New research probes whether captive breeding is hurting or helping parrots
There is an urgent need to treat the commercial production of threatened parrots with caution to prevent the further collapse of wild populations, a new study has found.
This is because the global trade in captive-bred parrots is reaching record levels with major economies, like China, on the cusp of relaxing laws on domestic production. Meanwhile, some countries, including South Africa, are actively engaged in the commercial captive breeding of endangered species.
The research, conducted by the World Parrot Trust and World Animal Protection, urged policymakers to carefully consider regulatory frameworks for commercial trade in captive-bred parrots to ensure that “unintended consequences are avoided”.
The findings, published in the journal Conservation Biology, raised concern about the effectiveness of commercial captive breeding of parrots as a strategy to reduce pressure on wild populations.
The study, which identified growing parrot markets, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, highlighted significant knowledge gaps and potential pitfalls in the commercial farming of parrots and warned that current practices are not a straightforward conservation solution and inadvertently threaten wild parrot populations.
“In recent years, captive breeding of parrots for the exotic pet trade has increased dramatically,” said lead author Alisa Davies.
“While this practice has been proposed, and often assumed, to be a viable method for reducing pressure on wild parrot populations from trapping, our study revealed significant knowledge gaps in the actual impacts of such breeding practices.”
Before 1990, most parrots in the international trade were sourced from the wild. Since then, the scale of international trade in captive-bred parrots has grown substantially, increasing from about 60 000 in 1990 to more than 500 000 in 2020.
“Captive-bred parrots now dominate international trade. International trade in parrots has largely been dominated by South Africa, where mega-facilities oriented for export markets have been established,” the study said.
Multiple factors could be driving this, including investment in infrastructure, improvements in technology and avicultural (the practice of keeping and trading birds) techniques, shifting consumer preferences, increasing affluence and a “generally permissive regulatory environment”.
Keeping parrots as pets dates back centuries and is popular in many cultures, where the birds are prized for their colourful plumage, intelligence, mimicry capabilities and rarity. Yet this trade has placed enormous pressure on wild populations of parrots, which are among the most threatened of all avian taxa, the authors noted.
Exotic pet trade caused drastic population declines in formerly widespread and abundant species, such as the grey parrot. (Photo by Mehmet Akif Parlak/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The study investigated how the commercial production of parrots could affect conservation efforts, both positively and negatively, for some of the world’s most threatened species. The researchers reviewed primary and grey literature to evaluate evidence to support five pre-established criteria.
Focusing on a sample of 16 threatened parrot species that are heavily traded or have experienced population declines because of unsustainable trade, they aimed to provide a thorough understanding of the situation across different taxonomic groups, life histories and native regions.
The authors found that the potential for captive-breeding to reduce demand for wild-sourced parrots varies greatly, depending on the species and context, and that significant knowledge gaps exist in key areas.
Among them is the lack of quantitative data on the productivity of commercial breeding practices, particularly in growing markets like Asia, and the financial viability of captive breeding in some species if adequate checks and balances to prevent laundering are put in place. The research, too, identified multiple pathways through which captive breeding can increase demand for wild parrots.
Overexploitation to supply the exotic pet trade has driven the extinction in the wild of some species, such as Spix’s macaw, and caused drastic population declines in formerly widespread and abundant species, such as the grey parrot.
This trade, too, has led to the spread of infectious diseases and the introduction of exotic and/or invasive species. Traded animals can suffer poor animal welfare during capture, transport and arrival at end destinations, as “many parrots have high caretaking demands that are challenging to meet”.
An important finding was the complexity of interactions in the trade between different species, said Rowan Martin, the study’s senior author and the director of bird trade programmes with the World Parrot Trust. Given the existing knowledge gaps and the potential for unanticipated consequences, it is “essential to consider the cross-linkages between trade of different species to avoid inadvertently facilitating illegal and unsustainable trade”.
“We know that increasing the supply of one species can stimulate demand and lead to people ‘upgrading’ to other rarer species and that trade on scale increases opportunities for laundering. With many species already on the brink we’ve got to get this right. The stakes are just too high,” Martin said.
The study described how commercial captive breeding is often proposed as a supply-side intervention to help prevent overexploitation of species by increasing supply from a sustainable source and reducing pressure on wild populations.
“In the case of grey parrots, it has been argued that greater regulation of trade in captive-bred parrots … reduces their supply and creates an opportunity for illegal trade in wild parrots,” it found.
“However, increasing the supply of captive-bred wildlife may also increase demand for wild-sourced animals by stimulating latent demand and normalising consumption, which is not met by production of captive-bred specimens; increasing demand for wild-sourced specimens as breeding stock and creating opportunities for the laundering and misdeclaration of wild-sourced specimens as captive-bred, which are challenging for law enforcement agencies to detect.”
The more than 200 operations for producing grey parrots registered with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) export thousands of parrots each year, generating substantial profit.
Despite concerns that this trade is both, directly and indirectly, driving trade in wild parrots, regulatory mechanisms do not require the industry to monitor its effects or demonstrate sustainability.
“The costs of monitoring the impacts of trade are often externalised by industry, and instead, the burden frequently falls on governments or nonprofit organisations, often with little capacity and resources to do so,” the study said.
The number of operations registered to trade Appendix I parrot species has climbed from five in 2016 to 212 in 2022, an increase of over 4 000% in five years. Appendix I includes all species threatened with extinction which are, or may be, affected by trade.
As levels of production and volumes of international and domestic trade in captive-bred parrots increase, there is a growing need for robust evidence base to “ensure policy decisions designed to achieve positive conservation outcomes do not have unintended consequences”.
The widespread misdeclaration of species, misuse of source codes and laundering of wild-sourced animals through captive-breeding facilities has raised concerns that the benefits of captive breeding might be reduced or undermined, the researchers said.
Before the transfer of African grey parrots to Appendix I of Cites in 2016, South Africa was the leading importer of wild-sourced grey parrots, as well as the leading exporter of those bred in captivity. The source of wild grey parrots shifted from West to Central Africa as populations collapsed because of overexploitation and additional regulations put in place.
“Since 2017, captive-breeding operations in South Africa can no longer legally import wild-sourced grey parrots to supply farms,” the study said.
“It is unclear based on current research how a shift to captive-bred breeding stock has affected production costs and resulting prices, given that grey parrots take several years to reach reproductive maturity. Concerns have been raised, both in the past and recently, of South Africa importing parrots that were wild sourced and illegally trapped.”
Neil d’Cruze, the study’s co-author and the head of wildlife research at World Animal Protection, added that even if animal welfare and public health risks associated with commercial captive parrot breeding are set aside, the practice raises serious concerns from a conservation perspective.
“Our study highlights that the rapid expansion of parrot farming and potential loosening of trade restrictions for some highly endangered species taking place in some countries risks worsening conservation challenges, making it crucial for policymakers to seriously reconsider the practice’s viability as a ‘go-to conservation tool’,” d’Cruze said.