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The Bird Singing Competitions Pushing Wild Songbirds Toward Extinction

We need the birds to prevent a spider takeover.

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Somewhere in Indonesia right now, a songbird is being stuffed into a plastic bottle. In Cyprus, one is stuck to a glue-covered stick, hanging upside down. In Trinidad, one is being trapped for a singing competition that will pay its owner the equivalent of years’ salary. This is happening across at least 19 countries, and most people have no idea.

The illegal songbird trade doesn’t get the headlines that ivory or rhino horn does, but conservationists say it deserves to. On the island of Java alone, it’s now thought there are more songbirds in cages than in forests.

Singing competitions—which emerged in Southeast Asia in the 1970s and spread globally—have become a primary engine of demand, offering prize money, motorcycles, even cars to owners of the best singers. Wild-caught birds are considered superior performers, which means poachers keep emptying forests to supply them. “They’re so........

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