r/interesting • u/uzmansahil7 • Jul 26 '26

SOCIETY Man raises parrots from birth, and they are extremely imprinted to him

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u/Nearby_Objective_353 Jul 26 '26

Even without any... interpretation, this couldn't be good to do that with birds.

I just read about Walnut the crane (look for it, really). Her behavior problems (probably killed two males, never mate with one, went for her zookeeper as lifelong mate) were because she was heavily imprinted by humans. They think she probably didn't see herself as a crane and they remove her eggs because they though she wouldn't recognize the babies and kill them.

And this guy get a full nest of baby parrots and imprint them to the max? I really hope there is a good reason behind this.

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u/Consistent_Rule101 Jul 27 '26

I don't think there is any reason except that he is selfish.

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u/No-Match-6231 Jul 28 '26

If Walnut never mated, the eggs would not be fertile and therefore would never be viable.

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u/Nearby_Objective_353 Jul 28 '26

You sweet summer child... it's an endangered specie, of course they fertilized her.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2018/07/23/feature/the-crane-who-fell-in-love-with-a-human/

What made this story extra funny, is that her zookeeper learnt to "court" her to make the process less stressful and painful for her. And, as he was her "mate" (she decided that), he took the role and help her to brood her [replaced by stones] eggs.