Over the years, my team and I have learned that while fly offs can be daunting, they also offer unparalleled opportunities for growth and learning in bird training. Fly offs happen for many different reasons, and it’s important to assess what you can and can’t...
There is a very well known debate in psychology as to whether nature or nurture informs our behavior. It turns out, this debate is common among animal behavior scientists as well. It turns out, both nature and nurture, or ethology and learning history, inform the...
Have you ever found a large molted feather, wondered who it came from, picked it up and took it home? Did you know that all feathers from native birds are federally protected, dating back to the time when birds like egrets, herons and songbirds were...
If you’ve ever wondered why your parrot screams or how to train them to be well-behaved, this guide is for you! Let's start by thinking about screaming. Imagine your bird starts screaming because crows flew over. The crows leave, and your bird stops screaming. Seems simple,...
At our recent AvOCET conference, attendees were treated to an enlightening presentation by Sean Will and Maasa Nishimuta, founders of the Constructional Approach to Animal Training. Their talk focused on incorporating function-based training and degrees of freedom into modern animal training practices. What is function-based training...
Are you tired of seeing animals struggle with outdated training methods? Are ear tags causing more harm than good? Today, I want to talk about the challenges we face when we encounter outdated information about caring for our birds and how we can progress beyond...
This year’s Avian Online Conference for Education and Training (AvOCET) was the jolt of behavior science inspiration and collaborative juice I know I really needed. From AvOCET newcomers such as Emily Davenport of the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Alliance, Annette Pedersen of the Copenhagen Zoo, Joe Whitehead...
Today we are going to share some invaluable insights we've uncovered as case studies from our consultations, diving into the intricate world of complex parrot behavior scenarios. These discussions have been enlightening, offering practical strategies and highlighting the importance of addressing biases while understanding the...
What would you do with four to five hours each day to train your birds and problem solve? This is the question our workshop guests get to answer, and answer, they did!...
One of the clunkier and less popular sides of animal behavior science is that it feels less palatable, less attainable to all because of the dense scientific language that we use. When I frame a behavioral interaction as a “negative reinforcement contingency”, I lose a...