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.

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Damning evidence of dam's impacts on rainforest birds

A 30-year old hydroelectric project in Thailand has caused rainforest bird communities to collapse

Date:December 7, 2018

Source:Wildlife Conservation Society

A study by an international team of conservation scientists found that a dam built in Thailand 31 years ago has caused the local bird population to collapse.

Reporting in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, the authors found that 24 square miles (61 square kilometers) of dry forest now surrounds the reservoir. The 63 square-mile (165 square kilometer) Chiew Larn Reservoir inundated southern Thailand's largest remaining tract of moist lowland rainforest -- a unique habitat that was rich in biodiversity. The area surrounding the reservoir is now permanently degraded due to deforestation and human-caused fire, and the bird community is thus dominated by a handful of disturbance-tolerant species. Meanwhile, forest-dependent birds have largely vanished, as the once-contiguous rainforest has been replaced by isolated habitat patches overgrown with bamboo and vines.

More than half the birds recorded by the research team, led by Greg Irving and co-supervised by WCS's Antony Lynam and ornithologist Philip Round, now consist of just a handful of wide-ranging and disturbance-tolerant species. These birds include the pin-striped tit babbler (Mixornis gularis) and dark-necked tailorbird (Orthotomus atrogularis), along with bamboo-loving species such as the bamboo bush-warbler (Abroscopus superciliaris), Indochinese blue-flycatcher (Cyornis sumatrensis), bamboo woodpecker (Gecinulus viridis) and white-browed piculet (Sasia ochracea).

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An international plan to save the Helmeted Hornbill

31 Aug 2018

Illegal hunting and trade has brought this unique hornbill to the brink. But an new ten-year, range-wide conservation plan will ensure the Helmeted Hornbill has a future outside of China's markets

Conservation organizations from across the world have developed an ambitious ten-year plan to save a Critically Endangered bird that has been driven to the brink of extinction by illegal hunting.

The Helmeted Hornbill Rhinoplax vigil has declined sharply in recent years, following soaring demand for its striking red casque – which uniquely among hornbills is solid, and can be carved into decorative artifacts, for which there is huge demand in China.

Currently, a single casque can fetch more than $1,000 on the black market, a price higher than that of ivory. Organized crime networks became involved in the bird’s hunting and trade, and as a result of this unsustainable demand, the Helmeted Hornbill’s numbers have plummeted such that the species was uplisted from Near Threatened to Critically Endangered (the highest possible category) in our 2015 reassessment of the species’ extinction risk.

The Hornbill is found in the forests of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Brunei. It is seldom seen, but once spotted is very distinctive, with a wrinkled naked throat, yellow beak, and large red casque for which it is both named and hunted.

Helmeted Hornbills are largely threatened in their habitat by local hunters, who are recruited by organized criminal gangs. In their effort to secure a Helmeted Hornbill, these hunters will shoot down nearly every large hornbill, hoping that it will turn out to be Helmeted. Once killed, the Hornbill heads are smuggled to ports in Java, Kalimantan and Sumatra, and are then most likely transported to  Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

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Farmers choose solar farm over our endangered spoon-billed sandpipers

Phuket Gazette - July 29, 2016 | 11:57 AM

SAMUT SAKHON: Given a choice between renewable energy and wildlife conservation, the people of Samut Sakhon have opted for a solar farm.

Tractors and trucks loaded with soil were seen busily working in a field yesterday to fill a salt basin in Ban Khok Kham, where a three-megawatt solar farm project, costing about 180 million baht, is set to start pumping out power in December.

Conservationists have protested that the site chosen for the solar farm is an important wetland, and that its destruction would threaten the very existence of the endangered spoon-billed sandpiper.

The owner of the 42 rai, Wai Rodtayoi, said farmers like him are not worried about the impact on the birds because leasing the land to the solar farm operator is more profitable than conservation.

"We don't get anything from the birds. They just come here to catch fish and we don't earn anything from that,” Mr Wai said. “We cannot hunt them because it is against the law and they also eat the fish from our ponds. We prefer the solar farm over the birds because we will receive a substantial amount of cash from it.”

According to Sunseap Energy Co Ltd, the land owner will receive over 1 million baht (approx US$ 28,000) per year for the 25-year lease.

Mr Wai said that the traditional occupation of producing salt in the area was no longer sustainable as the price of salt is now only about 1,000 baht per 1.5 tonnes.

“We are all too old to continue panning for salt and the new generation is not interested in that work either,” Mr Wai said. “I think it would be better to use this land for producing solar power because it is clean, instead of us selling the land for farming or for building factories, as that would cause more ecological damage," he said.

However, prominent bird watcher and Mahidol University lecturer Philip Round said the salt basin in Ban Khok Kham is an essential wetland for migratory birds, and one of the last two habitats in the Bay of Bangkok area for the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper.

“This basin is a critical area for the birds,” Mr Round said. “It is one of only two areas in Thailand that are declared as a reserve site for shore birds under the East Asian-Australian Flyway Partnership, of which the Thai government is also a signatory.”

