Characterizing bird‐keeping user‐groups on Java reveals distinct behaviours, profiles and potential for change

Abstract

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Understanding motivations and attitudes among songbird‐keepers to identify best approaches to demand reduction

“…However, these numbers are supported by previous research on Java that found that only around 27% of bird-keepers owned wild-caught birds (75% owned commercially bred birds) and around 15 to 22% stated a preference for wild-caught birds (Marshall et al, 2020b, ). This said, the ubiquity of bird-ownership across Java (~12 million households; Marshall et al, 2020b) means that these proportions still represent a concerningly large number of households potentially procuring wild-caught birds in the near future. Our results suggested that social norms among bird-owners, such as peer pressure, increase intention, perhaps in accordance with other studies where ownership of wild-caught birds was clustered among socially similar communities or networks (Burivalova et al, 2017;S anchez-Mercado et al, 2020).…”

“…We used a structured household survey divided into demographic characteristics and bird ownership sections (see Marshall et al, 2020aMarshall et al, , 2020b and two further mixedmethods sections collecting qualitative and quantitative data (Creswell & Clark, 2007;Lecuyer et al, 2019). These additional sections gathered (a) qualitative data on reasons for starting, stopping, and not keeping birds and (b) quantitative data on respondents' attitudes and perceptions toward bird-keeping, wild bird populations, and the natural environment in general and their intention to purchase wild-caught birds in the near future (see Appendix B for full survey instrument).…”

“…A cultural backdrop of the long-term tradition of birdkeeping in Java in combination with a proportion of non-bird-keepers citing factors (lack of time or space) constraining their ability to keep birds, suggests that many non-bird-keepers might acquire them if these barriers were removed, or were to obtain them opportunistically (e.g., as gifts). Furthermore, the average price of commonly owned birds means that it is an accessible hobby to a significant proportion of the Indonesian population (Marshall et al, 2020a(Marshall et al, , 2020b, unlike other contexts where the price of traded wildlife gives those who consume or purchase it status (Thomas-Walters et al, 2021). Indeed, the low proportion of respondents citing costs as prohibitive suggests bird-keeping is perceived as a low-cost activity, which would help explain its ubiquity across Indonesia (Indraswari et al, 2020).…”

“…Research has so far predominantly focused on the spatiotemporal and demographic aspects of bird-keeping (Indraswari et al, 2020;Marshall et al, 2020aMarshall et al, , 2020b, and as yet little attention has been paid to wider public attitudes to the trade and its effect on wild bird populations in Java. We seek to identify patterns in the attitudes, beliefs, and intentions of bird-keepers and non-bird-keepers that will help guide demand-reduction efforts, by pinpointing issues and attitudes that could be the focus of conservation education and awareness-raising initiatives.…”

Influencing consumer demand is vital for tackling the illegal wildlife trade

“…In terms of latent, potential and improbable demand, much research effort has focused on the segmentation of consumer groups (Marshall et al., 2020; Shukhova & MacMillan, 2020), a critical advance in tailoring of interventions to particular user groups and ensuring that interventions move beyond the vagueness of attempting to target the entire population under the banner of ‘general public’ (Davis et al., 2020). In this respect, the use of techniques such as choice experiments can help explore how consumer preferences would react to different scenarios.…”