The Companion Avian Manifesto: The Value

of Birds as Our Patients and Pets

Jeleen Briscoe, VMD, DABVP (Avian)University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine

LoraKim Joyner, DVM, MPVM, M.Div.Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville

Welcome and Introduction

Goals• Use hands-on examples to understand how

being human affects how we interact with and view our staff, owners, patients, and pets

• Understand how birds and humans have benefitted from each other over time

• Learn more about avian and human nature• Understand the power of language and

communication skills to motivate self and others to care for birds

• Have fun

Outline of Class• Introduction• Cost/Benefit Analysis• Understanding Avian and Human Nature • How Humans Comprehend Nature:• Language & Social Constructs Exercise• Religion & Ethics Exercise• Call to Action Role-Play• Conclusion and Evaluation

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Understanding Avian and Human Nature

Avian Nature

• Class Aves: over 8700 members

• Most modern-day avian Orders are 35 million years old

• Traditional research on animal brains:

• Primates used to evaluate intelligence

• Birds used as models for associative learning

• Recent recognition of cognitive abilities of corvids and parrots

Corvids, Parrots, and Primates

• Large relative forebrain size

• Evolutionary pressures of a constantly changing physical and social environment

• Omnivorous, generalist foragers

• Socially complex group-living

• Prolonged developmental period

• Relatively long life-span

“Bird Brains”

• Traditional mammal model: six-layered neocortex

• Semantics: “-striatum” = basal ganglia = bird behavior is instinctual

• Actually, bird brains are derived from the pallium, just like mammalian brains

• Parallel evolution

Evolutionary Ecology and the Avian Brain

• Correlation between relatively large brain size in parrots and corvids and:

• High innovation rate

• Tool use

• Larger relative telencephalon size in “transactional” vs. solitary avian species

Adaptive Specialization & Study of Avian Brain

• Social Learning

• Fisher & Hinde: blue tits and the milk bottles

Anthropocentric Study of Avian Brain

• Concepts and categorization

• Watanabe’s art pigeons

Combining Ecology and Anthropocentrism

• Episodic-like memory

• Clayton & Dickenson and scrub jay caching of perishable foods

Combining Ecology and Anthropocentrism

• Ecological importance of adaptive exploration

• Mettke-Hoffman and neophobia in parrots

Avian Nature

• Scientific proof of avian intelligence

• Cognitive ornithology

• Evaluation of birds for their abilities within an ecological context

• Power in science

Human Nature

How Humans Comprehend Nature: Language and Cultural Constructs

How Humans Comprehend Nature

• Action and Thought

• Human attitudes towards animals: typologies

• Similarity principle and likeability of a species

• Language and Social Constructs

• Words used in reference to birds

Exercise

1. Based on the word used, is the bird more subject or object?

2. Rank or describe what kind of care a human would be motivated to provide for the bird based on the word used to describe it

3. Think about instances where a certain word can influence how willing a human would be to care for the bird

How Humans Comprehend Nature: Religion and Ethics

Call To Action

Conclusion and Evaluation