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Digital media and the modern-day pet trade: a test of the ‘Harry Potter effect’ and the owl trade in Thailand

2019; Inter-Research; Volume: 41; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3354/esr01006

1863-5407

Penthai Siriwat, KAI Nekaris, Vincent Nijman,

Primate Behavior and Ecology

ESR Endangered Species Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials ESR 41:7-16 (2020) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01006 Digital media and the modern-day pet trade: a test of the ‘Harry Potter effect’ and the owl trade in Thailand P. Siriwat1,*, K. A. I. Nekaris1,2, V. Nijman1 1Oxford Wildlife Trade Research Group, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK 2Nocturnal Primate Research Group, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK *Corresponding author: siriwat.penthai@gmail.com ABSTRACT: We explored the influence of film and media on the exotic pet trade using the context of the ‘Harry Potter effect’ and the owl trade in Thailand as a case study. We compared the owl trade between market surveys dating from 1966 to 2019 in Bangkok’s Chatuchak market, to online surveys from 2017 to 2019. Using generalised linear models, we examined whether prices offered for owls could be explained by variables linked to whether the species are featured in the Harry Potter franchise, body size, tameness and temporal/seasonal harvesting. We also tested for an anthropogenic Allee effect by examining the relationship between the availability of owls and asking price. Owls never exceeded 1.3% of the total number of birds for sale in Chatuchak animal market, and we did not observe any owls during our visits in 2011, 2018 and 2019. In contrast, we recorded 311 individuals of 17 species from 206 posts on the online marketplace on Facebook. Owls are offered for sale during all months of each year surveyed but more so from February to April; availability did influence price. We found that price was significantly explained by body mass, but not by association with the Harry Potter franchise or by tameness. We found that owls have become more popular as pets, and as they are potentially sourced from the wild, this inevitably causes conservation concerns. Owls are just one of many taxa suffering from the unregulated and accessible marketplace that social media sites offer to vendors. KEY WORDS: Owls · Strigiformes · Harry Potter · Wildlife trade · Facebook Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Siriwat P, Nekaris KAI, Nijman V (2020) Digital media and the modern-day pet trade: a test of the ‘Harry Potter effect’ and the owl trade in Thailand. Endang Species Res 41:7-16. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01006 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in ESR Vol. 41. Online publication date: January 16, 2020 Print ISSN: 1863-5407; Online ISSN: 1613-4796 Copyright © 2020 Inter-Research.