Seeds of discontent

Pining was ruled out as the cause of the behaviour of African Parrot, Alex, found at the bottom of his cage on September 7, 2007, coincidentally the same day that Pavarotti fell off his perch. According to wikipedia:

"Alex died quickly. He had a sudden, unexpected catastrophic event associated with arterosclerosis ('hardening of the arteries'). It was either a fatal arrhythmia, heart attack or stroke, which caused him to die suddenly with no suffering. There was no way to predict his demise. All of his tests, including his cholesterol level and asper levels, came back normal earlier that week. His death could not be connected to his current diet or his age; our veterinarian said that she has seen similar events in young (<10 year old) birds on healthy diets. Most likely, genetics or the same kind of low-level (impossible to detect in birds as yet) inflammatory disease that is related to heart disease in humans was responsible."