Browsing by Autor "Pedro Romero‐Vidal"

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Roadside Car Surveys: Methodological Constraints and Solutions for Estimating Parrot Abundances across the World
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2021) José L. Tella; Pedro Romero‐Vidal; Francisco V. Dénes; Fernando Hiraldo; Bernardo Toledo; Federica Rossetto; Guillermo Blanco; Dailos Hernández‐Brito; Erica Pacífico; José A. Díaz‐Luque
Parrots stand out among birds because of their poor conservation status and the lack of available information on their population sizes and trends. Estimating parrot abundance is complicated by the high mobility, gregariousness, patchy distributions, and rarity of many species. Roadside car surveys can be useful to cover large areas and increase the probability of detecting spatially aggregated species or those occurring at very low densities. However, such surveys may be biased due to their inability to handle differences in detectability among species and habitats. We conducted 98 roadside surveys, covering > 57,000 km across 20 countries and the main world biomes, recording ca. 120,000 parrots from 137 species. We found that larger and more gregarious species are more easily visually detected and at greater distances, with variations among biomes. However, raw estimates of relative parrot abundances (individuals/km) were strongly correlated (r = 0.86–0.93) with parrot densities (individuals/km2) estimated through distance sampling (DS) models, showing that variability in abundances among species (>40 orders of magnitude) overcomes any potential detectability bias. While both methods provide similar results, DS cannot be used to study parrot communities or monitor the population trends of all parrot species as it requires a minimum of encounters that are not reached for most species (64% in our case), mainly the rarest and more threatened. However, DS may be the most suitable choice for some species-specific studies of common species. We summarize the strengths and weaknesses of both methods to guide researchers in choosing the best–fitting option for their particular research hypotheses, characteristics of the species studied, and logistical constraints.
The hidden dimension of poaching: A novel survey method shows that local demand for pets largely outnumbers domestic and international trade of neotropical parrots
(Elsevier BV, 2025) Pedro Romero‐Vidal; Abraham Rojas; Mauricio Herrera; Fernando Hiraldo; José Antonio Rodríguez Díaz; Guillermo Blanco; Martina Carrete; José L. Tella
The widespread keeping of wild pets in the Neotropics: An overlooked risk for human, livestock and wildlife health
(Wiley, 2024) Pedro Romero‐Vidal; Guillermo Blanco; Jomar M. Barbosa; Martina Carrete; Fernando Hiraldo; Erica Pacífico; Abraham Rojas; Alan Omar Bermúdez‐Cavero; José A. Díaz‐Luque; Rodrigo Raúl León Pérez
Abstract Zoonoses constitute a major risk to human health. Comprehensive assessments on the potential emergence of novel disease outbreaks are essential to ensure the effectiveness of sanitary controls and to establish mitigating actions. Through a continental‐scale survey of rural human settlements conducted over 13 years in 15 Neotropical countries, we document the vast extent of poaching to meet the local demand for pets, resulting in thousands of families living with ca. 275 species of wild animals without any sanitary controls. Parrots account for ca. 80% of wild pets, dying mostly from diseases at an average age of 1 year. This culturally rooted tradition, which dates back to pre‐Columbian times, may lead to health risks by bringing wild animals prone to carrying parasites and pathogens into close contact with humans and their exotic pets and livestock. Although animal pathogens and parasites have been transmitted to humans for centuries, the current trend of human population growth and connectivity can increase the risk of zoonotic outbreaks spreading at an unprecedented pace. Similarly, disease transmission from humans and poultry to wild animals is also expected to be facilitated via wild pets, leading to conservation problems. Several studies have highlighted the risk posed by wildlife city markets for cross‐species disease transmission, ignoring the risk associated with widespread pet ownership of wild animals poached locally in rural areas. Given its geographic and social dimensions, a holistic approach is required to reduce this illegal activity as well as to strengthen health surveillance of seized individuals and people in close contact with poached pets, which would benefit both people and wildlife. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.