The Life OF THE PEOPLE A resident of Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo, Max has in impressive vocabulary. – Photo by Alan McNarie
t’s noon on a Wednesday at the Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hilo, and Jan Comstock and Zoe are having some quality time at a picnic table. Let’s play “find the nut,” says Jan. “Mac nut,” says Zoe, emphatically. Only it sounds more like “Nyak nut.” Sort of a cross between “mac nut” and Curly of the Three Stooges laughing. Zoe has a little trouble with ‘m’s—probably something to do with having no lips. Jan hides a mac nut under a towel on the table. Zoe quickly locates it and throws the towel aside. “Good job, Zoe!” exclaims Jan, as Zoe gnaws delicately on the nut. Zoe acts a lot like a three-year-old. Her vocabulary is limited, she throws things a lot, she’s curious about everything, and she loves attention. She is actually a hyacinth macaw, the largest member of the parrot family: a magnificent, three-foot-long, vibrant blue bird—her feathers are actually blue on top, black underneath—with a ring of brilliant yellow around each coal-black eye. She’s five years old and came to the zoo two and a half years ago. Jan is an “enrichment volunteer”: one of 11 or so people who provide exercise and mental stimulation for the zoo’s animals. She’s been working with Zoe for about two and a half years. “The vet who was involved with her offered a series of classes for members of the enrichment teams who wanted to work with her,” Jan explains. She and another volunteer, Barbara, finished the class and became Zoe’s special friends.
The remarkable thing about the “find the nut” game is that Zoe isn’t just mimicking a human word. She knows what a mac nut is, and she uses the words to communicate her wishes. That’s what linguists call a “referential utterance”: one of the cornerstones of language use. Zoe makes her understanding of words even clearer a minute later. On the way to the picnic table, Jan proudly explains about another of Zoe’s accomplishments: she can open a snack-sized box of raisins. “She doesn’t tear it up,” Jan says. “She really politely opens the lid. She takes out one and she peels it and eats it. Then she takes out another one and peels it. Then I take the box away.” Now, Jan pulls out one of those little boxes of raisins. But Zoe takes the box in her beak and tosses it aside. “Nyak nut,” she repeats. Her vocabulary goes beyond nuts. She also clearly recognizes the name of another game Jan plays with her. When Jan puts the towel over her head, Zoe gleefully cries “Peek-a-boo!” and pulls the towel off. Zoe’s not the only parrot at the zoo who uses words for more than mimicry. In a large cage near the zoo’s entrance is another of its stars: a Catalina macaw named Max. If Zoe is a study in monochromatic blue elegance, Max is just the opposite: he’s a gaudy riot of color, with an orange breast, sky blue wings and blue, green and yellow back and tail feathers. It isn’t his looks, however, that make him special. It’s his vocabulary and how he uses it. He knows scores of words, including the names of several past and
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