Alex the parrot died recently - Pathology Results

Alex, the one on the right, was a parrot, not a cetacean, but was extremely important in cognition and language research in all of history. The works of Dr Irene Pepperberg and her team were recognized by all major English-speaking science news channels when Alex died Sept. 6, 2007. We are supporting them in this difficult period and also supporting the continuation of their research with their other two younger parrots.

http://www.alexfoundation.org/

Posted on http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/AlexFoundation/ by: "Jaimi @ The Alex Foundation" greyburd@remembering-alex.org
Thu Oct 4, 2007 9:01 am (PST)

Alex died quickly. He had a sudden, unexpected catastrophic event associated with arterosclerosis ("hardening of the arteries"). It was either a fatal arrhythmia, heart attack or stroke, which caused him to die suddenly with no suffering. There was no way to predict his demise. All of his tests, including his cholesterol level and as per levels, came back normal earlier that week. His death could not be connected to his current diet or his age; our veterinarian said that she has seen similar events in young (<10 year old) birds on healthy diets. Most likely, genetics or the same kind of low-level (impossible to detect in birds as yet) inflammatory disease that is related to heart disease in humans was responsible. We will have no further information.