How to Put a Price on a Bird: the Forgotten Science of Economic Ornithology

Tracy Alloway (0:03)

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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:25)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:26)

Joe, did you hear the sad news?

Joe Weisenthal (0:30)

Okay.

I guess. I know the sad news you are talking about. I have to say, I was a little surprised to get a push alert that an owl had died. I know for some people, it was a really big deal.

Tracy Alloway (0:43)

That is such shade. That is such shade against Flaco the owl. I can't believe you're saying that.

Joe Weisenthal (0:46)

I'm trying to be diplomatic.

Some people seem to be really torn up. I was like, I'm a little surprised that the death of an owl made it to a push alert. But nonetheless, yes, I know where you're going with this.

Tracy Alloway (0:59)

So for those people who don't know, maybe they don't follow local New York news as much. Maybe they're just heartless New Yorkers like Joe. They don't care about the animals.

Flaco the owl died recently. We're recording this on February 27th. He died over the weekend. Apparently, he flew into a building, although we're still waiting for the toxicology report, I think. But the reason everyone was so interested in the fate and fortunes of this owl is because he was actually a Eurasian eagle owl who had escaped from the zoo, although actually, I think vandals basically broke into his exhibit and let him out.

And he's been flying around the city ever since. He was sort of a symbol of survivalism in the urban jungle. People didn't expect him to be able to make it.

Joe Weisenthal (1:50)

Yeah. And so there were a bunch of spottings, right, in Central Park and elsewhere.

Tracy Alloway (1:55)

There are photos of him. He would perch on air conditioners and sort of peek into people's windows at odd times of the day and night.

Joe Weisenthal (2:02)

Kind of wild that in a city this big, like a single bird could just be spotted all over the place for the wild. People would notice, like, oh, this is that bird. Like, that's pretty cool.

Tracy Alloway (2:12)

Well, he stood out, right? He's not native. Again, the clue is in the name Eurasian eagle owl. But I have to ask, how much do you think an owl like Flaco is worth?

Joe Weisenthal (2:22)

Oh, wow. Huh. That's a good question. I don't know.

Like, how much would it cost, like, if I wanted to acquire one? Like, are you thinking that, like, on the open market?

Tracy Alloway (2:34)

Yeah, this kind of gets into the issue, right? What would the basis of that valuation actually be? So you can imagine there's probably a market price that zoos or even black market collectors would pay for an Eurasian Eagle Owl. There's probably a replacement value for insurance for a viable male that could produce chicks, but maybe, maybe Flaco has value in other ways. So people were clearly happy to see him flying around the city. We know that he was eating rats at certain points. So maybe he was valuable as someone killing rats and other pets. But on the other hand, you know, what if he ate someone's backyard chicken?

Then would he have negative value? He's destroying public property or private property. What if it was a Buff Orpington, a really nice show Orpington, and now someone has to replace their fancy chicken?

I have a lot of thoughts on this show. I'm sorry to regale you with them at like nine in the morning.

Joe Weisenthal (3:33)

No, you know, look, clearly the death of Flaco meant more to you than me, but just objectively, listening to you, you're like, wow, there's some really interesting questions here that I just would never have thought about at all in terms of the connection between, yeah, there must be some dollar value. There must be, there is some economic value associated with a bird that people love, that is rare, that would have been difficult for a zoo to acquire, that would be difficult for a zoo to secure. There's a cost to, as you said, the insurance. So interesting questions that I certainly never once thought about up until one minute ago in my life.

Tracy Alloway (4:08)

You know what, Joe, we don't even have to speculate about this.

Joe Weisenthal (4:12)

Okay.

Tracy Alloway (4:12)

We don't have to.

Joe Weisenthal (4:13)

Why do we have the answer?

Tracy Alloway (4:14)

Well, it turns out there is actually a whole body of economics that deals with exactly this topic. It is economic ornithology.