![\"Maleos](\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/09\/30140436\/Maleo-1.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Maleos are protected from international commercial trade under CITES, a global wildlife trade treaty. It\u2019s also illegal to hunt, kill, trade or transport the birds under Indonesian laws.<\/p>\n
The current study is the first to document them in illicit international commerce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t set out looking at maleos,\u201d said study author Chris Shepherd, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. He said they spotted the bird while looking at the surge in exotic wildlife seizures in India, especially those coming from Indonesia. \u201cWe were not expecting to see maleos because we have not seen them in international trade before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discovery, \u201crang alarm bells for me,\u201d Shepherd said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis paper issues a wake-up call to local and international authorities, adding another iconic, popular, and desperately imperiled species to the list of those threatened by illegal trafficking,\u201d said Marcy Summers, director and co-founder of Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, which works on maleo conservation in Sulawesi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is already known that the taking of maleo eggs by humans is the single biggest threat to maleo survival, but until reading this paper, I was not aware of international trade in live maleos, which is just as concerning,\u201d Summers, who was not involved in the recent study, told Mongabay in an email.<\/p>\n Entries from the CITES wildlife trade database found just two legal transactions involving live maleos, which were \u00a0traded to zoos. In both cases, the birds were born or bred in captivity in the U.S.<\/p>\n Indonesia has never reported a single legal export of maleos, and India has not documented any legal imports.<\/p>\n But when the researchers scoured the Internet for media reports on illegal trade and seizures involving maleos, they found three incidents involving 25 live birds from 2024. All were young birds, suggesting they were captured soon after they\u2019d hatched.<\/p>\n The birds are entering India to fuel the demand for the pet trade, researchers say. \u201cAll evidence we have so far points to a domestic pet market in India. We see a lot of online trade in exotic birds that include endangered birds [including] many species of macaws, parrots and cockatoos,\u201d co-author Uttara Mendiratta, a wildlife trade researcher in India and a consultant with the Wildlife Trust of India, said in an email to Mongabay. \u201cWe also see social media posts where influencers or celebrities are seen with rare wildlife as pets.\u201d<\/p>\n On June 18, 2024, five maleos were seized from a passenger arriving from Jakarta, Indonesia, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, along with some magnificent riflebirds (Ptiloris magnificus<\/em>), pale-billed sicklebills (Drepanornis bruijnii<\/em>) and an endangered proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus<\/em>). The birds died within weeks, before any attempts to repatriate them.<\/p>\n A month later, on July 29, 2024, 12 maleos were seized in Jakarta, headed to Mumbai, according to the study. The birds, along with other wildlife, were stuffed in suitcases and loaded onto a flight. Authorities arrested four Indian nationals, who were fined 10,000 Indian rupees ($107 at the time).<\/p>\n The third seizure came in December, when officers seized eight maleos, along with birds of paradise and two endangered Visayan hornbills (Penelopides panini<\/em>), which are endemic to the Philippines. Two Indian nationals who flew into Cochin International Airport in southern India on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok, Thailand, were arrested. They were offered 75,000 Indian rupees (about $875) to smuggle the animals, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n The researchers also saw a pattern in how the birds are being brought to India. \u201cThe modus operandi seems to be [that] the couriers are offered an all-paid-for holiday in SE Asia (Thailand or Indonesia) and additional cash for their role,\u201d Mendiratta said. \u201cWe have seen families with young\u00a0children, young couples, and a young single mother who have been exploited in this way \u2026 Since families with kids usually clear screening faster, traffickers try to exploit this.\u201d<\/p>\n India\u2019s import of exotic wildlife, especially from Southeast Asia, has surged in recent years. Shepherd said that while authorities in the country must crack down on the trade, there needs to be more research into \u201cwhy there is this sudden demand, what\u2019s fueling this demand, and what can be done to counter it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mendiratta added that seizure patterns indicate that demand for maleos is mostly within India: \u201cWe don\u2019t have any seizures going out, so there is no reason to believe that they are in transit.\u201d She said some exotic birds in the country sell for hundreds of thousands of rupees ($1 = 95.77 Indian rupees).<\/p>\n The eight maleos from the December seizure were repatriated to Thailand where they\u2019d been shipped from, a requirement under CITES. In Thailand, the birds were housed at rescue facilities run by the Thai Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP). One of the study co-authors recorded four maleos at a Thai government facility in 2024, and in September 2025, they were still there.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether the eight confiscated maleos will ever be returned to Indonesia, researchers say.<\/p>\n Thailand has evolved into a major wildlife trafficking and transit hub. But non-native species listed under CITES are not automatically protected in the country unless they are on a \u2018controlled species list.