The rising popularity of songbird singing competitions in Indonesia has led to the dramatic decline of the white-rumped shama, a bird known locally as murai batu.
Mongabay Indonesia video contributor Rizky Maulana Yanuar recently reported that keeping such birds is deeply rooted in local culture. In Javanese society, a man is considered to be successful when he has a job, a house, a vehicle, a wife and a bird, Yanuar reported.
Murai batu (Copsychus malabaricus) are highly coveted for their melodic voice and beauty. In contests, the birds are judged on the duration of their song, volume, rhythm, showmanship and physical presentation.
Winning these prestigious contests significantly increases a bird’s market value. Champion birds can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and prizes for the owners can even include cars.
While there are plenty of facilities breeding the birds in captivity, buyers say wild-caught birds are superior. This high demand has created a financial lifeline for rural residents facing economic uncertainty. “As a farmer, harvests are very uncertain. Sometimes I have work, sometimes I don’t,” says Peni Mak Lajang, a Sumatran native who turned to poaching murai batu because of the high prices.
Peni sold his first murai batu for 800,000 rupiah ($48), back when he could capture five birds in a week. Now, he considers it a “blessing” if he can catch even one in a month.
Constant pressure to collect wild murai batu for singing contests has caused them to vanish from most forests across Java and Sumatra.
The crisis was exacerbated by a 2018 decision to remove the black and chestnut bird from Indonesia’s protected species list, following lobbying from breeder associations. Conservationists argue this makes enforcement more challenging at a time when murai batu were already facing peak pressure from poaching and habitat loss.
Captive breeding has surged to fill demand, but caged birds don’t help wild populations. Markets are full of captive-bred birds; none are released back into the wild.
Ethnobiologist Johan Iskandar from Padjadjaran University told Mongabay that poaching is deeply rooted in “social, economic, cultural, power and political aspects of society.”
“What needs protection is the people, not the birds,” he said.
Watch the full story by Rizky Maulana Yanuar here.
Banner image: Researchers have built the first model to map supply and demand in Indonesia’s songbird trade, showing that species traits, not just species identity, drive market dynamics. Image courtesy of Ganjar Cahyadi.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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