After spending five years working at wildlife sanctuaries in West Africa and Asia, I am excited to now be working with Born Free USA, where I hope to continue to work towards keeping wildlife in the wild. On my first day here, I was introduced to a children’s book, Lucky the Lorikeet, which is based on a true story of a rainbow lorikeet who was captured and sold as a pet to a young boy named Kersen. After seeing a flock of wild lorikeets, Kersen came to learn that birds are not meant to be kept as pets, and gave Lucky the chance of freedom.
As I was reading Lucky’s story, I was taken back to the streets of Indonesia, where I worked in 2016 with an orangutan conservation organization. In front of nearly every home hangs a small cage, containing one of many species of endemic song birds. Despite Indonesia ranking as the fourth most diverse country in the world in bird species, which number at more than 1,700, these species are quickly falling victim to the pet trade, which runs rampant through the country. In major cities, such as Jakarta, Medan, and Surabaya, chained or caged birds can be seen hanging in front of homes and schools, stacked in rows further than the eye can see in shops and markets, and tied to the back of motorbikes, being transported through the busy city. Although I am no stranger to the illegal pet trade, I was absolutely shocked to see, on a daily basis, how thousands of beautiful wild birds were being captured and sentenced to life in a small cage.
In Indonesia, birds are the most popular pet, with bird-keeping having a strong cultural root: according to a popular Javan saying, a man must have a house, a wife, a horse, a dagger, and a bird to be considered a real man. Traveling through almost any city, you will come across hundreds of species of birds stuffed into cages, ranging in price from mere pennies to thousands of dollars. According to a 2005 study, more than 2.6 million birds were held as pets in the five largest Indonesian cities – a number that likely has grown significantly in the last 13 years.
Although Indonesia does have wildlife laws and many bird species are protected on paper, law enforcement is nearly non-existent, enabling the illegal trade to not only continue, but grow. The country has a total of 155 globally threatened species, including the Rufous-fronted Laughingthrush (pictured above), a species endemic to the island of Java, which went from near-threatened to critically endangered in just four years. Perhaps just as frightening, this immense demand for songbirds has caused poaching to spread into neighboring countries, such as Malaysia and Thailand, in order to supply Indonesia’s markets, decimating these bird populations, as well.
While I walked through the forests of Sumatra, Indonesia, following orangutans, I heard an eerie sound: silence. Forests that were once filled with hundreds of species of birds and now empty of their songs. Instead, these songs can only be heard on the streets and in the markets of crowded cities, coming from individuals who have been robbed of their freedom. The enormity of Indonesia’s illegal bird trade, combined with ever-increasing rates of habitat loss, means that the future for these beautiful songbirds is bleak. Law enforcement officials must take action, conservation groups must get involved, and we must never let our voices be silenced. Like Lucky, all wildlife deserve to be free.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
P.S. Click here to purchase your copy of Lucky the Lorikeet!