Building a jungle gym for kea? Use wood, not metal.

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-07-02 09:42

New Zealand

Photo by Chaz McGregor on Unsplash

Kea love new things, which can cause problems when they're attracted to human settlements and structures. One way around this is to build jungle gyms specially designed for kea - this gives them plenty of novelty in a safe environment, and may stop them from spending so much time in potentially unsafe human areas. Researchers studied which materials make the jungle gyms more attractive to kea, and they've found that kea spent the most time playing with wooden items, and the least time with metal items. While it's important that the gyms are attractive to kea, using them should not alter the birds' natural behaviours.

Media release

From: Elsevier

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Research Elsevier, Web page

Journal/
conference: Applied Animal Behaviour Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, Johns Hopkins University, US

Funder: This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation (A.H.T.), a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (A.H.T.), and a Prime Minister’s McDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize (A.H.T.). A.P.M.B. is supported by the Johns Hopkins Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

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