Unsustainable exploitation of wild birds in Wallacea – An uncertain road for conservation emerging from the pandemic

Wallacea, comprising the archipelagos of Sulawesi, the Lesser Sundas, and Maluku, is an engine of bird species diversification (McCullough et al. 2022), supporting high levels of endemism, and clearly an important region for bird conservation globally (Monk et al. 1997; Burung Indonesia 2014). Wallacea’s charismatic flagships include the Maleo Macrocephalon maleo, Standardwing Semioptera wallacii, and an array of Australasian taxa such as parrots, pigeons, and honeyeaters – the region holds more than 130 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas or IBAs (Trainor et al. 2007; BirdLife International 2022). Disconcertingly, Wallacea’s birdlife is imperilled by a myriad of pressures, including high rates of habitat loss and unsustainable exploitation of its biodiversity (Lambert 1993; Trainor et al. 2007; Burung Indonesia 2014), whilst frequently slipping through the radar of conservationists. These threats were amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic while efforts to protect Wallacea’s avian biodiversity has correspondingly weakened. Arguably the most insidious threat to Wallacea’s birdlife is the unsustainable harvest of wild birds for the pet trade, of which parrots form the majority (Lambert 1993; Monk et al. 1997; Burung Indonesia 2014; Pires et al. 2021). Wallacean parrots are among the most threatened globally (Olah et al. 2018; Hruby 2022) and a high priority for conservation. Parrots are also the second most trafficked group of birds in Indonesia after songbirds (Indraswari et al. 2020). In one major seizure by Indonesian authorities in Wallacea in 2018, parrots comprised the vast majority of birds taken (96% of 1,177 individuals including the White Cockatoo Cacatua alba) (Setiyani and Ahmadi 2020). While the songbird trade in Java and Bali is driving the declines of many species, it affects few songbirds with Wallacean origins (Chng et al. 2015; TRAFFIC 2019; Nijman et al. 2021). In fact, only four of 68 songbird species or subspecies identified by the IUCN as priority taxa impacted by the songbird trade in Indonesia were Wallacean endemics (ASTSG 2022). Demand for parrots in the pet bird trade nationally and internationally has driven declines of many species (Figure 1(a,b). For example, Yellow-crested Cockatoo C. sulphurea populations in Komodo National Park declined by 60% between 2000 and 2005 (Imansyah et al. 2016) and has been extirpated from three islands and 68 sites since 1950, with most losses between 1985 and 2000 (Reuleaux et al. 2022). In North Sulawesi, heavy trapping for the trade decimated populations of the Red-and-blue Lory Eos histrio challengeri (locally ‘Nuri Talaud’) from several thousands to 700 individuals by the early 1990s (Batiran and Fisher 2020). A 2012 study by the conservation group Burung Indonesia identified 180 poachers and 20 collectors (including middleman smugglers and buyers) in North Maluku, mostly targeting parrots such as the Chattering Lory Lorius garrulus (Wijayanto 2015) while Siregar and Hasudungan (2022) showed that White Cockatoo numbers on Halmahera plummeted by 65% between 1992 and 2019. Market surveys show that a large proportion of parrots traded in bird markets in Java, Bali and Sumatra are of Wallacean origin (Chng et al. 2015; TRAFFIC 2019; Nijman et al. 2021, 2022; Pires et al. 2021), many then funnelled through established transit routes to be smuggled out of Indonesia (Karokaro 2020). Online parrot hobbyist groups are increasingly popular in Indonesia (Indraswari et al. 2020). In 2018, at least 10 Indonesian Facebook groups (comprising >190,000 members) focused on parrot keeping and trading were