Functional analysis and treatment of self‐injurious feather plucking in a black vulture (<i>Coragyps atratus</i>)

Morris and team worked with one black vulture who kept pulling out his own feathers. They ran a functional analysis to see why he did it.

They tested three conditions: alone, attention, and play. Feather plucking only happened when people left and then came back. The bird wanted attention.

Next they gave non-stop attention on a fixed schedule. The vulture stopped plucking almost right away.

Noncontingent reinforcement wiped out the feather plucking. The bird kept his feathers even when the team later thinned the attention schedule.

The behavior stayed low for the whole study. Functional analysis worked on a bird just like it works on people.

DeRoma et al. (2004) got the same result with two adults who talked in odd ways. When the FA showed attention was the payoff, NCR killed the weird speech. The vulture case is a straight copy of that method.

Fernandez et al. (2023) just reviewed thirty years of ABA in zoos. They call for more single-case FAs like this vulture study to boost animal welfare.

Fahmie et al. (2013) counted 435 FA papers. The vulture adds one more to the pile and stretches the reach of FA past humans.

You can run a full FA on any species when welfare is on the line. The same test-test-treat sequence works for kids, adults, or a bird of prey. If you work in a zoo, clinic, or anywhere with non-verbal clients, this paper gives you a road map: run the FA, find the reinforcer, then deliver it noncontingently. Start with continuous reinforcement, then thin once the behavior tanks.