Indonesia is approaching extinction of songbirds in the wild because of the huge demand for them as tokens of status, the money to be made trafficking in them, and the perverse incentives from singing competitions. Victoria Gill at the BBC has the heartbreaking story: Sold for a Song.
...No-one has reported seeing a wild Javan green magpie in its natural habitat for several years. Conservationists think the number remaining in the wild is vanishingly small - perhaps as low as 50.
The bird - a tropical relative of the crows and magpies so familiar across much of Europe - is now a poster child for what conservationists are calling the songbird crisis.
Almost 50 different species of songbirds are native to Indonesia.
They used to be a common sight, but now they are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
For 19 of those species, the sad irony of their slide towards oblivion is that they are trapped in the wild to supply markets, because there is a national adoration, an obsession, with pet songbirds.
They are a status symbol - even a cultural requirement.
Owning a caged bird, for some, is a high-value ticket to prizes worth tens of thousands of US dollars - the top prize for national bird-singing competitions.
It’s a long article, but it’s filled with photos and interviews with people involved in the ongoing trade. It’s a tough situation, because there are big cultural incentives to keep songbirds. At this point, the chief hope for preserving these species in the wild is to shift the trade to birds bred in captivity. But it’s still an uphill fight. And lest we get condescending, America has its own history of even less forgivable exploitation of birds.
Habitat destruction and encroachment is threatening all wild species, not just birds. Growing affluence and disposable income means there’s a growing market for more birds. There’s a lack of safe spaces for the birds in the wild, and a shortage of resources to aid in their recovery. Education of the next generation offers some hope of getting people to understand the problem.
But it’s going to be an effort that will have to go on forever.
Here’s a video of one of the most endangered species, the Javan Green Magpie. This is from a captive breeding program going on at the Chester Zoo in England. They have links to efforts to save the songbirds.