Perspectives on pet bird welfare from the pet industry

Mate choice—the decision about whom to mate with—is a type of natural selection, since animals must reproduce to pass down their genes. Mate choice is also called intersexual selection because the behavior occurs between the sexes.

How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.

Many animals exhibit parental care behavior, including feeding, grooming, and protecting young offspring. Parental care is universal in mammals and birds, which often have young that are born relatively helpless. Several species of insects and fish, as well as some amphibians, also care for their young.

Today, scientists agree that good research is ethical in nature and is guided by a basic respect for human dignity and safety. However, this has not always been the case. Modern researchers must demonstrate that the research they perform is ethically sound.

Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.