Hmmm. My knowledge of evolution has just kicked in here.
"The volume and intensity of the calls help the females in the wild to estimate the quality and health of potential partners. In captivity, where pairing as a result of random natural selection does not occur, the musical quality is at best of average quality."
a) Random natural selection? By its definition natural selection is not random.
b) In the wild, the females are choosing mates based on the quality of their song. This is sexual selection, not natural selection.
c) Artificial selection can be much stronger, and work much faster than natural or sexual selection. Therefore it would be better to simply choose to breed only from the birds with the best songs.
d) The males sing for two reasons. To establish a territory (i.e. to compete with other males) and to show off to attract females. If they're kept in cages (where I presume their mates are chosen for them, and males are not kept with other males), it's no wonder they don't sing so well.
Some people are obviously just plain stupid. And others are simply too lazy to set up a proper selective breeding plan and just want to use the quick fix of trapping a wild bird rather than breeding a good singer themselves.
2 comments:
That is depressing, thanks for posting the links. I didn't know things like this still happened.
5/20
Hmmm. My knowledge of evolution has just kicked in here.
"The volume and intensity of the calls help the females in the wild to estimate the quality and health of potential partners. In captivity, where pairing as a result of random natural selection does not occur, the musical quality is at best of average quality."
a) Random natural selection? By its definition natural selection is not random.
b) In the wild, the females are choosing mates based on the quality of their song. This is sexual selection, not natural selection.
c) Artificial selection can be much stronger, and work much faster than natural or sexual selection. Therefore it would be better to simply choose to breed only from the birds with the best songs.
d) The males sing for two reasons. To establish a territory (i.e. to compete with other males) and to show off to attract females. If they're kept in cages (where I presume their mates are chosen for them, and males are not kept with other males), it's no wonder they don't sing so well.
Some people are obviously just plain stupid. And others are simply too lazy to set up a proper selective breeding plan and just want to use the quick fix of trapping a wild bird rather than breeding a good singer themselves.
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