The lucrative bird-singing contests that are pushing species to the brink

On a Sunday afternoon in April, the main minibus terminal in Sukabumi, Indonesia, looked sleepy from the outside. But in an open space round the back, hundreds of men were gathered. Amid chatter and cigarette smoke, the air buzzed with excitement, for one of the region’s biggest bird-singing competitions was set to begin, and a motorbike was among the prizes.

As the day progressed, dozens of songbirds were brought out for their 10-minute rounds, from tiny garden sunbirds and grey-cheeked bulbuls to larger oriental magpie-robins and orange-headed thrushes. Then the emcee announced the main event — the singing contest among the highly popular, strikingly handsome white-rumped shamas — and a hush fell over the crowd.

The shamas’ owners murmured final words of encouragement and stepped away from their cages. Judges swept in with clipboards, assessing each bird for its song, ability to hold a steady tune, volume and showmanship. Soon it was down to a final two birds . . . and then “Baby White” was crowned the winner amid cheers from the crowd.

Indonesians have a long-standing culture of keeping birds as pets, and songbirds are especially popular, prized by collectors for their melodious singing and colorful plumage. “I keep songbirds as a hobby, to relieve stress and also gain a bit of money,” explained Harry Gunawan, a 78-year-old businessman and owner of 39 shamas, including the multiple prizewinning Baby White, while waiting for his new motorbike.

Gunawan’s shamas are among an estimated 66 million to 84 million caged birds that are kept across Java, the island where 56 percent of Indonesia’s population lives and one in three households owns birds. These include more than 3 million white-rumped shamas and 2 million oriental magpie-robins. Wild birds are believed to be better songsters; hence, many are trapped in forests then crammed into tiny crates, drainpipes and even plastic bottles, destined for pet markets in Jakarta, Surabaya and other big cities. Birds that survive the journey — estimates of mortality rates range from 30 to 80 percent — will spend the rest of their lives confined to cages.

This birdkeeping hobby, paired with the growing popularity of singing competitions, has already driven some species to extinction and many species — also threatened with habitat loss — are on the brink, a phenomenon dubbed “the Asian songbird crisis.”

“The silent forest is really happening,” says Agung Nur Haq, who is in charge of conservation at the Wat Gatak Songbird Rescue and Rehabilitation Center near Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

Experts warn that action must be taken quickly, or the consequences may be dire and irreversible. If nothing is done and populations can’t recuperate, says Alexander Lees, a conservation biologist at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, we may experience an “empty forest syndrome,” whereby forests appear intact and lush but are devoid of animals.

Birds in demand

The illegal bird trade is thriving elsewhere in southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. But “Indonesia’s songbird trade is one of the world’s most prolific,” says Chris Shepherd, a wildlife trade expert at the Center for Biological Diversity in Canada. “It’s terrifying.”

The biodiversity-rich nation is home to about 1,800 bird species — more than double the number found in the United States. Of those, one in five have been spotted in pet markets, including protected, endangered and endemic species (ones found nowhere else). These include the endangered black-winged myna and the Javan green magpie, of which fewer than 250 and 100 wild individuals, respectively, remain.

Estimates suggest that up to 30 percent of Indonesia’s population, some 90 million people, keeps between 164 million and 187 million wild-caught songbirds.

“There may be more birds behind bars than left in the wild,” wrote Lees in an overview of the songbird crisis in Current Biology.

The fondness of Indonesians for caged birds stems from a centuries-old belief among the Javanese, the country’s largest ethnic group, that a man is considered successful if he possesses five elements: a wife, a house, a vehicle, a ceremonial dagger and a bird. The bird symbolizes that he is in touch with his softer side, and can indulge in both work and leisure. In a 2025 study, researchers found that a bird’s singing ability was the biggest driver of demand — after that, people preferred rare, endemic or unusual birds that flaunt one’s status.

