And I'd Like To Call My Next Witness....

[Mighty_Emperor]

Man Wants to Question Parrot in Court


ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A man claims a woman wrongly adopted his lost parrot — and he can prove it if given a chance to question the bird in court.



Loulou, an 11-year-old African gray parrot, flew out of David DeGroff's apartment on April 12 after a guest who wasn't wearing her glasses accidentally walked into the screen door leading to the balcony.

On May 11, Nina Weaver, of Newburg, Pa., adopted an African gray from the D.C. Animal Shelter. DeGroff, convinced the bird is Loulou, filed a lawsuit seeking an opportunity to depose the parrot. He is seeking ,000 for pain and suffering if the bird turns out to be Loulou.

According to DeGroff, Loulou's vocal repertoire includes whistling the theme song to "The Andy Griffith Show" and saying the phrase "Daddy's gotta go to work."

Immediately after Loulou left, DeGroff said, he started calling every animal agency in the area, including the D.C. Animal Shelter.

DeGroff said he again called the shelter in mid-May. A receptionist told him that an African gray had recently been adopted. DeGroff used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the adoption records.

DeGroff said he drove to Weaver's home, but no one answered when he knocked on the front door. He said he saw a bird through the window and felt a connection.

"She seemed like she tried to communicate with me," DeGroff said.

DeGroff was unable to determine if it could whistle the "Andy Griffith" tune. Frustrated, he returned home.

Weaver declined to speak with a Washington Post reporter who visited her house. "We have no comment," she said. "We're not going to fight this in the paper."

story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20031006/ap_on_fe_st/disputed_parrot
Link is dead. No archived version found.

 

[Beakmoo]

Looks like the DC Animal Shelter is just as disorganised as my local RSPCA. Do they not have a computer system? Can they not record an enquiry for an African Gray? Berks.
Anyway, they should ask Loulou who she wants to live with, she would be quite intelligent enough to choose.
(Possibly not with the main who named her after two lavatories)

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

and in more parrot news:

Parrot breaks silence to foil burglary

A parrot is believed to have foiled a burglary by breaking a year of silence to shout: "Stop! I'll shoot".

The parrot, owned by a retired police officer, reportedly foiled the break-in after his owner left his flat in Kiev, Ukraine, for a few minutes.

When he returned he found three men stretched out on the floor with their hands behind their heads, the Cegodnya newspaper reported.

The thieves, who had believed the man was leaving for the entire day, later said they had heard a voice say: "Stop! I'll shoot! On the ground!", when they came into the flat.

The parrot, which had lived with the retired policeman for a year, had apparently not spoken a word before the incident.

Story filed: 10:49 Tuesday 7th October 2003

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_826596.html?menu=news.quirkies

 

[Beakmoo]

I saw that in Metro, and I strongly suspect it's apocryphal. There's no name or anything, somehow it's just too perfect and unlikely, I mean, why would the policeman be saying that in front of the bird?
There was a similar story from the UK, which was rather more firmly based. Anyone clever enough to dig it up?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Update for closure ... In early 2005 David DeGroff died without knowing whether the adopted parrot was his Loulou. It wasn't Loulou.

When a Pet Goes Missing, Pain Ensues
By John Kelly
May 4, 2005

"Only two things are certain in the long, twisted saga of Loulou the missing parrot: On April 12, David DeGroff lost a parrot. On May 11, Nina Weaver adopted a parrot."

That was the opening sentence of an article I wrote with my colleague Carrie Donovan that appeared on the front page of The Washington Post in October 2003. The story was about the efforts of David DeGroff and his partner, William Milan, to recover the beloved African gray parrot they had raised together from the time it was a chick. ...

David and Milan filed suit in a D.C. court. When that suit was thrown out, they consulted with more lawyers. All they wanted was to know whether the Pennsylvania parrot was theirs. And that's where our story of Oct. 5, 2003, left things. ...

What happened next was this: Journalists from as far away as New Zealand called Milan and David. The men hired a Pennsylvania lawyer to press their case. Negotiations dragged on with Nina Weaver.

And David was diagnosed with liver disease. "He would say, 'I've got to get better so I can see if it's Loulou,' " Milan said.

Last February Weaver finally agreed to allow the bird to be examined. By that time David was too sick to go. So, without telling David, Milan went on his own.

The bird was in a small cage and was as nervous as Milan. It made none of Loulou's sounds, but that wasn't enough to rule it out.

"I was so emotional, I really couldn't tell" if it was Loulou, Milan said. Blood was drawn for a $1,200 DNA test, but Milan decided against it. "At this point, I'm going to have to plan a funeral," he remembers thinking. ...

But there was one thing that could be determined cheaply: the sex of the bird. The blood test revealed that the parrot Nina Weaver had had since the spring of 2003 was a male. Loulou was a female.

David passed away the day after Easter.

"I didn't have the heart to tell him that I went the week before and that it wasn't Loulou," Milan said. "It would have been too painful for him." ...

FULL STORY: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...-ensues/47f2090b-14cc-415c-90a9-35a547f6cfc3/