Bird singing contests: A clash of culture and conservation

For thousands  of years, people have been keeping wild birds. It is often a deeply ingrained part of the culture. One of the more recent trends to emerge from this practice is the singing contest which pits male birds against each other to impress human judges with their songs, plumage, and movement. A Cornell Lab of Ornithology examination of the scientific literature on this topic finds that bird-singing contests currently take place in at least 22 countries using at least 36 species of birds. This research is published in Global Ecology and Conservation.

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