Being Attractive Brings Advantages: The Case of Parrot Species in Captivity

Abstract

BackgroundParrots are one of the most frequently kept and bred bird orders in captivity. This increases poaching and thus the potential importance of captive populations for rescue programmes managed by zoos and related institutions. Both captive breeding and poaching are selective and may be influenced by the attractiveness of particular species to humans. In this paper, we tested the hypothesis that the size of zoo populations is not only determined by conservation needs, but also by the perceived beauty of individual parrot species assessed by human observers.Methodology/Principal FindingsFor the purpose of data collection, we defined four sets of species (40 parrots, 367 parrots, 34 amazons, 17 macaws). Then, we asked 776 human respondents to evaluate parrot pictures of the selected species according to perceived beauty and we analyzed its association with color and morphological characters. Irrespective of the species set, we found a good agreement among the respondents. The preferred species tended to be large, colorful, and long-tailed.Conclusions/SignificanceWe repeatedly confirmed significant, positive association between the perceived beauty and the size of worldwide zoo population. Moreover, the range size and body size appeared to be significant predictors of zoo population size. In contrast, the effects of other explanatory variables, including the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) listing, appeared insignificant. Our results may suggest that zoos preferentially keep beautiful parrots and pay less attention to conservation needs.

Cross-Cultural Agreement in Perception of Animal Beauty: Boid Snakes Viewed by People from Five Continents

“…In case of boid snakes, human preferences are a good predictor of conservation efforts devoted to captive breeding of particular species in zoos worldwide, unlike its conservation status or present range size (Marešová and Frynta 2008). Similar evidence has been brought in case of parrot species (Frynta et al 2010) and other vertebrate taxa (Frynta et al 2009). If we assume that we inherently share an idea of what is beautiful and desirable in an animal, it is easy to imagine selective support or neglect of endangered species.…”

What Determines Bird Beauty in Human Eyes?

“…Previously, using a comparable design, we demonstrated that blue and yellow also significantly increases human preferences for parrot species (Frynta et al 2010). Psychologists have devoted much effort to analyze the influence of colors on human emotions and behavior (for reviews, see Ball 1965;Bellizzi, Crowley and Hasty 1983).…”

“…To score the attractiveness of each bird species, we adopted the already established method we used in our previous study (Frynta et al 2010). This assessment strategy of scoring pictures on the Internet uses only a limited scoring scale (see below), but it benefits from the ability to present pictures to the respondent consecutively and in large numbers.…”

Ex situ conservation programmes in European zoological gardens: Can we afford to lose them?

“…Several studies have already stressed the biased composition of zoo collections towards popular species, such as some large python species among the boids (Marešova and Frynta 2007) and colourful parrots (Frynta et al 2010). It is predictable that as fewer species are maintained in ex situ institutions-a trend due to both economic and animal welfare reasons-competition for zoo space will become more severe, with threatened but non-charismatic species destined to lose (Lernould et al 2003;Backer 2007).…”