As regulators tighten international trade of the White-rumped shama, local hunting and captive breeding continue.
“THIS ONE, nine-inch, a Kuala Lumpur champion for more than 5 times,” says Soo Hoo Kok Weng as he points to a bluish-black bird in a cage. The White-rumped shama is popular in bird-singing competitions and Soo Hoo breeds them for this purpose.
But this bird has not sired any chicks after more than a year of pairing. Soo Hoo reckons its previous owner had been feeding it stimulants to win the highly-competitive bird singing competitions. “Its sperm is spoilt,” he says. “That’s the price it has been made to pay.”
But for the species, the price is far higher than that: extinction.
(Photo: Birdkeepers enter their songbirds into competitions for prizes and prestige. Winning competitions also increases the selling price of the bird | Pic by Lee Kwai Han)
The White-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus, or murai batu) is one of the sought-after songbirds in singing competitions and as pets in Southeast Asia.
This is particularly so in Indonesia, where intensive trapping has depleted the forests of Java, Sumatra and West Kalimantan of the shamas. To meet Indonesian demand, White-rumped shamas in Malaysia’s forest are being trapped and smuggled there.
In November 2022, Malaysia and Singapore successfully secured the listing of the White-rumped shama in Appendix II of CITES. This means that in almost all countries, the species can be exported only with a permit.
Local action?
However, domestically, has Malaysia done enough to protect shamas against illegal and unsustainable trade?
There are no formal population studies on the songbird in the wild but PERHILITAN tells Macaranga it estimates only 10,000 to 20,000 living in forests in Peninsular Malaysia.
As such, it is a protected species in Peninsular Malaysia and PERHILITAN enforces a set of strict laws and regulations governing their harvest, trade, possession and movement.
However, Soo Hoo thinks the hunting license complicates PERHILITAN’s anti-poaching effort. “I trap a White-rumped shama today and don’t apply for a wildlife-keeping license for it. I sell the bird (instead). Then, I go again and trap another bird.
“Aren’t you opening up opportunities for poaching and smuggling?” he reasons.
He suggests a total ban on trapping White-rumped shamas. PERHILITAN did not respond to this suggestion.
In demand
Malaysia used to prohibit the trapping, trading, and owning of wild White-rumped shamas. However, the rules were relaxed in 1984 due to high public demand for this bird, according to PERHILITAN. Sustainable use of the shamas became a tricky balancing act.
To ease trapping pressure on the wild population, PERHILITAN encouraged captive breeding of White-rumped shamas for sale. The agency controls this through commercial captive breeding permits. Currently, there are 57 licensed breeders in Peninsular Malaysia.
Nonetheless, wild-caught birds are still cheaper than captive-bred birds.
Scouring through Facebook, Macaranga found that in January 2023, White-rumped shamas were being advertised at prices from RM100 to RM1,500.
“Many of these are from the forest…(and) it’s widespread, like pasar malam,” says Khairil Adnan Azmi, a shama captive-breeder who prices his birds at between RM1,000 and RM3,500.
Winners only
The other shama breeder, Soo Hoo, does not sell his birds for less than RM3,000, pricing some at up to RM4,000. This is because he picks and breeds only shamas with competition-winning traits. These birds are vigorous, assertive, sing in loud melodious voices, and sport long tails.
He thinks that breeders can counter poaching by producing large numbers of high-quality captive-bred birds. This will lower the prices overall. He thinks birdkeepers would rather buy cheap, good, captive-bred birds than risk getting penalties for poaching.
Fines go up to RM50,000 or a jail time of up to 3 years (or both) for poaching, according to the Wildlife Conservation (Amendment) Act 2022.
However, commercial captive breeding as a means to curb trade, is highly debated among conservationists. “Commercial captive breeding should only be allowed if robust regulation and monitoring can be done,” says Dr Chris R Shepherd, NGO Monitor Conservation Research Society’s executive director.
He points out that wildlife laundering through licensed captive breeding facilities has been notorious in some trades, like the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko) in Indonesia.
It appears this might be the case too in Malaysia’s White-rumped shama trade.
Not quite legit
When applying for wildlife-keeping licences, buyers must show PERHILITAN receipts proving that their birds are purchased from licensed sellers.
But Soo Hoo and Khairil claim that some irresponsible breeder-sellers pass off illegally sourced shamas as captive-bred.
Buyers would buy receipts from these sellers as proof of sale when in fact they haven’t purchased any captive-bred birds. PERHILITAN did not respond to queries about this claim.
In actuality, it is not captive breeding that concerns PERHILITAN but illegal hunting and trade. They highlight these to Macaranga as the major challenges in protecting the songbird.
“From 2012 to 2021, there were about 236 cases involving trapping and keeping White-rumped shamas without a licence. The number of birds involved is about 6,139 birds.”
Furthermore, the extent of the international movement of the birds across Malaysia’s borders is unknown as it has been largely done without PERHILITAN permits and thus illegal.
Indonesia bound
In the past 10 years, PERHILITAN has only recorded the legal import of 35 White-rumped shamas from Taiwan and the export of 35 shamas to Vietnam. There are no figures for Indonesia.
However, the Asian Songbird Specialist Group found “more than half of all reported international shipments were bound for Indonesia, from Malaysia” in a study of White-rumped shama seizure records between January 2008 and June 2018.
Last year, important action was taken to address this illegal and unsustainable trade through the CITES listing. And it was the Malaysian government who co-led the proposal.
Now, support and concerted action from all stakeholders across countries are needed to make the listing work.
“Listing White-rumped shamas in CITES gives Malaysia international assistance against illegal export of the birds,” Shepherd says. “As a party to CITES, Indonesia is obliged to take action against smuggling of White-rumped shamas. They should be held accountable if they don’t.”
The open CITES Trade Database also allows governments and conservationists to monitor trade and alert authorities about fraud.
Actual numbers
Following the listing, PERHILITAN will spend the period until 2024 to carry out the CITES-required Non-Detriment Findings. This involves assessing various factors, including species’ population, biological and ecological factors and trade information, to determine whether the species’ trade will threaten its survival.
It will allow future trade quotas to be regulated scientifically according to the population trend of the species.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, scientists seeking for clues to reduce bird-keeping demand are studying what motivates the practice. The scientists also recognise the need to make sure captive breeding and sourcing of breeding stocks are done sustainably.
Back in this breeding facility, Soo Hoo still keeps pairing the Kuala Lumpur champion singer with a female. Perhaps the handsome champ would never ever be a father. Luckily, its wild cousins still breed successfully – but need to be free of illegal and unsustainable trade.
STRAW-HEADED BULBUL
Another songbird needing urgent conservation action is the Straw-headed bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus or barau-barau). In the 2022 CITES Conference of Parties, Malaysia co-led another proposal to protect this songbird along with the White-rumped shama. It is even more endangered than the shama.
It has now been successfully uplisted from Appendix II to Appendix I. That means no more international trade of the bulbul is allowed. It is hoped that banning its international trade will protect the bulbul from being poached to extinction in its remaining range in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia.
[Edited by SL Wong]
Partial funding for the story was provided by the United States Agency for Global Media.
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