Indonesia’s Devastating Wild Bird Trade

Indonesia’s massive bird trade is especially rooted in Javan traditions

Bird-keeping is a popular pastime in Indonesia, and nowhere more so than amongst the people of Java. It has deep cultural roots, and traditionally a kukilo (bird in the Javanese language) was one of the five things a Javanese man should pursue or obtain in order to live a fulfilling life (the others being garwo, a wife, curigo, a Javanese dagger, wismo, a house or a place to live, and turonggo, a horse, as a means of transportation). A kukilo represents having a hobby, and it often takes the form of owning a perkutut (Zebra Dove Geopelia striata) or a kutilang (Sooty-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus aurigaster) but also a wide range of other birds

Records of four Critically Endangered songbirds in the markets of Java suggest domestic trade is a major impediment to their conservation

Keeping caged songbirds is a cen­turies-old tradition in Indonesia with deep cultural roots and significance, especially among the Javanese people. Since the 1970s, bird-singing contests have become increasingly popular, driv­ing a boom in bird-keeping. Researchers estimate 70 million birds are being kept across 12 million homes in Java alone. Most of these birds come from the wild. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, at least 43 songbird species are at increased risk of extinction from trade pressures across Southeast Asia.

Already faced with threats from habitat loss and climate change, birds like the White-rumped Shama (known locally as Murai Batu) are disappearing from much of their native ranges, leav­ing behind silence in Indonesian forests that were once filled with symphonies of life. Researchers and media organi­zations have dubbed this phenomenon the “Asian Songbird Trade Crisis.”

Inside The Indonesian Songbird Trade

Pramuka bird market, Jakarta – largest wildlife market in southeast Asia

Article by Stephen Nash on Pramuka in the early 1990s and in 1995 includes:

While several hundred parrots of a dozen or more species could always be found, parrots and other CITES-listed species were always greatly outnumbered by non-CITES birds. This is because the Pramuka market serves the local demand, and none of the species on display are for the export market (most parrots are usually exported).
Once on a typical day I counted all the wild songbirds I saw – and came up with 20,500 birds of 77 species! That, on average, it takes about two weeks for traders to sell their stock gives some idea of the turnover: over 40,000 wild birds a month, only to local buyers.
During a few hours’ walk around the market it was not unusual to record 90 or more species, and no matter how many times I visited this market, even on several days in a row, there would always be something I had not seen there before.
The surveys turned up about 300 local species, a truly amazing variety.
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The capture and internal transport of birds are supposed to be regulated by a system of capture and transport permits, and many species are totally protected from capture. However, the system is not applied and few if any of the birds in the Pramuka market have been “legally” captured.

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One contributor to the lack of birds in the countryside is the huge trade in “throwaway” birds, ones bought as novelty items to impress friends and neighbors, and that will quickly die in captivity. 

Pramuka – The Animal Market from Hell

Video I shot of a walk through the market in August 2024:

Songbird contests stimulate bird keeping

The people of Java, Indonesia’s most populous island, have kept songbirds, a symbol of Javanese knighthood, for centuries. But contests started to become common in the 1980s and 1990s, when enthusiasts began replacing imported zebra doves, whose vocalisations are fixed, with native passerines, which could be trained. This opened up the tournaments to anyone with the time and patience to coach their pets.

Ownership of songbirds in Java has doubled over the past decade. There are between 66m and 84m birds in captivity on the island. Nearly a third of households keep them, according to a survey conducted in 2018. Breeders cannot keep up with demand, and in any case it is wild birds that are prized for their supposedly superior vocal cords. So many birds have been whisked from the forests of Indonesia that more than a dozen species are in danger of extinction. 

Traders are now ransacking Malaysia and Thailand, too. The Indonesian government is aware of the problem and forbids trade in protected species. In 2018 hundreds of birds, including songbirds, were added to that list. Yet traders exploit legal loopholes and patchy enforcement. As many as 1m birds were smuggled out of the forests of Sumatra, a big Indonesian island, in 2019, according to one estimate. Indonesia’s love of birdsong threatens the songbirds themselves.

Songbird competitions are a popular pastime in Indonesia
Owners win prizes and socialise, but their hobby is endangering the birds

President Joko Widodo Boosts the Bird Trade

Joko Widodo – also known as Jokowi, Indonesia’s president from 2014 to 2024, has done much to boost the bird trade, partly through being a keen participant in contests involving caged songbirds, and through making very public purchases of birds from Pramuka bird market.

For instance, as reported in an article in January 2015:

On Saturday, photos were posted on President Joko Widodo’s official Facebook account of Jokowi setting hundred of birds free in Bogor’s Botanical Gardens. In the message accompanying the photos, Jokowi says that on Saturday he bought 190 birds from Central Jakarta’s Pramuka Bird Market and released them into the gardens so that they could be protected and thrive. He also notes that removing birds and fish from their natural habitats can upset an ecosystem’s natural balance.

The President’s words must have struck many environmentalists as either ironic or hypocritical, given the fact that the Pramuka Bird Market is infamous for its illegal trade in endangered and protected birds as well as other wildlife.

