Few four-pound, African Grey parrots have traveled as far as 23-year-old Koko - especially on an open sea.
Koko sails on her parents, Judy and Harvey’s, 74 ft. albacore tuna fishing boat, up to two months at a time. The couple drags 12 fishing lines catching tasty young tuna close to the ocean’s surface. When a fish grabs a line, it rings a bell and Koko yells, “Fish on”. The boat’s hull has freezers and the fish are canned at their Wild Pacific Seafood cannery and sold online.
“Koko loves her life on the wild side,” said Judy. “On deck, her cage is surrounded by wind-protecting plexiglass, but inside the cabin she roams freely until she puts herself to bed in her ‘bedroom’ cage.”
Parrots can be annoying. Koko is constantly chattering, asking questions, or tossing knickknacks onto the floor. One day, she asked, ‘What is that?’. Judy kept pointing and naming items and Koko kept asking until Judy named the wastebasket. Koko also asks, “What are you doing?” over and over until she is answered.
Their bird perfectly mimics their cell phone, microwave, and smoke alarm. Once on the boat the engine alarm sounded. “She perfectly mimics our cell phone, microwave, and smoke alarm,” said Judy.
“Once on the boat the engine alarm sounded. Harvey, in a panic, ran down to the engine room. He saw no problems. He climbed back up to the wheelhouse. The alarm sounded again. He took off running again. After the third alarm trip, he realized it was Koko. At home, it's the smoke alarm. No one can tell the difference between Koko and the real article.
Once she yelled in a panic, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' I ran to her. She was looking out the window into the field where a man was shearing sheep. He was holding a sheep, and Koko kept yelling at him. I told Koko 'Sheep getting bath.' She understands bath and so stopped yelling and just watched, but you could see she was still concerned, but quiet.
Quiet never lasts long. She bangs two of our drinking cups together and makes ‘music’. She recognizes birds on YouTube and mimics their movements. It is obvious that pets can recognized TV images, because she and our dog clearly do.”
When we adopted a puppy Koko made is clear from the start that she is not into dogs, so they ignore each other. She’s created a dog joke and asks herself, ‘What does dog say?’ Then answers, ‘Tweet, Tweet. No, woof, woof,’ and then giggles.
She sits in her cage while docked so she’s eye level with the fishermen and tourists. She gets a big response with her sense of humor, especially when she began wolf whistling at people. They laughed and commented so she keeps it up.
Our fisher friends all know her and we walk her into town. One day we went without her and store clerks did not recognize us.
“On one walk, she flew off and into a treetop. We could not see her. Thankfully we play, ‘Peekaboo’ with her and she answers back, so we called until she gave her position away, responding, ‘Peekaboo’. She would not come down, so the next morning we carried our breakfast to the tree. She insists on eating with us, and what we do, so she flew down to join us. She’s also invented a new term for eating Cheerios with milk and says, ‘Mmmm. Drink of cracker.’
We gave her a unisex name because her gender was a mystery until at the age of seven she laid an egg. In 23 years, she’s laid three.”
Once on land, Koko freely roams and flies around their home. At night she puts herself to bed.
