humans are dangerous too. I heard about one human who, after he bumped into someone, decided to ram that someone so as to kill them, and shoot at them. The person that human was attacking had to put them down to stop the attack!

It just happens that bears* haven't had that behavior selected against so long as to make it uncommon or unlikely, to impulsively do things that make things dead... Or to treat small fragile things like humans as if they were as durable and armored as a bear*.

*Or large cat as the case may be.
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It is more that the behavior of attacking defensively anything they perceive as a possible threat to them or their cubs has been chosen for. Also, even though humans are not on their normal menu, they can perceive us as a meal if they are hungry enough.
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My point is that the same behavior was chosen for by humans too. It's just the behavior that force drives is much more useful and complex among humans.

You threaten a bear's kids and they roar and swipe and kill you if you are unable to escape.

You threaten a human's kids and they find you no matter where you are in the universe and you end up having a much worse time than the bear generally offers.
 
I have been to Glacier Park when I was living in North Idaho in the early 90s.

I was not prepared to go hiking but I walked in a ways on a trailhead. There was a sign saying going beyond that point was at your own risk.

There were two incidents in the news when I was in the panhandle. In the park somebody startled a moma bear and she pulled him down of his horse.

In Montana some guys were collecting antlers, Asians think it is is an aphordisiac or something.

A Grizzly chased them up a tree. The bear jumped up and pulled one of them down by the leg tossing him around like in a cartoon.

People are stupid. They feed bears through car windows despite warnings not to. There are probably videos on line.

An old joke. When walking in grizzly country wear bells so they hear you comming. You can tell if scat is grizzly, look for bells.
 
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