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If the President really wants to make a statement about protecting wildlife in Indonesia, he should make sure that the wildlife he and other customers of Jakarta’s bird markets purchase have been obtained legally and in a way that supports the sustainability of our country’s natural ecosystems.

Jokowi supports protecting Indonesian wildlife by buying 190 birds from market infamous for illegal wildlife trade

The next month, Jokowi was at it again:

Jokowi bought 300 birds, including starlings and robins, as well as squirrels, which he plans to release at the Presidential Palace on Jl. Merdeka Utara in Central Jakarta and the Bogor Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java.

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“The birds will be released in the large parks at the two Presidential Palaces in Jakarta and Bogor,” he said.

Jokowi buys 300 birds at Pramuka bird market

One obvious thing to note here: if not for the bird trade, the grounds of those palaces – and nearby areas – would abound with wild birds. No need for such an ill-considered effort.

To some Indonesians, “conservation” means imprison birds and never mind the devastation in the wild

In Indonesia, not all definitions of conservation are the same.

“A lot of bird-keepers think it’s better for us to catch birds so they can be ‘safe,’” says Asman Purwanto, a lifelong birder and executive director of the conser­vation organization BISA Indonesia. “But then the birds cannot provide any benefits to the environment. They cannot breed, reproduce, or contribute to the ecosystem. This is still something the public needs to learn.”

Inside The Indonesian Songbird Trade

The same article notes that “one of bird-keeping’s most outspoken advo­cates is Gusti Bendara Pangeran Haryo Prabukusumo—typically addressed as Gusti Prabu, a member of Yogyakarta’s royal family and brother to the Sultan and Governor of Yogyakarta,” – and reports an astonishing, absurd and baseless claim by him:

“I told the Ministry of Forestry not to follow the world’s rules,” Gusti Prabu recounts. “People need to see what it’s like in Indonesia. If you leave birds alone in the wild, they just die.

Inside The Indonesian Songbird Trade

What a preposterous claim!

Firstly, how does Gusti Prabu think birds came to exist on Java, for people to trap them, in the first place? Then, I’ve been to various parts of Java and elsewhere in Indonesia, and seen many places with wonderful habitats where birds could thrive, but are too often scarce or about absent because of trapping.

Gusti Prabu is also quoted trying to tell of the economic benefits of the bird trade, but it’s just bullshit really; relatively few people making real money, and even trappers are quoted as saying it’s getting harder to find birds to catch. Meanwhile, what of the economic losses, such as losing the ecosystem services birds provide, including eating a multitude of pests.

While an interesting test for Gusti Prabu and other caged birds proponents: try opening the cage doors, and see if the birds within stay put, or fly off in a dash to freedom.

Bird trapping severely depleting wild populations

“We’ve been hunting birds since we were kids, and sometimes we would catch dozens of birds every day. But now we’ve mostly stopped so the birds can recover,” Candra explains. “The forest has already become very quiet.”

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As wild bird populations dwindle and even become extirpated on Java, smuggling networks are emerging to feed demand by bringing in birds from other islands in Indonesia like Sulawesi, Borneo, Sumatra, and West Papua, as well as other nations including Vietnam, China, and Thailand. For at least 30 years, Indonesia has been at the center of an insatiable and vast bird-trade network involving dozens of countries around the world.

Inside The Indonesian Songbird Trade

I’ve come across something similar on Bacan, an island in eastern Indonesia. Walked through some wonderful forest with a father and son who had trapped birds – and butterflies for years [and still seemed very poor]. It seemed about birdless, not even birds calling; and I remarked they and some fellow villagers had trapped all the birds, which they agreed with. A fairly close by area of more protected forest was, by contrast, “birdy” – showing the forest can support birds, unlike Gusti Prabu’s nutty notion.

A paper documents the pressures trade exerts on three Critically Endangered and one Endangered songbird species: Bali Mynah, Black-winged Myna [which was Critically Endangered as the paper was published], Javan Green Magpie and Rufous-fronted Laughingthrush: Records of four Critically Endangered songbirds in the markets of Java suggest domestic trade is a major impediment to their conservation.

Harry Potter prompted interest in owl keeping

In the past, owls were offered only in very small numbers in these bird markets but since the release of the Harry Potter series in Indonesia in the early 2000s their popularity as pets has increased. Whereas in the past owls were collective known as Burung Hantu (“Ghost birds”), in the bird markets they are now commonly referred to as Burung Harry Potter (“Harry Potter birds”). 

The Harry Potter effect: The rise in trade of owls as pets in Java and Bali, Indonesia

I wrote to Harry Potter author JK Rowling some years ago, about this issue, suggesting she might support some sort of measures to counter this trade. Received a letter back, from an assistant perhaps; nothing doing.

Bird trade escapees causing trouble in new places

Birds can also escape from the trade, and perhaps establish populations in places where they never occurred before.

A paper covers examples: The Role of the Songbird Trade as an Anthropogenic Vector in the Spread of Invasive Non-Native Mynas in Indonesia.