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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Hornbill heroes: A conversation with a top Indonesian bird conservation NGO

by Mongabay.com on 5 August 2019

With their ostentatious bills, often colorful plumage, raucous calls, and unusual behavioral traits, hornbills are arguably one of the most charismatic groups of birds in the tropics. While hornbills are found widely across tropical Africa and Asia-Pacific, no country is home to more species than Indonesia, which has 13. Within Indonesia, Sumatra leads the way with 9 species, followed by Kalimantan.

Hornbills in Indonesia are particularly under threat due to habitat destruction. Vast areas of rainforest have been cleared for plantations and agriculture, while many of the forests that remain have been impacted by logging, which often focuses on trees hornbills depend upon for food and shelter. Some species are also targeted by the wildlife trade, including most notably, the helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), whose dense casque (a showy protrusion atop the animal’s bill) is made up of “hornbill ivory” that’s highly sought in China.

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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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Indonesia to kick off 10-year plan to save critically endangered helmeted hornbill

by Hans Nicholas Jong on 28 November 2017

The Indonesian government is currently drafting a 10-year master plan to protect the endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), set to be launched in 2018.

The program will comprise five action plans: research and monitoring; policies and law enforcement; partnerships; raising public awareness; and funding.

The helmeted hornbill has been driven to the brink of extinction by poaching for its distinctive scarlet casqued beak, which is pound-for-pound three times as valuable as elephant ivory.

The Indonesian government will next year launch a 10-year program to save the critically endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a bird driven to the verge of extinction because of poaching for its distinctive casqued beak.

The new strategy, to run from 2018 to 2028, comprises five action plans — research and monitoring; policies and law enforcement; partnerships; raising public awareness; and funding — and follows from last year’s forum of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“If we have a clear action plan, hopefully our next generation will not suffer the loss of the helmeted hornbill, like the Javan tiger and the Bali tiger in the past,” Bambang Dahono Adji, director for biodiversity conservation at the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said at a meeting in Jakarta last week to discuss the action plans.

The helmeted hornbill, one of Southeast Asia’s most unique large bird species, is confined to pockets of forest in Borneo and the Malay Peninsula. The bird has been hunted close to extinction for its casque, which is prized in China for use as ornamental carvings and can fetch $4,000 per kilogram — three times more than elephant ivory.

Forest degradation, extremely low rates of reproduction and a lack of conservation efforts have piled further pressure on the species, resulting in the downgrading in 2015 of the helmeted hornbill’s conservation status by three categories, from “Near Threatened” to “Critically Endangered.”

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Helmeted hornbill, on verge of extinction, finds respite in new zone outside of known range

by Basten Gokkon on 23 October 2017

A recent survey has found a high concentration of near-extinct helmeted hornbills in a conservation area in western Borneo.

This “hornbill paradise” is currently not included in the IUCN range map for this particular species.

Conservationists have called for the map to be updated, for more research in the area, and for stronger law enforcement to protect the distinctive bird.

A conservation area in western Borneo holds an unexpectedly rich population of the helmeted hornbill, a bird driven close to extinction by poaching for its distinctive casqued beak, a field survey has found.

A research team from the conservation group Planet Indonesia recorded over 50 visual and audio detections of the hornbill during its yearlong survey in the protected area in northwestern Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo.

The discovery indicated a large concentration of the helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), said Adam Miller, executive director of the NGO, in a statement.

While Borneo in general is known to be a habitat of the species, Miller pointed out that his team’s findings were the first to detect the bird’s presence in the protected region.

“When we found the helmeted hornbill … we could not believe it,” Miller wrote in a separate email. “We had not expected this rainforest to be so rich with hornbills.”

Stretching across 1,800 square kilometers (695 square miles) of forested area, the remote landscape covers three administrative districts and connects to a national park in Malaysia’s Sarawak state.

Other than the helmeted hornbill, Miller said, the region contains seven other hornbill species: the oriental pied hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris), the bushy-crested hornbill (Anorrhinus galeritus), the wreathed hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus), the black hornbill (Anthracoceros malayanus), the white-crowned hornbill (Berenicornis comatus), the rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) and the wrinkled hornbill (Rhabdotorrhinus corrugatus).

“This landscape is indeed a hornbill paradise,” Miller said.

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The Hornbill Hunters of Sumatra

Posted on August 1, 2017By Gregory McCann

Slaughter of magnificent birds in a contradictory culture

In 2011, a Taiwanese businessman named Hsien arrived in Indonesia with a plan to make himself rich and in the process to systematically wipe out one of the world’s most majestic and rarest birds, the helmeted hornbill, Rhinoplax vigil, also known as the “King Hornbill”  in the provinces of Kalimantan and Sumatra.

He has made considerable progress. According to an article on the website Borneo Features titled “Planning a Path to Perdition,” middlemen were recruited to put out the word that there was someone willing to pay US$10 for the head of one helmeted hornbill. Over the next year, according to the article, the middlemen hired a network of people using cars, buses, motorcycles and boats, heading up the great rivers of Borneo, the Barito, Mahakam, Kapuas. In the interior of this vast island, they spent time talking to villagers, telling them they would come every three months to collect, and leaving their telephone numbers, no questions asked.” “I will come here every three months to collect.” “This is my phone number. You can call me if you have a good stock ready for collection, say at least 50 heads.”

Prices have skyrocketed since then, and the organized network of villagers hunting Helmeted Hornbills has expanded throughout all of Sumatra as well as Peninsular Malaysia and Southern Thailand—the entire range for the species.

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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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This Rare Bird Is Worth More Than Ivory to Poachers

By John R. Platt | Takepart.com

January 27, 2015 4:40 PM

The poaching of elephants and rhinos gets a lot of well-deserved media attention, but the widespread slaughter of another species is flying under the radar.

According to an undercover operation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), poachers are increasingly targeting a rare bird called the helmeted hornbill. The beaks of these Southeast Asian birds are then carved into jewelry and trinkets and sold in China where they fetch prices five times higher than elephant ivory.

“The trade is definitely increasing, especially so in recent years,” said an EIA investigator who spoke anonymously out of fear for his safety. He reports that the quantity of helmeted hornbill products observed for sale “far exceeds published sightings of live helmeted hornbills in the wild.” All of the sales are illegal under the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species and various national laws.

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