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Dave Cruz leads the bird show crew

By Chris Welsch, Star Tribune

Last update: January 14, 2008 - 4:35 PM

Dave Cruz supervises the crew that runs the bird show. More than 30 birds, ranging from a king vulture to a chicken, appear on the zoo's bird stage. On Cruz's first day on the job 10 years ago, one of the trainers asked him to take Gandolf, a hyacinth macaw, on his hand. This bird can break Brazil nuts effortlessly with its vise-like jaws. Leery of the stranger, Gandolf bit Cruz, causing him to scream in pain. But over the years they've become close friends.

"Parrots are extremely intelligent. They have an ability to figure things out, and they have an ability to figure you out.

"If I'm not in the room with Gandolf and he wants me in there, he'll start screaming really, really loud. And if I react to that and go into the room, he's trained me that every time he screams really loud, I will show up. And then he screams really loud more often.

"A lot of people try to compare their intelligence to that of a fourth-grader or third-grader, but I respectfully step away from that sort of thinking. I think you have to give parrots credit for being parrots and thinking like parrots. You try to figure out what that means, and you'll be trying to figure it out for your entire life. You'll never figure it out."