The Bird Trade in Spanish Social Media: Popularity and Potential Negative Consequences

Abstract

Wildlife trade poses several threats to biodiversity conservation. During recent decades, wildlife trade has been shifting from physical markets to social media platforms. We aimed to understand the nature and extent of the bird trade in social media in Spain and its association with bird popularity, and to evaluate whether it complies with current regulations on the trade of endangered and invasive species. We carried out twelve-month data collection on four social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube) to estimate the bird trade in different species. Trade in 313 bird species was detected, mostly on Facebook. Popularity was found to be highly related to the number of occurrences, measured with the number of posts appearances, and had a significant negative interaction with the invasiveness listing, although only five of the traded species are listed as invasive in Spain. There were no significant differences of number of occurrences among threat, trade regulation or invasive categories. Several exotic traded species are already breeding in Spain in the wild. Current (2021) bird trade through social media in Spain includes protected, endangered and invasive species. Although these last represented a minimal percentage of the total, bird trade in social media did not fully comply with trade regulations. Therefore, regular monitoring of social media could facilitate the identification of traded species, enable the assessment of demand and trends, and help detect the sale of banned species. - Elkhouri-Vidarte, N., Díaz, M., Martín-Torrijos, L., Blázquez Gamero, M. & Caballero Rubio, A. (2024). The bird trade in Spanish social media: popularity and potential negative consequences.