This document outlines a class on the value of birds as patients and pets for humans. It discusses: - The goals of understanding how humans interact with and view birds, how birds and humans have benefited each other, and avian and human nature. - An overview of the class, including an analysis of the costs and benefits of human-bird relationships, exploring avian and human nature, and exercises on language and religion. - Key aspects of avian nature like their cognitive abilities, social intelligence, and that their brains evolved in parallel to mammals rather than being "bird brains". - How humans comprehend nature through language, social constructs, and religion, and how this influences views of and care for

1. The Companion Avian
Manifesto: The Value
of Birds as Our
Patients and Pets
Jeleen Briscoe,VMD, DABVP (Avian)
University of Pennsylvania School ofVeterinary Medicine
LoraKim Joyner, DVM, MPVM, M.Div.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville

2. Welcome and Introduction

3. 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

4. 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

5. Cost/Benefit Analysis

6. Cost/Benefit Analysis

7. Understanding Avian and Human Nature

8. 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

9. 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

10. “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

12. 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

13. Adaptive Specialization &
Study of Avian Brain
•Social Learning
•Fisher &
Hinde: blue tits
and the milk
bottles

14. Anthropocentric Study
of Avian Brain
•Concepts and
categorization
•Watanabe’s art
pigeons

15. Combining Ecology and
Anthropocentrism
• Episodic-like
memory
• Clayton &
Dickenson and
scrub jay caching of
perishable foods

16. Combining Ecology and
Anthropocentrism
• Ecological
importance of
adaptive
exploration
• Mettke-Hoffman
and neophobia in
parrots

17. Avian Nature
• Scientific proof of avian intelligence
• Cognitive ornithology
• Evaluation of birds for their abilities
within an ecological context
• Power in science

18. Human Nature

19. How Humans Comprehend Nature:
Language and Cultural Constructs

20. 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

21. 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

22. How Humans Comprehend Nature:
Religion and Ethics

23. Call To Action

24. Conclusion and Evaluation