In Part 2 of our live recording of our podcast from MemberFest 2021, we cover some serious ground! We talk about aspergillosis and the importance of force free veterinary training, field a few questions about training with negative reinforcement and the constructional approach, and end up with a bit of a sciency chat about spiders!

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It's our Avian Behavior Lab MemberFest 2021, celebrating the second anniversary of our online animal behavior and training membership platform. We did a live podcast with our members, telling training challenges and success stories, plus things we have learned, putting everything into question-answer format for our members to ask questions of their own.

Stories in this one include working with an intense and potentially dangerous Double Yellow Headed Amazon, a bald eagle that had a strong fear response.

You can’t tell anyone to be curious, you can show them, you can inspire them, and you can lead with humility and grace

That’s what Dani Poirier Larson of the Southwick Zoo shows, the spirit she embodies and shows her team. Dani’s words are so powerful and ring so true for a behavior enthusiast who wants to engage with the human and animal world around us as well as feel the fire of the enthusiasm of the team an audience around us.

We talk about some incredibly powerful concepts and the way that Dani has taken on some incredibly challenging animal behavior.

We talk macaw training, kookaburras, corvid challenges, and mental health. Tangents include nervous habits and the Nashville Zoo behavior team.

Animal behavior sure does love routine. But what happens when that routine changes and is beyond our control? What about those changes that affect our mental well-being and then transfer on the way we work with our animals and fellow animal lovers? We talk about the three different ways this impacted our work. We also discuss pandemic pets and what we can do when the goal posts change, routines change, and how to get through tough situations with animal care in mind.

Everyone has preferences, and our birds and other animals are no different. From African Greys to Turkey Vultures, the birds that we work with make no bones about it when they have chosen a favorite. Sometimes it is harmless and other times it can be downright dangerous. We talk about strategies and environmental management scenarios to help your bird work better with others, as well as how to prevent the problem with other future feathered friends! 

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We sit down with the Griz Kid! Wildlife biologist Wes Larson, bear expert, co host of the Tooth and Claw Podcast, and all around awesome person talked with us about his work with HawkWatch banding Golden Eagles. Wes and Hillary discuss what it means to get a job as a wildlife biologist and of course, all about the challenges facing golden eagles in the United States.  A fascinating conversation about why longterm research is so necessary.

As a professional free flight bird trainer with high visibility, Hillary has heard from many different companion parrot free flyers of various experience levels. Here she examines several questions, including 1) What is parrot free flight and how does it work? 2) What are some ideal qualities in a parrot free flight trainer? 3) Can you learn to free fly your parrot from the internet? 4) What are some best practices in free flying and several more. 

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.

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.

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.