Sorry Dawn, for being what you might think is pedantic, but it's not 'opinion' - we're (or at least I am) pointing out the fallacy in your statement; there's a world of difference between performing tricks and taking part in scientific studies.

Whether you agree with it or not, value it or not, is opinion though.

Yes I do think its pedantic but you are perfectly entitled to your opinion. When somebody shows me the benefits to humans of an Octopus getting out of a crab trap, a chimp tapping a screen quicker than a tv presenter and dolphins doing various tricks to get a fish, then perhaps I will see some benefit in this "research." For me Azz, its pointless. Sorry but its how I feel.

Well the octopus getting out of the crab trap was natural behaviour - the benifit to humans of studying it would be that if we understand how the Octupus thinks and moves differently from the crab then possibly the fishermen will be able to develop crab traps that octopus cant get into and then their catch wont be stolen

The chimp tapping the screen can help us isolate the areas of the brain incolvolved in photographic memory

The dolphins doing tricks showed us that animals have imagination and can create
and
It makes people happy, out of anything else research can do imo the best thing you can do for humans is something that makes them more happy

"Dolphins and sea lions are trained not only to detect underwater mines, but also to alert the Marines if they detect danger. Some of them are trained to disarm bombs, and some are even trained on how to locate a human intruder and cuff him with a GPS tracker. If necessary, they may even follow the suspect onto land, honking loudly to alert the troops to their position ... which is 100 percent the least awesome way to get caught by an opposing army"

http://www.cracked.com/article_19624...ly-worked.html

Of course, you have to know how intelligent an animal is to be able to utilise them in such a way. Search around and you'll find different animals put to work in a variety of ways to help us

Such research could also lead to animals being used and abused though couldn't it? I enjoyed the programme on the whole (only seen the first part), but was a tad concerned about the physical state of the Parrots towards the end of the programme. Did their owner get so carried away with her research that she forgot she was dealing with real life animals and not just a big science project I wonder?

Such research is great for increasing our understanding of animals and their behaviour, but it's also important to remember that these animals are just that: animals and as such need to be allowed to exhibit their natural behaviour as much as possible, even if kept as captive bred animals. The welfare of the animals should always be more important than reaching the goal of the research and the more exciting this research becomes then the more likely this is going to get forgotten IMO.

In all honesty, I cannot imagine that the animals would be kept in anything less than optimum conditions and given scope to express themselves naturally because, if not, the research would be skewed and wouldn't reflect a true picture of the intelligence of any species

Skewed research is still used by many people though, they just do their best to hide it. Once the ego takes over such people don't really care either way as long as they feel they've accomplished what they set out to, that's the problem.

I still feel the condition of the Parrots was poor, some may say they were moulting, but it seems too much of a coincidence for both Parrots, lifetimes apart, to be in the same poor condition. It crossed my mind that perhaps they were displaying over grooming behaviour in relation to stress resulting from being over worked/researched. Just a thought.

Like I said it can be far too easy to focus in on the research and forget the welfare of the animals involved IMO, that's my main concern really.

Me too, and the fact that their efforts to express themselves and communicate with humans are being recognised by people more and more can't be a bad thing either.

I didn't see the parrots in the episode I watched, all the other ones I seen on the programme looked good. There is only so much of that skewed research etc can go on though as someone else is always ready to bring their findings to light.

Good for the research or good for the animals? In what way?