Project Bird Watch and Indonesian Parrot Project
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Flying Moluccan cockatoo photos courtesy of Andrew Bradnan)

DYING IN THE “SAFETY” NET (Part One)
Dr Stewart Metz

(For Part Two, please go to Dying in the Safety Net: Part Two)

Most conservationists would probably agree that the bans on the importation of wild-caught birds, which have been recently imposed by many nations only under threat of a pandemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), are a good thing– both for people and for wild birds. The majority would likely also agree that such trade bans should be made permanent, and that the wildlife markets dealing in endangered species, such as the infamous pasar burung of Indonesia, should be closed down for once and for all.

The Secretariat of CITES argued against such a ban, citing concerns that it would drive the trade underground and hurt impoverished stakeholders who carry out much of the bird trapping. However, such thinking is effectively refuted in a statement issued by the Species Survival Network (www.ssn.org/Documents/news_articles_H5N1_EN).

At the same time as legal importation of wild-caught birds is being restricted, collaborative efforts to interdict the illegal trade in wild birds are being mounted on a number of fronts. These include several taskforces of the members of ASEAN, a cooperative initiative between the governments of the Philippines and Indonesia, and a US-led global Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (to name a few). Such efforts should reduce the smuggling of endangered species; minimize the possibility of the introduction of HPAI (which is just as likely to thrive in the unhygienic and crowded, mixed-species conditions of the smuggler’s den as in those of live bird markets); and decrease the entry of other, albeit non-zoonotic diseases into the pet bird market, such as psittacine beak and feather disease, Newcastle disease, and herpesvirus.

So far, so good. Except that lost in this equation seems to be any consideration of the fate of the birds caught in this dragnet.

In fact, there has been trouble on this front for quite some time, with psittacines representing the most dramatic case in point.

In Brussels in 2004, several hundred parrots were put down in one quarantine center (and 450 birds in another center) merely because they had passed through the same customs inspection center during the “at-risk period” when HPAI-positive hawk-eagles had passed through. However, all tests for the parrots subsequently returned negative for H5N1. Also in 2004, 28 smuggled Indonesian Cockatoos (Cacatua moluccensis and Probosciger aterrimus; both on Appendix 1 of CITES) were confiscated at CKS Airport in Taipei. Although samples for avian influenza testing were obtained, the birds were immediately ‘culled’ without waiting for the test results. The next day, tests on all 28 returned negative. Quarantine was not even considered.

A similar fate befell 500 smuggled Indonesian parrots, probably cockatoos (species uncertain) confiscated by the authorities of the Philippines in 2005. They were apparently immediately sacrificed without further considering the use of either quarantine or laboratory testing for the presence of avian influenza. 346 lovebirds from Europe were killed in the Philippines merely because the plane that shipped the birds had made a brief stopover at Bangkok airport and HPAI might somehow have contaminated the shipment. I have been told by an authority who deals with the illegal wildlife trade on a daily basis that these examples are only “the tip-of-the-iceberg.”

How sad an irony it is that wildlife officers and customs agents - the last lines of defense for these beleaguered birds against their captors - have instead at times become their executioners! And from the point of view of conservation, such culling would seem to at least partially vitiate the purpose of anti-poaching effects.

I don’t know what breeders of wild-caught parrots, and of other birds, will be doing with their “stock” when they are no longer able to sell them overseas but it seems unlikely that they will continue to pour money into breeding operations which are no longer profitable. The likely outcome will either be the unfortunate death of more birds, or attempts to sell these wild-caught breeder birds at low cost. Even if they are able to find local buyers, these birds are unlikely to make good pets, and the bargain-buyer is unlikely to make the most compassionate owner.

In Indonesia, euthanasia is the solution of last resort in veterinary practice, and requires the approval of two veterinarians and an official of the Forestry Department. Confiscated parrots are not culled but are often kept in the facilities of the confiscating officers–either the KSDA (Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) or the Department of Forestry.

However, these departments lack the funding, expertise and facilities to properly care for psittacines and in my experience in Central Maluku, the mortality rate among confiscated parrots is extremely high. Once again, the wild birds, victims as “innocent bystanders” of either a virus or of illegal trade, are caught up and die in what should be their safety net!

Ironically, there has yet to be described (to my knowledge) a single case of a large and/or endangered parrot contracting H5N1–indeed, we now know that the Pionus which caused all the furor in the U.K. was probably ‘blameless’ in this regard.

Can anything be done for these birds?

Certainly all of them should be quarantined and tested for HPAI (as is routinely done in the US and UK). None should be culled as a “knee-jerk” reflex, merely because it is more convenient to vilify them and kill them immediately, than to follow a rational, scientific protocol befitting not only living creatures, but in most cases, endangered species. In addition, I maintain that many of them should and could be repatriated to their country of origin and some even released back into the wild. That proposal is bound to raise some eyebrows among conservationists. I will address the “Why” and the “How” in Part Two…

Stewart Metz, M.D.
Director
The Indonesian Parrot Project
www.indonesian-parrot-project.org

The Indonesian Parrot Project is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to wild Indonesian parrot conservation.