Animal Directory Featured species in the planned Aviary habitat
Photo: Robert01 CC BY-SA 3.0 de Wikimedia Commons
African Grey Parrot
Psittacus erithacus
Young Explorer Notes
Three quick things to know about the African Grey Parrot.
- Superpower
Widely considered the most cognitively complex parrot — research subjects have demonstrated numerical reasoning, abst…
- Home
Tall aviaries filled with birdsong and flight.
- How to help
Endangered — heroes needed!
Zoos and conservation teams work together to save endangered animals and their habitats.
Fun facts for everyone
- Widely considered the most cognitively complex parrot — research subjects have demonstrated numerical reasoning, abstract category use, and meaningful spoken-word association.
- Voice mimicry is so accurate that recordings of an African Grey can fool family members of the person it's imitating.
- Pair-bonds are formed for life, and wild flocks can number in the hundreds at communal roosts along the Congo basin.
- The 2016 CITES Appendix I uplisting effectively banned international commercial trade, after wild populations had collapsed by up to 99% in some range states.
- IUCN reassessed the species as Endangered in 2016 — the only large parrot whose decline has been driven primarily by the pet trade rather than habitat loss.
From the master plan
The African Grey Parrot is the intellect story of the Aviary — staged near the educator station, where keepers run twice-daily enrichment sessions that showcase tool use and choice-based puzzles. It’s also the conservation hook of the zone, demonstrating that “common” wild populations can collapse inside a single human generation.
IUCN status sourced from the African Grey Parrot assessment (BirdLife International, 2016) — listed as Endangered after a multi-decade population crash driven by trapping for the pet trade.
Find them in
Aviary
A colorful free-flight habitat full of sound, motion, and tropical light
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