Member Interview: Adopting a bird during the pandemic

05/06/21 • 46 min

Avian Behavior Lab members Harry and Hailey sit down with Hillary and talk about adopting Paulie the Quaker parakeet during the pandemic. Everything from the first meeting to socialization is different during quarantine in place orders. When everything is different and the only thing that stays the same is change, Harry and Hailey do an amazing job working with their new friend and building skills.

Previous Episode

Why Scientific Literacy Matters to Our Animals

How does understanding the brain is wired for thought help the animals in our care as well as conservation? From concepts of how we handle behavior questions we don’t know the answer to all the way to consuming information on documentaries, we look at how asking questions and filling in the picture can help us understand how science works and how the natural world is still very much a part of who we still are, technology and all.

Next Episode

Applying Negative Reinforcement for Calm Animal Behavior

Hillary talks about her evolution on the principle of applying negative reinforcement with the help of other trainers in using space as a reinforcer to reinforce calm behavior in challenging birds to help the listener understand why this is such an incredible tool for our behavior change processes. She also uses her experience as a guest speaker at the ABMA 2021 conference to discuss the challenges of women in STEM and how we can disagree and still use science in our discussions rather than fear-based emotions.