Our Better Nature

Photo: members of a ranibow lorikeet flock


I see wild birds every day. All I have to do is look out the window. Crows, sparrows, mockingbirds, and hummingbirds abound. I also try to spend an hour a day among the native species at the beach in Ventura or at Lake Casitas, our local reservoir.

Walking along the shore, looking out to Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands, I see scores of gulls, terns, sandpipers, pelicans and cormorants. At the lake, there are colonies of black vultures in the eucalyptus trees, redwing blackbirds in the reeds; herons, ducks, grebes, geese and hawks on the water and in the skies.

On the day we brought Shanti home I saw a Great Blue Heron flying westward with a pair of egrets. A moment of great natural beauty. Superstitiously, I took it as a good omen. More profoundly, I took it as an opportunity to ponder the legitimacy of keeping a wild animal as a human being’s companion.

I’ve always had serious reservations about taking an animal from the wild. What was the point? What was the justification? I had no need to own a bird, a gorilla or a tiger. Nature’s not for owning or leasing; nature’s not for sale. The very essence we value in animals is their wildness, their freedom. Sticking a wild bird in a hominid’s house—or worse, in a cage— seemed too much like taxidermy, self-indulgence and pretense.

Parrots—unlike dogs, cats and farm animals—are not domesticated species, bred over the centuries to serve and gratify people. Parrots are still wild— just a generation or two from the forests of Africa.

“I’m not a poodle,” says the ferociously passionate Shanti. The racoons, owls and coyotes in my neighborhood second the motion.

The only justification for taking a parrot from its perfect wilderness, for separating it from its kindred flock, lies in the sanctity of the relationship between parrot and person. The closer the bond, the more we may justify and legitimize our imperfect intrusion on their lives. Failing to love our parrots, then, defiles nature. But we needn’t fail. Our better nature is to love.

Are Parrots Persons?

Pictures: A mating pair of African Greys and a mother chimp with her 1-month old son


Since we humans are moral animals, every relationship we take seriously forces us to grapple with questions of right and wrong. We have moral relationships with our parents, our life partners, our children, our peers, our government, our earth and —hopefully— our companion animals.


When we treat people like objects and see them as an alien other rather than as a brother or a mother, we fail morally. We stereotype and prejudge, empathy atrophies, and our worst xenophobic, sexist and speciesist sentiments emerge. We abandon creation and become “monsters.”

Taking Shanti seriously as a fellow being raises moral questions I’ll explore on the blog from time to time.

My point of departure—the first item of serious business—is to ask myself if Shanti is an object.

If my answer is yes, there is "nobody home" inside Shanti, then I suppose I might as well cook him for dinner. If animals are mere objects of our dominion designed for our recreation, experimentation and commercialization, they why not hunt the foxes, dissect the chimps, chain up the circus elephants, militarize the dolphins, and use all the spare parts for feathered hats, fur coats and perfumes?

But if my answer is no, somebody is home, I also have to ask the question. Who? And how shall that somebody be treated?

I wonder about that sacred quality of animal someoneness. (A sense of wonder is, I think, a good start. That’s where children start with animals and where I —a half century from childhood— have ended up.)

The philosopher Thomas Nagel explored animal “someoneness” in his essay, “What is it like to be a bat?” He concluded that although we can’t really know what it’s like, it’s like something: Somebody is home.

Peter Singer, who co-founded the Great Ape Project, suggests our fellow apes – the bonobos, gorillas, oraguntans and chimpanzees – deserve the status of “persons.”

Spain recently passed legislation protecting the rights of great apes to life and liberty, a giant step toward recognizing our primate cousins as persons.

All subsequent questions about ethics and animals are, I think, derived from the fundamental one that someone else is home. Not just us humans.

In my short relationship with Shanti, hard ethical questions have already come up. Should a bird from the African rain forest ever live in captivity in California? Should I acquire a baby bird from a parrot breeder when so many unwanted adults parrots need rescue and rehabilitation? Do breeders do good by discouraging the illegal poaching and smuggling of endangered species of native birds? Or do breeders do harm by marketing birds they know will often be mistreated, abandoned or neglected?

I don’t have the answers. But sometimes just asking the right questions helps us do the right thing. What do you think?

Life and Death

On the left a 15th century "Memento Mori"; On the right, a 2-wk old African Grey



I, a neurotic sixty-one year old man, care for an infant parrot. What is up with that?

