As British television personality Michael Portillo went to air on SBS with his latest travel adventure in Indonesia, something was missing.
The armchair bird-watcher looks and listens for birds when locations near and far are on the screen but beyond the commentary by Portillo on his Great Asia Rail Journey there was an eerie silence in the rainforest that formed his backdrop.
In one corner of the world it appeared Rachel Carson’s frightening prophecy of a “silent spring” in her 1960s book of the same name had become a reality.
In the program, Portillo was travelling the rail routes of Indonesia’s most populous island, Java, and at each whistle-stop I strained to hear the song of native birds. There were none.
Portillo didn’t have to spell it out – maybe it’s more the province of wildlife documentary-maker David Attenborough – but the tragic fact is songbirds are becoming rarer and rarer across Java and some of the other Indonesian islands, like Bali.
There are in fact more captive birds in Java – like the endangered Javan pied starling – than songbirds flying through the treetops and across the rice paddies, according to BirdLife International.
In most developing countries it is forest clearance to create more agricultural land that is the chief threat to birds and other forms of wildlife. In Java and the rest of Indonesia it is the wild-bird trade which is the main threat to songbirds.
Ironically, Indonesians love songbirds but this passion for the songsters is driving multiple native species to the brink of extinction. The people of Java do not merely keep the birds as pets, the songbirds are entered in song competitions. Keeping pet birds is a long-established Indonesian hobby, a cultural mainstay which is making conservation initiatives difficult.
Besides being a joy to listen to, birds can also offer Indonesians financial gains, says BirdLife International’s extinctions expert, Roger Safford. Songbirds are entered in lucrative songbird competitions to establish which bird can sing loudest and longest: “These are big business, providing substantial employment.”
Forest poachers catch birds, which are sold via successive traders to vendors at major markets Java-wide. At these, serried ranks of colourful cages are crammed with birds before they reach their final owners.
Bird-keeping is as commonplace in much of Indonesia as keeping cats and dogs is in Australia. Researchers estimate that one in three Javan households keeps caged birds, the collective total reaching 66–84 million – one for every two islanders.
Conservation efforts are aimed at persuading bird fanciers to switch from wild-caught birds to captive-bred ones.
Across Asia, 44 species are under threat from the songbird trade, 19 in Indonesia. Nine of these Indonesian species are critically endangered. In the case of the Javan pied starling, the number of wild birds – about 50 – is dwarfed by the 1.1 million in captivity.