|
Female Anchor: We all know people who are so smart that their friends call them Einstein. But who ever thought a bird could be that bright. Well this African grey parrot from Knoxville Zoo is called Einstein and she really lives up to her name.
FA: Stephanie White is Einstein's trainer. Good morning, Stephanie.
Stephanie White: Good morning.
How old is Einstein and how long you've been a trainer for her?
Well, Einstein is 18 years old, which is pretty young, they live 50 or 60 years, and I've been training with her for about five years now.
And I understand that you really don't know of the zoo whether or not that Einstein is a female.
That's right. (Why do you call?) The boys and girls look exactly the same. You have to have the vets to tell you with the blood test, so we just never had her sex. We didn't think there's any reason to.
So why do you call her "she"?
Well, she's so smart, so we figure she must be a girl, right?
Well, let's see how smart she is.
Oh, sure!
She knows about 200 words and all sounds in her vocabulary.
Yes, she knows about 70 young keys, so I will be glad to run through some of those with you. (Yeah) Well, introduce yourself first, can you tell me what's your name? (Einstein). Can you say Hi? (Hello) That's nice. Can you be polite? (Hi, sweetheart) Very good! Before you start. Do you wanna clear your throat? OK. Since she lives in the zoo, she does know a lot of animal sounds. So we'll do some of the fun ones for you. How about a chimpanzee? Can you do chimpanzee? Good! What about a rooster? How about this big tiger in the jungle? Yeah, the growl.
Oh. my goodness! And she also has different laughs that she can do?
Yes, she does. Is that funny? Is that funny? And she also does a Santa Clause laugh. How about laugh? Very good!
Does she do like an evil, villain laugh?
She can be very evil. Are you evil?
How did you train her to do all this? How does that work?
African grays naturally like to mimic sounds. She's pretty exceptional though, not all African grays are like her. She really enjoys mimicking things, so if she hears a sound that she likes she will start to repeat it over and over. And then we will put it on cue. So she gets lots of these sounds from us, oinking like pigs.
Oh, let's hear that one.
Ok. Can you, can you do a pig? How about a pig? That's a penguin. How about a pig? Good!
What about a cat and dog?
Can you do a cat? How about a dog? Can you bark? Good! What about a skunk? (stinker) That's her nickname, it 's stinker.
And also with the training it's the reward at the end, you feed her seeds?
Exactly! She loves sunflower seeds but she really gets excited if she gets a peanut. What would you do if you get a peanut!! (Oh, my God my God!) That's actually her favorite.
What would Einstein do if Einstein met a celebrity? What would she say?
Oh, let's see. What would you say, well, if there were a man, /would you say, we just say, to a good-looking man?
"Hi, baby!" She gets kind of oppressed.
Would you blow him a big kiss? Very nice! Do you think Julie is beautiful?
Very good! But we should keep in mind that not all African grays are this talented, or this smart.
Exactly!
Thank you, Stephanie White and Einstein. Thank you!
Thank you! Are you famous?
"Superstar".
Yeah.....
|