Irish Examiner view: Polly phones a friend

Lonely parrots

It’s long been known that some birds are adept at imitating the human voice, although whether their vocabulary is sufficiently wide to encompass the swearing Irish parrot that gained wide circulation on social media, or to be able to say “Polly wants a cracker” is open to doubt.

But new research which tested whether pets would benefit by being able to communicate with others by video calling them has concluded that stress is reduced when they can phone a friend.