According to a study, unique-colored songbirds are at significant risk of extinction due to their popularity as pets.
Several species have already been driven to the brink of extinction by the pet songbird trade in Asia, where birds are sought largely for their lovely calls.
Now, a study has demonstrated that certain plumage colors make birds more susceptible to being captured and sold.
According to researchers, rearing birds in captivity for commerce could be beneficial.
Prof. Rebecca Senior of the University of Durham, who led the study, stated that this strategy would not work for all animals. “However, there is optimism that we could modify the source of [some pet birds] so that they are produced in captivity rather than captured in the wild.”
These researchers believe that supplying the songbird trade, rather than combating it, could be a viable method to prevent the extinction of species in the wild.
The study, which was published in the journal Current Biology, also revealed that if the most desired birds continued to be removed from their natural habitats, the remaining populations in Asia’s tropical forests would become “less colorful” over time. The first species to be extinguished would be those with the most distinctive and distinct coloring.
To understand the hazards to wild birds, Prof. Senior and her colleagues compiled a list of the species and colors most frequently purchased and sold in the songbird marketplaces of Asia.
She continued, “We discovered that species with a more distinctive color, distinct from other birds, are more likely to be sold.”
“And there are two color groups that are more prevalent in the trade: azure (often referred to as sky blue) and yellow. “Pure white is also extremely common.”
Silent, drab forests
Additionally, the scientists replicated the impact of a trade by removing the most frequently traded species from the natural population. This demonstrated that sustained trapping of songbirds would result in “browner and less blue” plumage in the tropical forests of Asia.
In parts of Asia, particularly Indonesia, the effects of the trade have been labeled a conservation catastrophe. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) established a specialist group to avoid the extinction of trade-threatened species.
Indonesian culture is heavily anchored in the ownership of songbirds. National bird-singing competitions can award tens of thousands of pounds in prize money. Many environmentalists have concluded that combating the trade is futile.
“Rather of going in guns blazing and saying, ‘You can’t take these birds that have been such an integral part of your culture for so long,'” said Prof. Senior, “we could identify the species that are at risk and attempt to shift the sourcing to captive-bred birds.
There is the potential for that to satisfy the existing high demand.
