Feather forensics: tracing the origins of parrots in wildlife trade with stable isotopes and citizen science

Abstract

Illegally wild-harvested animals are sometimes laundered into legal trade by being falsely declared as captive-bred, undermining wildlife trade regulation. Stable isotope analysis of tissue such as feathers is an emerging tool for verifying an animal’s captive or wild origin, since captive diets differ systematically from wild diets. We launched a community-science initiative, publicized through social media and local news, that collected thousands of parrot feathers from volunteers across South Australia. Stable isotope analysis correctly distinguished wild from captive origin in galahs with close to 90% accuracy, and in other parrot species with 74% accuracy, demonstrating a scalable, low-cost forensic tool to help detect wildlife trade laundering.