Singing competitions emerged in the 1970s as another reason to keep songbirds. These local or regional events are typically held monthly or weekly, involving up to 1,000 birds.

“The owners go home with, at the very least, tons of prestige, but more often lots of prize money, sometimes up to 10 years’ salary,” says acoustic biologist Benjamin Mirin, founder of the Creative Conservation Lab with Cornell University. Competitors also stand to win exclusive trophies, goats, motorcycles and even cars.

Mirin, who has been studying the songbird trade since 2018, says the events can be life-changing. “They’re so popular and financially beneficial that they’re accelerating the poaching of birds to the point where now the forests are falling silent.”

Unfortunately, wild-caught birds are perceived to have better song quality and a wider singing repertoire than their captive-bred counterparts. As a result, competitions “have been driving the demand in certain species,” says Serene Chng, a wildlife trade researcher at TRAFFIC, a nonprofit focused on reducing harmful and illegal trafficking of plants and animals.

An expert group formed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature has identified 52 species that are most impacted by trade in Asia. These include the straw-headed bulbul (known for its lovely duets) and the Bali starling (with its stark white plumage and electric-blue eye ring). Although Indonesian law forbids the capture and trade of more than 500 bird species, many of them songbirds, enforcement is weak, thanks to poor resources, corruption and other factors. Consequently, several species, including the Javan pied starling, are now locally extinct.

It’s hard to predict what will happen to ecosystems if songbird species are wiped out en masse in Indonesia. Birds play important ecological roles: pollinating plants, dispersing seeds and helping with insect control. The Pacific island of Guam offers a cautionary tale: It lost nearly all of its songbirds after the brown tree snake, which preyed on the birds and their eggs, was accidentally introduced after World War II. Guam’s forests shifted to what Lees has described as “a nightmarish alternative state as a spider-dominated ecosystem.” It was, he says, “pretty catastrophic.”

Indonesia is much larger and far less isolated, so “your starting conditions are not as bad,” says Lees. “But if we don’t recuperate some of those populations, then we can expect maybe similar sorts of downstream impacts.”

A sanctuary

Government agencies have had some success in tracking down wild-captured birds but are reluctant to confiscate them because they lack a place to house them. This dilemma in West Kalimantan province, a hotspot for illegal bird trade activity, led to the establishment of the Wat Gatak sanctuary by the nonprofit group Planet Indonesia.

One of its key aims is to provide suitable facilities to encourage more frequent confiscations and rescues by authorities with Indonesia’s natural resources and conservation agency, BKSDA, while ensuring the welfare of confiscated songbirds, says Abrar Ahmad, a technical advisor for terrestrial conservation at Wat Gatak.

The center, which sits on a leafy plot near the city of Pontianak, is worlds apart from the dark, cramped conditions birds endure when smuggled aboard a truck or ship. On a morning in April, visitors turn off a sleepy road and drive past the gates down a short muddy track. Dragonflies flit lazily through tall grass and a smattering of coconut, banana and durian trees sway in the distance. The facilities are modest: a small office block with light-filled aviaries.

Animals often arrive at Wat Gatak in an alarming state: Malnourished, with missing feathers, many appear fatigued or withdrawn, says Happy Ferdiansyah, Wat Gatak’s head veterinarian. Some birds have wounds on their upper beaks from gnawing on cage bars, while others — especially if they’re more territorial — suffer leg fractures from fighting with other birds in close quarters.

“A lot of them, 70 to 80 percent, die within the first two weeks. Their condition is very poor,” says Ferdiansyah.

To avoid causing the birds further stress, his team conducts only a visual inspection of the new arrivals. Those that are obviously ill are transferred to the on-site clinic for treatment. The rest are transferred to cages in quarantine.

