You guys pretty much pegged the ridiculousness of this story. Yes it's disturbing, but not in the fact that some professor, who most likely will, (or already has) spent a lot of time on the doctors couch, has reached this conclusion. The real problem is the media, making this an issue, and giving him a megaphone. 99.99999% of the population see the mascot as a cartoon character, and would never let it trigger a murder, a rape, or a beatdown. Those that would let this "bird" do that could probably be triggered by an enormous number of other innocuous objects.
Although, I might reconsider my opinion here after stumbling on the picture below:
