The following morning, after checking my e-mail, I poured myself a cup of coffee. While I was savoring the coffee’s rich aroma, a thought crossed my mind, as it did from time to time, something that my friend Jeannie once said: Had I gotten a different Grey parrot that day back in 1977, Alex might have spent his life, unknown and unheralded, in someone’s spare bedroom. I didn’t, of course, and here we were with a history of astonishing achievements behind us, and poised to journey to the next horizon and beyond in our work together. And we had the resources we needed. I allowed myself to savor all this, too, a sense of happiness, excitement, and security that had eluded me since the heady days at the Media Lab. Yes! I then returned to my computer.
In the interim, another e-mail had arrived. In the subject line was a single word: “Sadness.” My blood turned to ice as I read the message. “I’m saddened to report that one of the parrots was found dead in the bottom of his cage this morning when Jose went to clean the room...not sure which?...in the back left corner of the room.” It was from K.C. Hayes, the chief veterinarian in the animal care facility at Brandeis University.
I was in raw panic. No...no...no! Back left corner of the room. That’s Alex’s cage! I was gasping for breath, trying to stave off rising terror. Maybe he’s mixing up his right and his left. Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe it’s not Alex. It can’t be Alex! Even though I clung to that feeble hope as I snatched at the phone, I knew K.C. had not made a mistake. I knew Alex was dead. Even before I could dial, a second e-mail from K.C. chimed onto the screen. The message was simple. “I’m afraid it is Alex.”
I reached K.C., barely able to speak through my tears and pain. He told me he had wrapped Alex in a piece of cloth and put him in the walk-in cooler, down the hall from the lab. I threw on jeans and a shirt and jumped in my car. I’ll never know how I managed to drive, given my state. I called Arlene Levin-Rowe [our lab manager], because I didn’t want her to walk into the lab unprepared. She was just driving into the parking lot down the hill from the lab when I reached her. “Alex is dead, Alex is dead,” I wailed. “But maybe, maybe they made a mistake. Maybe it isn’t Alex. Please go find out, Arlene.” What was I saying? I knew K.C. hadn’t made a mistake. I knew Alex was dead.
When I arrived in the lab almost an hour later, Arlene and I held each other and sobbed for quite some time. Wave after wave of pain and despair washed over us, a torrent of shared disbelief. “Alex can’t be dead,” Arlene whispered through her tears. “He was larger than life.”
We knew that we had to take Alex to the vet for an autopsy. Karen Holmes, one of the veterinarians at the practice, greeted us with hugs of sympathy. She led us to the mourning room, where we placed Alex, still wrapped, still in his carrier, next to us on the sofa. Karen asked if I wanted to see Alex one last time, but I didn’t. Years ago I had seen my father-in-law in his casket. For a very long time I couldn’t dispel the image of him lying there, drained of life. I determined then never to look at death again, and I stuck to that determination, even when my mother died.
I wanted to remember the Alex I’d put in the cage the previous night. Alex, full of life and mischief. Alex, who had been my friend and colleague for so many years. Alex, who had amazed the world of science, doing so many things he was not supposed to be able to do. Now he had died when he was not supposed to, two decades before the end of his expected life span. Damn you, Alex.
I wanted to remember the Alex whose last words to me were, “You be good. I love you.”
I stood, put my hand on the door, and whispered, “Goodbye, little friend.”
Scientifically speaking, the single greatest lesson Alex taught me, taught all of us, is that animal minds are a great deal more like human minds than the vast majority of behavioral scientists believed—or, more importantly, were even prepared to concede might be remotely possible. Now, I am not saying that animals are miniature humans with somewhat lower-octane mental powers, although when Alex strutted around the lab and gave orders to all and sundry, he gave the appearance of being a feathery Napoleon. Yet animals are far more than the mindless automatons that mainstream science held them to be for so long. Alex taught us how little we know about animal minds and how much more there is to discover. This insight has profound implications, philosophically, sociologically, and practically. It affects our view of the species Homo sapiens and its place in nature.
We once thought only humans used tools; not so, as Jane Goodall discovered her chimps using sticks and leaves as tools. OK, only humans make tools; again not so, as Goodall and later others discovered. Only humans had language; yes, but elements of language had been discovered in nonhuman mammals. Each time nonhuman animals were found doing what was the supposed province of humans, defenders of the “humans are unique” doctrine moved the goalposts.
Eventually, these defenders conceded that evolutionary roots of certain cherished human cognitive abilities could indeed be found in nonhuman animals, but only in large-brained mammals, particularly in apes. By doing the things he did, Alex taught us that this, too, was untrue. A nonprimate, nonmammal creature with a walnut-sized brain could learn elements of communication at least as well as chimps. This new channel of communication opened a window onto Alex’s mind, revealing to me and to all of us the sophisticated information processing—thinking—going on inside that little grey-and-white feathered head.
By implication, a vast world of animal cognition exists out there, not just in African Grey parrots but in other creatures, too. It is a world largely untapped by science. Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know. That, essentially, was what Alex (and a growing number of research projects) taught us. He taught us that our vanity had blinded us to the true nature of minds, animal and human; that so much more is to be learned about animal minds than received doctrine allowed. No wonder Alex and I faced so much flak!
We faced a flurry of goalpost moving, too. Birds can’t learn to label objects, they said. Alex did. OK, birds can’t learn to generalize. Alex did. All right, but they can’t learn concepts. Alex did. Well, they certainly can’t understand “same” versus “different.” Alex did. And on and on.
Alex was teaching these skeptics about the extent of animal minds, but they were slow, reluctant learners.
From Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process, by Irene Pepperberg. Copyright© 2008 by Irene Pepperberg. Reprinted by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers.
