Random News

[Rccrwlr]

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Researchers found that Birds Slur Their Songs When Drunk, Just Like Humans


A surprising new research suggests that birds have trouble singing and calling after downing a few drinks.Researchers found that birds act similar to humans after ingesting alcohol. According to researchers from Oregon Health and Science University, they offered juice spiked with alcohol to Zebra Finches bird.


According to researchers, the birds' slurs were similar to how people slur after ingesting alcohol. The researchers found that after drinking alcohol, the birds slurred their songs with a distinct drunken vibe.

The study published in the journal PLOS ONE stated that the zebra finch birds were intoxicated by the researchers for the study. According to the study, the acoustic structures of zebra finches' songs were slurred at best. The researchers had chosen the bird because it learns a song in a way similar to how people learn speech. It was easy for researchers to identify whether the birds slur their songs after drinking alcohol.

According to the researchers, they have found remarkable similarities in how the bird song and humans speech learned and then produced. Those similarities allowed the researchers to better understand the effect of alcohol on the bird.

For the study, the researchers had given simple white grape juice to a group of birds, while they gave juice spiked with strong ethanol to another group. Second group of birds was not able to maintain their song's normal structure and tempo.

The researchers said, "We did not detect visible effects on the birds' general behaviors or health, as indicated by the normal appearance of feathers and the ability to perch, feed, maintain normal posture and fly inside the cage."

 

[Wardell]

Reminds me of another news story I read on CBC a couple months ago about drunk birds. Send them all to the drunk tank for birds:

Birds in Yukon are getting tipsy on fermented berries, so Environment Yukon has set up an avian drunk tank where they can sober up safely.

With snow on the ground, birds are eating all they can before the colder weather ahead, and Bohemian waxwings love to eat mountain ash berries.

"What happens around this time of year is that after the frost, the berries will ferment and so the birds actually can get a little intoxicated from eating these berries and they do in fact get drunk," said Meghan Larivee with the animal health unit at Environment Yukon.

Tipsy birds have a harder time controlling their flight movements, and like people, their co-ordination under the influence is wonky. It can even be deadly.

"So they're flying around but they're not as good at avoiding obstacles," Larivee said. "Hitting windows is not uncommon."

If you come across a little bird that is drunk or unconscious, Environment Yukon will take it and put it in a holding tank of sorts — a hamster cage, "so they can sober up until they are able to be released," said Larivee.

If more care is required, like one bird last week, it goes to rehab at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve.

"We'll basically try to keep it nice and quiet, away from stress," said Yukon Wildlife Preserve curator Maria Hallock.

Looks like National Geographic did an even more detailed story on this too.