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Surprise last chance for the critically endangered bird in Thailand

PRATCH RUJIVANAROM

THE NATION April 25, 2016 1:00 am

ONE LAST chance has unexpectedly emerged to rescue the critically endangered Gurney’s Pitta from extinction in Thailand, with the bird lovers’ community urging all stakeholders to come up with a solution for mating the final remaining couple in the Kingdom.

A female bird has been found in Krabi for the first time since 2012, after the species was suspected of having gone extinct in Thailand. 

Meanwhile, it was also revealed that three male birds have been raised in captivity at Klong Saeng Wildlife Research Centre in Surat Thani - news that sparked new hope of saving the population of a nearly extinct species.

Last Thursday, the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand (BCST) released a statement after first spotting the female Gurney's Pitta in Krabi, demanding that the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department (DNP), academics and experts discuss an acceptable plan for all parties to preserve the species in Thailand.

Dr Boripat Siriaroonrat, president of the BCST, said the focus should be on finding the best solution to reproduce the Gurney's Pitta population by utilising the ideas and specialities of all stakeholders - not just the DNP.

"We have had problems in preserving the Gurney's Pitta population in the wild, as since 1986 there have been around 100 birds at Khaophra Bangkram Wildlife Sanctuary in Krabi, but in 2012 only one female bird had been found in the area," Boripat said.

"We already have Gurney's Pitta conservation plans, but we need to discuss them to reach a consensus, so we can really implement them," he added.

Critically endangered in Thailand and listed as endangered in the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species, the Gurney's Pitta is only found in Thailand in the lowland rainforest of Krabi. 

The bird's population has been in gradual decline over the past decades due to their natural habitat suffering serious encroachment and conversion into palm-oil and rubber plantations.

Kriangsak Sribuarod, head of Klong Saeng Wildlife Research Centre, who also studied the Gurney's Pitta population-recovery plan, said he had raised three male birds at the research centre as part of the trial to breed the bird in captivity.

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Phl allows live bird imports from Thailand

By Czeriza Valencia (The Philippine Star) | Updated August 30, 2014 - 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) has cleared the Bangkok Bird Park Breeding and Research Center (BBPBRC) as a source of live captive birds, having been confirmed free from avian influenza.

In a circular, the DA said the Bangkok-based breeding center has passed the inspection conducted by the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) for biosecurity.

The DA said the BBPBRC has also complied with the Terrestrial Animal Health Code of the World Organization for Animal Health.

“Based on the inspection/ evaluation conducted to BBPBRC aviary in Thailand, accreditation to export live captive bred bird into the Philippines has been found to be acceptable,” the DA circular said.

The government lifted in 2012 the temporary ban imposed ton the importation of poultry, poultry and live birds from Thailand. 

After the accreditation, the bird breeding facility would be allowed to export captive live birds to the Philippine subject to the usual quarantine rules and regulations.

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Brad’s trip to Thailand in bid to help preserve one of the rarest birds in the world

Published: 8 Feb 2014 15:00

An ornithologist from Fermanagh has travelled half-way around the world in search of one of the rarest birds on Earth.

A spoon-billed sandpiper, one of the rarest birds in the world. Photograph by Gavin Thomas of the RSPB and Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force.

Brad Robson, from Monea, wanted to see a spoon-billed sandpiper “while it still exists”.

Tragically the little bird, no bigger than a sparrow, is heading the way of the dodo.

According to the WWT (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust): “The incredible spoon-billed sandpiper is hurtling towards extinction perhaps faster than any other bird species. Probably fewer than 100 pairs remain and the population is in free fall. Without urgent action, it will be gone within a decade.”

Brad is manager of the RSPB’s reserves on Lough Erne and spends much of his working life protecting surviving populations of once common wading birds like the curlew, lapwing and redshank.

The spoon-billed sandpiper is also a wading bird but is in much graver danger than any of our local species.

“They really are just hanging on by their toe nails,” says Brad.

Like the swallow, the spoon-billed sandpiper migrates over huge distances. It breeds on the Arctic tundra of north-east Siberia before flying 8,000 kilometres south, through Russia, Japan, Korea and China, to spend the winter in Bangladesh, Muyanmar and Thailand.

It was to Thailand that Brad and a group of fellow ornithologists headed last month in the hope of spotting one.

“We had been planning a trip to China for a number of years to see them there but it didn’t work out. Thailand is the easiest place to see them,” he explains.

Cotninued

Barn Owl Project to help preserve endangered birds

In Thailand, people believe that barn owls will bring them bad luck. Let's say if the bird is resting on the roof of someone's house, it is believed that death is brought there at their door step. Someone will die.

However, a group of Thais today are trying to change such superstitions, for they say that barn owls are in fact quite useful in helping farmers catch and kill rats and mice on their farms.

Such help is obvious in oil palm plantation and rice paddy fields. Usually, a barn owl catches and eats one or two rats every day, making a big dent on the rat population at 350-700 rats annually.

Having the birds in your farm then becomes a very good thing, but due to the Thai belief and ratsbane and other poisons used on farms, the number of barn owls has dropped dramatically almost to the point of extinction.

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