JAKARTA — Researchers in Indonesia have harnessed the power of big data to monitor the flourishing online trade in songbirds, proposing it as a critical conservation tool in the absence of any other platform to crack down on trafficking. The researchers, from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), developed their “Support Vector Machine,” or […]
Tag: Songbird trade
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 […]
Songbird trade in Indonesia threatens wild Sunda laughingthrush
JAKARTA — The songbird trade in Indonesia has battered the wild population of the Sunda laughingthrush, an important seed disperser in the primary forest ecosystem, a new study shows. Bird market surveys in more than 30 cities across Indonesia between December 1991 and February 2020 point to a population decline in the Sunda laughingthrush (Garrulax […]