Training Procedure Of Vocal Mimicry Bird, Common Myna (Acridotheres Tristis) By Local Trainers In Kelantan, Malaysia

Abstract

Acridotheres tristis, or common myna or Indian myna is a bird species that can mimic human words and sounds around them. Local trainers used to teach the common myna in the State of Kelantan to mimic the words taught using several training procedures. This study aims to determine whether the training procedures used by local trainers have helped in the training process, and the factors that affect the mimicry process for this species are also highlighted. Interview sessions were conducted in nine districts in the State of Kelantan to collect data from local trainers from November 2021 until May 2022. This study utilised the Kruskal-Wallis test to analyse the significant difference in training time among different training procedures and different types of food and water for common myna. The results indicated that the training procedures used by local trainers have affected the training time of this species (p ≤ 0.05). The mean value of training time for other scrape techniques is the lowest, which is considered the best training method in training common myna to mimic the words. The second highest mean value is none scraping methods, followed by scraping tongue using Lalang, which has the highest mean value. In addition, the types of food and water given to common myna by the local trainers during the training procedure did not show a significant difference in training time.