The birds receive vitamins, nourishment (an assortment of fruits, insects, sugar syrup and so on), in addition to enjoying more space — one or two individuals typically share an oven-size cage. They remain in quarantine for at least 14 days, a critical time period when diseases such as avian influenza and Newcastle disease tend to manifest, says conservation director Haq. To test for these and other issues, Ferdiansyah and his fellow vets analyze blood and stool samples, in addition to carrying out rapid antigen tests.

Once their health has been given the all-clear, the birds are moved to rehabilitation aviaries on the opposite side of the premises. These enclosures are much more luxurious: bathroom-size, dotted with green plants, with generous views of the surroundings and sky.

Here, stimulation is key, as is getting the birds comfortable with flying again. “The aviaries have different perches and plants for the birds to hop around or to hide in the bush,” says Ferdiansyah. “We also do food enrichment like giving them live insects or putting the food in different places.”

Only some birds are fit for release. Those that appear habituated to people are not good candidates; they may continue to approach humans and might teach non-natural calls to wild birds or just fail to communicate with them. The center, for example, currently houses four locally endangered and protected common hill mynas — glossy black starlings with heavy orange bills that are renowned for their intelligence and mimicry. When I visited, the birds happily wolf-whistled, chuckled and offered the traditional Islamic greeting “As-salamu alaykum,” among smatterings of Indonesian chatter. These mynas have been at Wat Gatak for nearly a year and will remain there for the foreseeable future.

But for birds that are suitable to release, the center works with BKSDA to identify possible sites. Ideally, these would be forest lands in good condition, with abundant food and water, minimal human activity and few natural predators like civets and snakes, says Ferdiansyah. A local community that’s supportive of conservation is a plus — increasing positive outcomes, such as survival and reproduction, by 10 percent, according to a 2023 study that analyzed 305 wildlife restoration projects in 80 countries.

Once a site is determined and permits are secured, Ferdiansyah and his team transport the birds — as they did at the end of April, taking 130 birds to a nature reserve seven hours north of Pontianak. At such sites, the team carries out what’s known as a soft release, placing the birds in a large makeshift cage that allows them to acclimate to their new surroundings. After four to 10 days, the team opens the cage, allowing the birds to fly away when ready. Team members stay on for up to two weeks, tracking the birds to make sure they’re settling in problem-free.

It’s rough, sweaty work, says Ferdiansyah, but highly rewarding. The center has so far helped 348 songbirds return to the wild. The April release is their largest to date, and included some crimson sunbirds and greater green leafbirds, the latter of which is endangered. Another 705 birds were seized in December from a ship at the local port in Pontianak. Within hours, most of the birds had died. But 36 are still recovering at Wat Gatak and 22 have been rehabilitated and released.

Nearly 3,000 birds from 45 species have passed through the center’s doors since it opened in 2022. It’s proof that such a rehabilitation facility — the only one in Indonesia for the foreseeable future — can make an impact.

But given how many songbirds are in peril, its work is a drop in the ocean.

To slow the crisis, experts say it must be fought on multiple fronts, but above all, at its root: demand. It requires “thinking about how we can shift attitudes and behaviors to reduce pressure on wild populations,” says Lees, who explores such measures in a look at the state of the world’s birds in the 2022 Annual Review of Environment and Resources. In 2023, the Wat Gatak team carried out a campaign across some of the city’s billboards, discouraging people from joining songbird competitions. And in the coming months, they’ll host a series of behavior-change workshops in two towns close to forests where birds are commonly poached and competitions are growing in number.

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Shifting the needle will not be easy. Indonesia’s songbird hobbyist groups are powerful — in 2018, they successfully petitioned to have five species downlisted from the national list of protected birds. Plus, government officials often take part in competitions themselves. In 2018, for example, then-president Joko Widodo presided over the President’s Cup, one of Indonesia’s most prestigious songbird competitions, even entering his own white-rumped shama.

Yet change is possible: Ferdiansyah himself kept four songbirds as a kid because they “sounded very nice” and he thought he could make them happy. But when he entered veterinary college, he realized the error of his ways and set the birds free.