By George Olah, PhD | Director, Wildlife Messengers
Dear Supporters,
We have some great updates from various aspects of our project focusing on the parrot trade in Indonesia.
In collaboration with the Indonesian Parrot Project, the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice of the Florida International University, and The Australian National University, we just published a comprehensive overview of the Indonesian parrot trade in the scientific journal Biological Conservation. We used a popular criminological model to analyse the factors associated with traded parrots in Indonesia, the country shown to be most in need of parrot conservation. We found several key factors were good indicators of trade variation: whether it was possible to legally export the parrot species; the attractiveness of the species, including its colour, brightness, size and ability to mimic sounds; and whether the species lived in an area of high human population density. The overlap between the domestic and international trade of certain Indonesian parrot species suggests a high number of wild-caught birds are mislabelled as 'captive-bred' so they can be legally exported.
Watch the video we made about this study: https://youtu.be/1GbRyb94qlw
In the field, our partners at the Indonesian Parrot Project (Konservasi Kakatua Indonesia) are preparing for the first soft-release of confiscated cockatoos in the Aru archipelago. Earlier, seven Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita eleonora) and eight Eclectus Parrots (Eclectus roratus aruensis) were confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade by local authorities. The Indonesian Parrot Project has been preparing these individuals for rehabilitation and they are ready to be transported and released next month in Wokam Island, Aru archipelago. This archipelago is still lacking a proper conservation program, so our aim is to connect the reintroduction and develop awareness in partnership with the local communities.
Our partners have already visited the place in October 2019 and conducted a pilot project. Next month they will return to implement the soft-release of the confiscated birds, while also establishing an anti-poaching campaign and find sustainable, alternative livelihood solutions for the community. As part of this campaign, they will screen our Indonesian Parrot Project documentary in Indonesian Bahasa language, visit schools, make presentations, and display posters to build environmental and conservation knowledge in the communities. The team will take all the important COVID-19 precautions during the activities on-location. In our next report we will give detailed information about the outcomes of the project in Aru.
Many thanks for supporting our endeavours during these challenging times!
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