Page 67 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

A G E N D A A N A L
AGENDA ANALYSIS

CLEVER KANGAROOS

FLIPPER
Flipper was a bottlenose dolphin who starred in
the eponymous US TV show set in Florida. Flipper
helped protect the marine reserve where he lived.
The sounds he used to communicate with people
were not natural but a recording of a kookaburra.
“How about calling him‘Flipper’? [to the
dolphin] What do y you think? Do you like
‘Flipper’?”
[Flipper whistles ha appily]

SKIPPY
Skippy was the star and
namesake of one of
Australia’s most successful
and instantly recognisable
LASSIE TV-shows, Skippy the Bush
Lassie started life as a short story, then a novel, before Kangaroo. Like Flipper,
being written into a series of feature-length films and Skippy would let out a
finally a TV series, which ran from the 1950s–70s. series of clicks (that were
Using barks and whimpers, she’d make humans aware not natural for a kangaroo)
of accidents that had befallen other people or animals. that his human companions
“What’s the matter?” would interpret.
Whimper. Tchk tchk tchk
“What is it? You want me to go with you? You’ve “What’s that? He’s in
found Chipper, is that it?” trouble, he can’t get to the
Woof, woof, woof. show! Is that it, Skip?”

there already are. Service dogs in how they behave in the wild. foraging. They need to be able to achieve and demonstrate, and
war zones can now be fitted with Some studies of parrots have alert group members to potential to date it would be hard to argue
vests that allow them to actively revealed they have remarkably threats as well as telling them there have been any significant
trigger an alarm if they find a sophisticated calls that – about sources of food such as breakthroughs or “windows
bomb or hostile combatants when slowed down – have fruiting trees. “We don’t know into the mind”, as Donald
in order to communicate their very fine structures. Maybe what they’re saying when they Griffin put it.
location, rather than bark the birds themselves get far all get back together at night, “Imagine what it would be like
and alert the enemy to their more information from these but it could be ‘Look how big my to really understand the mind of
discovery. The developers of the vocalisations than we can ever crop is – follow me tomorrow’,” another intelligent species on the
FIDO vest say it could have a imagine, she suggests. “There’s Pepperberg says. planet,” muses Herzing in a TED
range of applications for dogs no way we could have trained talk she gave in 2013. That’s the
working in search and rescue or them to do what they do unless WINDOWS INTO THE MIND? goal, but it may be some time
as companion animals to people it was based on some kind of So, can we talk to the animals? before we reach it.
with medical conditions such existing architecture,” she adds. In one sense, clearly yes – a dog
as diabetes. It makes sense for parrots to can be given an instruction it + FIND OUT MORE
be smart and communicative, understands, while a dog or even Alex Foundation https://
SPEAKING IN SONGS she points out. They live in the a cat can tell you it’s hungry. alexfoundation.org
Irene Pepperberg, meanwhile, rainforest canopy, a complex But two-way communication Wild Dolphin Project http://
says, her studies of captive environment in which they involving the clear use of www.wilddolphinproject.org
African greys shine a light on are exposed to predators while language is much harder to
Spring 2018 BBC Wildlife 67