Wild birds rescued from Empress Market

KARACHI: 

At least 10 wild birds of different species were confiscated by the Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD) from Empress Market on Wednesday. Officials from the department later released the birds in their habitats.

SWD game inspector Azeem Kachhelo told The Express Tribune that their team seized 10 birds, including two barn owls, five seagulls and three falcons from the market during a routine visit. “The poacher managed to escape when we reached the spot,” he added.

“The trade of wild birds is completely banned,” said the official, adding that those involved in the illegal trade knew that the provincial government had imposed a ban on the sale and purchase of all such birds. “The poachers know they cannot sell trapped birds so easily.”

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Better protection sought for Thailand's helmeted hornbill

OCTOBER 11, 2019

by Busaba Sivasomboon

Time is running out for Thailand's dwindling population of helmeted hornbills thanks to poaching of the exotic birds for the ivory-like casques atop their big red and yellow beaks.

The species, known by the scientific name Rhinoplax vigil, is listed as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

"Currently, there are fewer than 100 of the birds in Thailand's forests," says Dr. Kaset Sutacha, chairman of the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand and head of the Exotic Pet and Wildlife Clinic at Kasetsart University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Bangkok.

"Critically endangered" is just a step away from "extinct in the wild" and two steps from becoming considered "extinct."

Demand from China is helping drive demand for their distinctive casques, "helmets" in French, which males deploy in battle. The material is used to make rings, pendants and other decorative items.

Worries over the species' survival intensified after the wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC recently posted photos online of dozens of skulls of the endangered avian for sale.

A campaign on the change.org online petition site is pressuring the government to add the bird to Thailand's Wildlife Preservation List as soon as possible. It now lists 19 other species.

Read on 

Miami's Wild Parrots Are Being Poached, and There's No Law to Protect Them

MOLLY MINTA | JUNE 5, 2018 | 8:00AM

Every morning for the past 25 years, a flock of blue and gold macaws has flown into Daria Feinstein’s backyard in Coral Gables. They swoop between surrounding homes and over boats docked on the nearby canal to perch on Feinstein’s royal palms and poincianas or maybe have a bite to eat on the artificial nests she’s set up for them.

In 2010, one of Feinstein’s favorite wild parrots, Scruffy — an old blue and gold macaw she named for the bird's frayed feathers — began showing up in her yard with a youngster she named Fuzzy for a fluff of red fuzz on his head.

 “He was a character,” Feinstein says of Fuzzy. The baby would always disobey Scruffy and swoop down to eat before he was given the signal. “I was afraid he’d never get airborne because he’d eat so much.”

A year later, Fuzzy disappeared. Feinstein thought perhaps he’d grown up and found a mate in a different place. "But," she says, “one by one, more birds just kept disappearing.”

Feinstein began to hear similar reports from fellow members of the Bird Lovers Club, a nonprofit dedicated to South Florida’s avian population. A professor at the University of Miami told her someone came on campus with a net gun and took six birds. One of the other feeders in her neighborhood said the macaws were flying at night. “Parrots don’t fly after nightfall,” Feinstein says. “Something scared them.”

Feinstein realized the parrots were being poached. Since 2010, she says, the number of blue and gold macaws in her neighborhood has gone from 44 to 12 because of legal poaching. Parrots can sell for thousands of dollars each on local and national websites, which is significant motivation for poachers.

Read on  

UAE warns against poaching rare bird

Violating hunting ban on stone-curlew can result in six-month prison term, fine

Published: 15:50 January 25, 2018

Dubai: The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment is warning against using electronic devices that mimic bird calls to lure stone-curlew in the UAE.

The move follows an increase in poaching of the rare bird species during its winter migration through the country that poses a threat to its reproduction, the ministry said on Thursday.

The warning is in line with UAE legislation protecting the conservation of rare and endangered bird species.

Sultan Alwan, assistant undersecretary for the Regions Sector at the ministry, said: “The ministry has recently noticed that some people use electronic devices that imitate the voice of the stone-curlew to attract large numbers of these birds over long distances in order to catch them easily.”

Read more  

Poaching pushes waterfowl species to brink of extinction

Wed, Sep 13 2017 12:16:24 PM

By Vishal Gulati

New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS): Crossing national and international boundaries, millions of migratory birds descend on India to avoid the extreme winter chill in their native habitats. Many of them never return to their breeding grounds, say ornithologists.

The reason: They are exposed, largely in non-protected wetlands, to illegal killing and trade.

Scientists, mainly from Mysuru's Nature Conservation Foundation, during their fieldwork in 27 wetlands in Tamil Nadu's Kanchipuram district, estimate that at least 1,700 waterbirds, mainly large- and medium-sized, are hunted every year in each wetland. They say hunting is widespread from December to April, the peak season of winter migrants.

