A photograph of serried ranks of dead native birds including barbets, malkohas and doves is a stark illustration of India’s bird trade crisis, which encompasses both domestic consumption and international trade. “In northeast India, open sale of wild birds for food is rampant,” says Anuj Jain, BirdLife Asia’s Bird Trade Coordinator, who is working with […]
Tag: birdlife international
For species in the red, IUCN’s new Green Status signals conservation wins
The California condor has been teetering on the brink of extinction for decades. When the species was first assessed in 1994 for the IUCN Red List, the global authority on the conservation statuses of species, it was listed as “critically endangered.” Nearly 30 years later, its status has not changed. But this doesn’t tell the […]
The race to save the last of the monarchs from extinction
There are only four breeding pairs of Fatu Hiva Monarchs left on earth – the tragic victims of invasive species. Our French Polynesian Partner SOP Manu knows exactly what to do, having brought a similar bird, the Tahiti Monarch, back from the brink of extinction. But they urgently need your help. How many families live […]
Philippines’ rich bird life is more threatened than we thought, study says
The Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, supporting an extraordinary number of species that occur nowhere else on the planet. Eighty-six new endemic bird species have been described in the Philippines in just the last decade — more than all avian endemics ever recorded in either China or India. Nevertheless, the country’s […]
From common to captive, Javan pied starlings succumb to songbird trade
The Javan pied starling (Gracupica jalla) is a captive in its own home. Thousands of these endemic songbirds once congregated in the safety of tall trees to roost after spending their days feasting on insect larvae. Today, however, the Javan pied starling is conspicuously absent from the wild, yet readily found caged in markets and […]
Growing Demand for Vulture Heads Threatens the Birds’ Survival in Africa
Across the continent, traditional healers are increasingly using the body parts of vultures, creating an illegal market that has experts alarmed. Last year, at dawn on March 26, an exhausted Mohamed Henriques slid into his airplane seat. He had just managed to make it onto the last flight that left Guinea-Bissau before the small West […]
Diclofenac claims first official victim in Europe: the Cinereous Vulture
A Cinerous Vulture Aegypius monachus born in 2020 in the Boumort National Hunting Reserve has now been confirmed as the first victim of a vulture species to die from poisoning by veterinary diclofenac in Europe. The cause of death of this vulture was confirmed in a new study which came out on April 5th, at […]
Response to the bird flu outbreak in Senegal and Mauritania
Nearly 2,500 pelicans died in late January in two National Parks on the border of Senegal and Mauritania as a result of an outbreak of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). In late January 2021, 750 Great white pelicans were found dead in the Djoudj bird sanctuary, a remote pocket of wetlands and a UNESCO […]