Nadine Freischlad, Jakarta-based journalist/
Monga Bay
Birdkeeping is so popular here that the most sought-after species are on the verge of disappearing in the wild. The government promotes breeding as a solution, but some warn of unintended consequences.
*In Indonesia, singing contests for songbirds have skyrocketed in popularity. Even the president is a fan.
*Demand for some species has made them extremely valuable. Poaching has risen accordingly, and some birds have been driven to the brink of extinction.
*The government is pushing captive breeding as a solution to the crisis. But some conservationists warn the policy may do more harm than good.
*A prime concern is that breeding licenses are easily exploited by “wildlife launderers” who pass of wild-caught animals as captive-bred. This only increases poaching.
On the last weekend in October, thousands of people crowded the field next to Indonesia’s largest sports stadium, Gelora Bung Karno, in the nation’s capital. Visitors streamed through the entrances, many of them carrying large birdcages covered in a cloth to keep the animals inside calm.
The people were congregating to celebrate one of Indonesia’s most prestigious songbird competitions: the President’s Cup. It takes place every two years, and hobby birdkeepers from all corners of the archipelago fly in to participate, their birds in tow.
Champion birds can cost a fortune. After his own bird was defeated in a different contest this year, President Joko Widodo offered to buy the winning bird for 600 million rupiah ($41,000). The owner declined. “I didn’t want to let him go,” Muhammad Nur Alamsyah said of his star competitor, a white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus) named Kitaro. “He has a champion’s mentality, so the price is expensive.”
Alamsyah lives in Brebes, a town on the island of Java, where birdkeeping has a long history. But these days, Indonesia’s songbird craze has given rise to a crisis.
Birds like the straw-headed bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus) have become so rare in Indonesian forests that hunters have started looking for them as far as Malaysia and Thailand. Hobbyists and scientists have sounded the alarm, alerting regulators to what has become an international problem due to cross-border poaching. Birds aren’t just nice to look at or listen to, they’re a vital part of any ecosystem. Losing them can mean losing other species too.The Indonesian government’s response has been to promote commercial breeding as a solution.
Success story?
It’s a different story for birds on the list. For these birds, a breeder must declare every individual and have a certificate for it. They can only sell second-generation, captive-born birds, and the certificate must be passed on to the new owner. The number of birds in this category grew immensely earlier this year when the government added hundreds of birds to the list.Thanks in part to the growing interest in singing competitions, birdkeeping is booming. And as the government searches for ways to boost the economy, especially in the small and medium business segment, promoting commercial breeding makes sense on the surface.
President Widodo himself has described breeders as an engine of growth. “I very much value the bird breeders here,” he said at a recent singing competition in Bogor, West Java. “This is setting the wheels of the people’s economy in motion.”
“The Bali myna was going to go extinct,” President Widodo said at the competition in Bogor. “Now, because of breeding, there are so many of them.”
Take the Javan green magpie (Cissa thalassina). The emerald-colored songbird has been hunted to such an extent that conservationists think only around 50 of them remain in the wild.
The Cikananga Wildlife Center, a privately run institution in Java that operates a conservation breeding center, has about 30 Javan green magpies in its program.
Even with more human intervention in the breeding process, the number of birds that can be bred if it’s a sensitive species like the Javan green magpie or straw-headed bulbul is limited.
‘We can’t stop the bird keeping hobby’
For their part, hobbyists and small-scale breeders tend to see themselves as guardians of bird species, rather than contributors to their demise.
Hobbyists interviewed by Mongabay said they were well aware that many of the species they prize can now barely be found in the wild. But they downplayed the role of poaching, attributing the drops in population rather to the destruction of the birds’ forest habitats. Indonesia has lost more rainforest since the turn of the century than any country.Eris Erwanto, who raises straw-headed bulbuls near Jakarta (the bird is known for its lovely duets) says he estimates only 20 percent of birds entered in contests and declared as captive-bred really are from breeding facilities. Law enforcement is getting better at spotting bird launderers.Experts were able to attest that many of the birds found at the facility were likely collected from the wild. “We’re still in a trial-and-error-phase,” Lee of the Jurong Bird Park says. She thinks the pressure on wild populations will only ease when there’s a change in mindset, and the huge demand for songbirds drops.