TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding consumer preferences and demography in order to reduce the domestic trade in wild-caught birds
AU - Burivalova, Zuzana
AU - Lee, Tien Ming
AU - Hua, Fangyuan
AU - Lee, Janice S.H.
AU - Prawiradilaga, Dewi M.
AU - Wilcove, David S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the team of interviewers in Medan, led by Rudianto Sembiring, and included undergraduate and postgraduate research assistants Azum, Bambang, Dedy, Fivin, Lamberta, Lamhot, Mawan, Ode, Puspita, Rio, Tiwy, and Zebulon. We also thank Nursahara Pasaribu (University of Sumatera Utara), and Bert Harris. We thank the High Meadows Foundation for its support of this work. ZB was supported in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation during this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/5/1
Y1 - 2017/5/1
N2 - The wildlife trade is now one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, and birds are among the most commonly traded groups worldwide. The demand for pet birds is especially high in Indonesia, a country with many exploited, imperiled bird species. Finding solutions to the threat that trade poses for birds, and wildlife in general, requires an understanding of its socioeconomic dimensions. We examined consumer demography and preferences of 762 bird owners in Medan, Sumatra, focusing on the differences among owners of birds taken from the wild versus birds bred in captivity. We found that the vast majority of bird owners have at least one wild-caught bird. However, wild-caught bird ownership is not uniformly distributed across Medan; rather, there are distinct hotspots with high proportions of people with wild-caught birds. The main reasons for owning wild-caught birds are lack of access to and the high cost of captive-bred birds, and a perception that captive-bred birds do not sing as well as wild-caught ones. We conclude that captive-breeding programs could reduce the pressure on wild populations, especially if suppliers are able to produce relatively cheap captive-bred birds. However, the perceived poorer song quality of captive-bred individuals might be a problem for the captive breeding of some species, notably the White-rumped Shama, Copsychus malabaricus. Since many owners of this species compete in bird song competitions, establishing competition categories specifically for captive-bred shamas could promote captive-bred bird ownership. Tackling the problem of the wild bird trade in Indonesia and elsewhere will require consideration of both the economic and the social factors that underlie pet ownership.
AB - The wildlife trade is now one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, and birds are among the most commonly traded groups worldwide. The demand for pet birds is especially high in Indonesia, a country with many exploited, imperiled bird species. Finding solutions to the threat that trade poses for birds, and wildlife in general, requires an understanding of its socioeconomic dimensions. We examined consumer demography and preferences of 762 bird owners in Medan, Sumatra, focusing on the differences among owners of birds taken from the wild versus birds bred in captivity. We found that the vast majority of bird owners have at least one wild-caught bird. However, wild-caught bird ownership is not uniformly distributed across Medan; rather, there are distinct hotspots with high proportions of people with wild-caught birds. The main reasons for owning wild-caught birds are lack of access to and the high cost of captive-bred birds, and a perception that captive-bred birds do not sing as well as wild-caught ones. We conclude that captive-breeding programs could reduce the pressure on wild populations, especially if suppliers are able to produce relatively cheap captive-bred birds. However, the perceived poorer song quality of captive-bred individuals might be a problem for the captive breeding of some species, notably the White-rumped Shama, Copsychus malabaricus. Since many owners of this species compete in bird song competitions, establishing competition categories specifically for captive-bred shamas could promote captive-bred bird ownership. Tackling the problem of the wild bird trade in Indonesia and elsewhere will require consideration of both the economic and the social factors that underlie pet ownership.
KW - Bird market
KW - Captive-bred alternative
KW - Hunting
KW - Indonesia
KW - Market-based conservation intervention
KW - Pet birds
KW - Song competition
KW - Wildlife trade
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U2 - 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.03.005
DO - 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.03.005
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85015684604
SN - 0006-3207
VL - 209
SP - 423
EP - 431
JO - Biological Conservation
JF - Biological Conservation
ER -