I’m way too old to have a baby for one glaringly obvious reason: I could be dead when he needs me the most.*

In fact, African Greys have a life expectancy of 50 to 70 years; so Shanti will outlive me, my spouse and probably most of the people who are reading this blog.

Yet Shanti, in his glorious infancy, presents me with a surprisingly pleasant awareness of my own mortality. He knows something—-in the way animals know without knowledge—-about death. Shanti’s unknowing can help all us humans cope with death.

I fear death for the customary dark reason: its radical finality. Death means utter loss of the world we cherish and everything within it. It could be agonizing and messy, and for sure it will be the stark incompletion of every agenda. No more blogs, no more birds, no more baseball, no more nothing.

Premature, hideous and random death is ubiquitous. Wars rage, disease strikes, terrible accidents happen. Death is relentless. Those of us who have lost a loved one (and who hasn’t?) mourn her forever. Closure, shmosure.

A memento mori, a reminder of death, is supposed to make us shudder, cringe and tremble before God.

Yet Shanti is a reminder of my mortality; and paradoxically, he epitomizes a supreme affirmation of life. Now joyous and playful; now gentle and quiet; now ferocious and loony. Always awesome.

Shanti transcends death because he connects me to non-human animal intelligence and emotion—a world where human aspirations, frustrations and expectations don’t exist. A world of awareness and feeling not created in our image. No Kübler-Ross stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance for Shanti. Just life, love and relationship on their own naked and beautiful terms. Shanti —and all intelligent non-humans who share their lives with us— are our teachers. School is always open and it's always fun.

*One of our adult daughters has promised to care for Shanti when we are no longer able to.

Animal consciousness

The holy grail of modern philosophy is the problem of consciousness (a.k.a "the hard problem"). Some philosophers and scientists study non-human animals in pursuit of insight about mind in general. Most now agree that consciousness and self-awareness are not limited to human beings. Other great apes, dolphins, elephants and yes -- birds -- have consciousness, albeit of a different kind, than human beings.

Animal consciousness is mysterious, among other reasons, because non-human animals don’t possess human language. Because we can't talk to other species of animals, confirming what they know and feel is challenging. Recent research has proven, however, that some animals -- like parrots, chimpanzees and gorillas -- can learn to communicate with people by using sign language and learning speech. These creatures may help us understand the scope of animal consciousness. But for now we mostly wonder, and wondering is wondrous.

Anyone can join the animal consciousness research project: just contemplate in amazement. No one has the answers yet, and your intuitions and discoveries are worthy of consideration.

Something I often consider is animal rights. To what extent can we interfere with an intelligent animal's life and liberty? Can we own them? How deep is our responsibility to protect them?

Shanti is still a baby, but I'm already trying to interpret his behavior as reflecting his emotions and his mind. Most Congo African Greys don't begin to talk before they are a year old. But Shanti already communicates with his body language and an array of sounds: a telephone ring, a microwave beep, a few hoots and wolf whistles.

He's very endearing and has bonded with the whole family. But the life of a parrot in the wild is dramatically different from the life he'll have here in my home. The life of an African Grey in the rain forest of Central Africa in a flock of 500, flying at 60 KPH, can never be given back to Shanti. We'll have to make the best of what we have. Together.

How And Why Shanti Came Into My Life

I’ve always been fascinated by the beauty of birds. Penguins or pigeons, herons, woodpeckers, hummingbirds or coots, I love them all. They bring me joy, often suddenly and unexpectedly. Birds are among life’s greatest gifts of healing, restoration and peace. They reward contemplation with healing, restoration, peace and awe.

I’m also a lifelong student of languages; I’ve always earned my living with words--as a teacher, a writer and a translator. And I’m a passionate student of philosophy.

An avid birder, a linguist and an amateur philosopher? You might think the confluence of these passions would make me the perfect match for an African Grey parrot—an extraordinarily intelligent and emotive bird that has surprisingly advanced linguistic capabilities.

But I won’t kid you (or myself.) I didn’t bring this Congo African Grey (Psittacus erithacus) into our home because birds are beautiful, parrots talk, and I’m interested in philosophy. I got Shanti because of my own emotional needs. I’m 61, my two daughters are grown up, I've retired from classroom teaching career, and I miss nurturing the young. My wife and I want grandchildren someday, but in the meantime, I spend a lot of time at home alone during the day. I’m lonely.

Living with a companion animal is something I need spiritually and emotionally, but I am also committed to Shanti's physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

Shanti isn't a pet, and he isn't a surrogate human. He's a fellow being. I'm part of his flock, and he's part of mine.