\u2019 Maleos are not on the list, so any bird shipped back to Thailand could remain in the country, holed up in government-run \u2018rescue centers.\u2019<\/p>\n Shepherd said that needs to change if conservation is the priority, and urged countries to develop a repatriation program that puts smuggled wildlife back into the wild whenever possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of wildlife in Thailand that needs to be repatriated back to wherever it came from,\u201d he said, including the eight maleos. \u201cThe birds should be returned to Indonesia and repatriated back into the wild to support the population of wild birds there.\u201d<\/p>\n Shepherd said that while 25 birds in trade does not sound like a huge number, it\u2019s still \u201cquite damaging,\u201d because they all come from a small, rapidly dwindling population \u2014 and typically, when birds are pulled from the wild, many die during capture and transport. Meanwhile, seizures typically represent a tiny sliver of the actual trade, suggesting the commerce in these birds could be way higher.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past, international trade probably has not been a threat to the species, but now I think it could be a huge threat,\u201d Shepherd said. The researchers say the IUCN Red List assessment for maleos must be updated to add international trade as a threat.<\/p>\n The study found no court cases that successfully prosecuted individuals for trading or trafficking these protected birds in Indonesia.<\/p>\n Since the 25 maleos seized in 2024 were young, the researchers say they may have been caught very soon after hatching, possibly taken from their nesting grounds.<\/p>\n But Summers from Alliance for Tompotika Conservation says it\u2019s highly unlikely that these birds were caught in the wild. \u201cMaleo chicks are, first of all, very rare outside of conservation areas, and those that do hatch, hatch out at night, under conditions very difficult to detect, and generally spread out over many days or weeks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is therefore almost certain that the maleos in these shipments, which appeared to be of similar age, would have originated from one of several maleo \u2018conservation\u2019 projects in which eggs are hatched out in hatcheries and the chicks are retained for some period before being released into the wild,\u201d Summers said.<\/p>\n Indonesia has two types of hatcheries. Some, like those at Tambun or Muara Pusian in Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park or Saluki in Lore Lindu National Park, called \u2018semi-natural hatcheries,\u2019 are built next to natural maleo nesting grounds. Staff dig up the eggs and shift them to an on-site hatchery for their two- to three-month incubation. Hatchlings are then held in \u2018habituation cages\u2019 before they are released by tourists, who pay to do so as part of their visit, Summers said.<\/p>\n The second type of hatchery, run by industries as part of corporate social responsibility projects, has incubators outside the natural nesting grounds. The chicks are also released into the wild, but not many survive, she said.<\/p>\n Summers said it was \u201chighly likely\u201d that the young maleos seized en route to or in India came from one of the two types of hatcheries.<\/p>\n \u201cBy supplying these maleo chicks for the illegal pet trade, [the traffickers] are feeding an international appetite for live maleos that will only exacerbate the already-severe pressures on maleos,\u201d Summers said. \u201cIt will create a temptation for those with access to birds waiting to be released \u2026 It could also create an incentive for traffickers to frequent the remaining unmanaged maleo nesting grounds in hopes of capturing one of the few chicks that still manage to hatch at such sites.\u201d<\/p>\n As international wildlife trafficking emerges as a new threat to the imperiled maleos, researchers say authorities in India, Indonesia and Thailand must act to stop the smuggling.<\/p>\n Mongabay reached out to the concerned authorities in all three countries asking what they are doing to address wildlife trafficking and what they will do with live maleos seized, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.<\/p>\n \u201cIndonesian authorities really need to investigate this issue and find out who\u2019s removing these birds from the wild, how are they being smuggled out of the country, how are they getting onto the flights,\u201d Shepherd said. \u201cThere\u2019s security in the airports. Why are they not picking up on this? I think that needs to be investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n Summers said the Indonesian government \u201ccould and should crack down on potential corruption at semi-natural hatchery and industry-run incubation projects.\u201d<\/p>\n Shepherd, C. R., Mendiratta, U., Sharma, P., Shepherd, L., Fourage, A., \u2026 Nijman, V. (2026). Emerging evidence of international trafficking of the Critically Endangered Maleo Macrocephalon maleo: A newly recognised threat to the species\u2019 survival. Journal of Asian Ornithology, 42, 36\u201340.<\/p>\n Summers, M., Geary, M., Djuni, N., Kresno, P. A., Laya, A., Sawuwu, S., . . . Collar, N. J. (2022). Degree of egg-taking by humans determines the fate of maleo (Macrocephalon maleo) nesting grounds across Sulawesi. Biodiversity and Conservation<\/em>, 32<\/em>(3), 899\u2013919. doi:10.1007\/s10531-022-02527-1<\/a><\/p>\nThree Indian maleo seizures within a year<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Birds must be repatriated to Indonesia, researchers say<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Hatcheries likely source of smuggled maleos<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Researchers urge authorities to act<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Citations:<\/strong><\/h2>\n