Wild Animal Initiative launches new field study on house sparrows
October 23, 2023
This winter, Wild Animal Initiative is launching its first field research project — a significant milestone not only for us as an organization, but also for the larger community of wild animal welfare scientists.
A team of researchers will examine how varying environmental conditions such as water availability, noise level, and land use affect the welfare of a common animal, the house sparrow (Passer domesticus). The team will start with a pilot study to identify a reliable way to measure welfare in house sparrows, using both observational and experimental methods. With a solid measurement method in hand after that, they will then measure welfare under various environmental conditions for a year. We hope this will be not just an isolated study on house sparrow welfare, but that the results will become a resource for others working in urban ecology and related fields, and could be transferable to studies on other species too.
“I hope it gives an example of how other researchers outside of Wild Animal Initiative can continue this kind of work,” says Physiology Researcher Bonnie Flint, who is serving as the project lead. “And for Wild Animal Initiative, I hope it opens up new questions and new hypotheses we hadn’t thought of before, that we can pursue in future research.”
Why study house sparrows?
House sparrows are some of the most common birds in the world, with up to 1.6 billion individuals — one of just three bird species with populations estimated to be more than one billion. Their numerosity makes them particularly interesting to us at Wild Animal Initiative: If we can identify data-backed ways to improve welfare for a common species, then we have the potential to do good for a huge number of individuals within that species.
“People often think scientists only want to study rare species to help save them,” Bonnie says. “But when you’re doing science to try to understand animals in general, it’s easier if you have an abundant and very visible species. Plus, if you want to maximize welfare, you want to think about species with abundant individuals. A study like this one can get that approach into the foundations of this field right as it’s developing.”
In addition to their numerosity, house sparrows have quite a range: They’re found on every continent except Antarctica, and they are synanthropic, meaning they live alongside humans in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. This makes them highly accessible to researchers and easy to find and observe.
Research methods and goals
The pilot study is launching near the end of this year in Bonnie’s home city of Houston, and then the full study will expand to a multi-scientist effort in additional cities in 2024.
The main goals of the pilot study will be to identify a reliable method for measuring the welfare of house sparrows, and to make sure all the planned types of data collection are feasible. To find a valid way to assess house sparrow welfare, the team will record video footage of sparrows in many different scenarios (some of which will be experimentally induced), and measure the birds’ resulting behavior to see which behaviors are reliably coinciding with the expected welfare status. For example, in one experiment, the researchers will provide copious millet (a preferred food of house sparrows) at multiple feeders to induce a positive welfare state from plentiful, favored food with little competition. Later, to induce an opposing welfare state, millet and other seeds will be available from a single bird feeder with only two feeding ports, causing high competition for food. The researchers will score the sparrows’ posture, vocalizations, and physical activity in both scenarios to see which behaviors correlate with the positive or negative conditions caused by the experiment.
"We already have multiple lines of evidence that house sparrows have different vocalization types that reflect welfare, but we need to make sure that vocalizations are truly a valid way to assess welfare," Bonnie says. Once the team completes the pilot study, they will set up systems such as temperature loggers and audio recording units in areas where house sparrows reliably congregate, to remotely capture the data they need on the birds’ welfare. This remote method will enable them to collect a large volume of data with minimal time and labor.
The researchers hope other scientists will use the primary research produced in this study as a starting point and proof-of-concept for their own future wild animal welfare research, and that the data from this growing field will ultimately be used in conservation and urban wildlife management.
“House sparrows tend to live in human-modified landscapes, so our choices are influencing their welfare already,” says Strategy Director Mal Graham, who is also contributing to the project. “If we study what makes their lives good or bad, then we can stop making decisions about urban management in ignorance of their impacts on our neighbors.”
Wild Animal Initiative envisions a future in which even house sparrows — a species that is typically ignored at best, and despised at worst — will be understood and valued as individuals. But before we can responsibly intervene for any animals’ welfare, it’s crucial that we have scientific evidence that indicates those interventions will be net-positive, not only for the focal species but also for individuals who belong to other species in their ecosystems. This project will be a big step to get us closer to that future. We look forward to sharing updates on our progress throughout the duration of fieldwork and data analysis.