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Collateral damage - ivory poachers poison over 90 Critically Endangered vultures

Hundreds of vulture researchers and conservation managers have been engaging with the VCF and other organisations to prepare the Vulture Multi-Species Action Plan - a seminal piece of work commissioned by the Raptors MoU of the Convention for Migratory Species (CMS), and that aims to plan and guide conservation policy and actions for the next decade on the conservation of the 15 old world vultures. The main message that has resonated across the many meetings and workshops held is one – poison is the biggest threat to vultures worldwide. 

This once again came to light yesterday [22 May] – ironically, when we are celebrating the International biodiversity day – when news that at least 94 African White-backed Vultures were found dead around a poisoned elephant carcass on the Zimbabwe-Mozambican border, one more victim of the rampant poaching for ivory in that part of the world. 

The vultures were victims of what experts call “sentinel poisoning” – they were killed with a potent poison so as not to alert wildlife enforcement brigades about the presence of the carcass, so that poachers could hack the ivory out without being detected. 

The scene has been properly investigated and is being decontaminated to prevent any additional poisoning from taking place. 

This is yet another devastating blow to African vultures – and a sign that the African vulture crisis continues unabated. Most of African vulture species are now either critically endangered or endangered. This poisoning incident will have even bigger consequences as the breeding season for African white-backs is now starting in that part of the world – many of the dead birds would be adult birds attending a nest. 

At least two of the killed birds were wing-tagged, originating in South Africa and Swaziland – another reminder that conservation knowns no borders and needs concerted international action – such as the vulture MSAP and events like´ International Biodiversity Day.

Vulture Conservation Foundation
23 May 2017 

Source

Rare birds found dead

By Express News Service | Published: 25th December 2016 02:39 AM |

Last Updated: 25th December 2016 05:09 AM | A+A A- |

DHENKANAL: Rare birds were found dead on the banks of river Brahmani leading to apprehension of their poaching during the migratory season.

Social activists led by wildlife lover Rajendra Panigrahi informed forest department and wildlife officials about the finding of bird carcasses during the last four days.

The team also accompanied forest officials to the spot. Most of the birds were spotted on the riverbed near Rankiya village close to Budhibili village of Brahmani river. With the sweet water turtles laying eggs on the river bank in large numbers, this has led to concern among the wildlife lovers .

Divisional Forest Officer, PK Sahoo, said we are planning to intensify patrolling on the river side to check more deaths and bird census is set to start from January 4.


Source

Rare bird being driven to extinction by poaching for its 'red ivory' bill

Helmeted hornbills’ solid red beak sells for several times the price of elephant ivory due to soaring demand on the Chinese black market

Damian Carrington, Johannesburg

Wednesday 28 September 2016 08.48 BST Last modified on Wednesday 28 September 2016 22.00 BST 

A virtually unknown ivory poaching crisis is rapidly driving one of the world’s most spectacular birds to extinction, a global wildlife summit has heard.

The helmeted hornbill, found mainly in Indonesia, Borneo and Thailand, has a solid red beak which sells as a “red ivory” on the black market, for several times the price of elephant ivory. The huge birds have been caught for centuries for their tail feathers, prized by local communities, but since 2011 poaching has soared to feed Chinese demand for carving ivory, even though the trade is illegal, sending the hornbill into a death spiral.

 

The bird, which can have a wingspan of 2m, was officially listed as “near threatened” in 2012 but within three years had plunged three danger levels to “critically endangered”. Over 2,100 heads were seized in Indonesia and China in the two years up to August 2014, according to the Species Survival Network, and some estimates suggest 6,000 a year are killed.

The government of Indonesia set out the hornbill’s plight on Tuesday in front of the 182 nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cites had already given its highest level protection to the hornbill in 1975 – all trade is illegal. But Indonesia demanded more international action to break the crime syndicates that smuggle the beak ivory, known as casques.

“The high price reached by the casques motivates hunters to kill all the hornbills they cross, including juvenile birds,” said the Cites delegate from Indonesia, where police have arrested and prosecuted 15 hornbill traffickers since 2015. “The illegal trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn has been well documented, however, the illegal trade in casques has been little known. If this highly profitable illegal trade is not curbed, the existence of this majestic species is in danger and is likely to lead to extinction.”

“It is in huge trouble,” said Elizabeth Bennett, from the Wildlife Conservation Society. “They have this fabulous call, that ends in cackling laughter, which you can hear from a mile away. But they are incredibly easy to hunt because of that call: it must be the most spectacular bird call on the planet.”

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