Wings of Freedom: Combating Indonesia's Illegal Bird Trade

“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.” - Maya Angelou, Caged Bird

These are the words of the American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou writing in 1969 about a life of oppression and despair. The words perfectly describe the experience of a caged bird longing for its own freedom, and the anguish and stress millions of birds plucked from the wild for a life of confinement experience, as they long to be able to fly free as nature intended.

Our desire to keep caged birds comes from aspects of their nature; their natural beauty and their captivating song. Birds have evolved the most incredible displays of feathers often rich in form and colour, and methods of communicating that have literally become ‘music to our ears’. Yet rather than us being content with leaving them in the wild to be observed and admired, we capture, breed, trade and incarcerate them to live in our homes for our own pleasure.

Many millions of birds are plucked from their wild homes, flying onto branches laced with glue or caught in ‘invisible’ mist nets, stuffed into carriers and often transported illegally across borders, many dying in the process. Social birds are often isolated from their conspecifics, and provided with few if any opportunities to open their wings let alone fly freely for the remaining days of their lives. Depriving them of both freedom and the comfort they crave from being with others.

To make matters worse, the rarer the species become the more demand there can be to ‘own’ and ‘cage’ individuals feeding the spiral of loss and deprivation.

Yet amongst the despair of such rampant global trade, shines a light from a dedicated group of individuals intent on tackling the trade within their own country.

Indonesian NGO FLIGHT have been facing threats from this lucrative illegal business since their establishment in 2018. In the succeeding years, and with the support of Animals Asia, FLIGHT have conducted undercover investigations and supported the Indonesian authorities to intercept and rescue over 180,000 songbirds from poaching and a life of incarceration.

Led by Marison Guciano , FLIGHT are disrupting the bird catchers and the traders, educating the public on the conservation and welfare issues associated with keeping birds as pets and, with Animals Asia’s help, rehabilitating and releasing birds back into their wild homes. This includes the rescue of over 6500 birds from 17 confiscations in 2024 alone. See the link for the graphic

FLIGHT’s work demonstrates both the scale of the issue and what can be accomplished when individuals dedicate their lives to tackling such injustices. Animals Asia is proud to be a part of this, supporting FLIGHT to carry out their investigations, provide temporary care to birds in need of rehabilitation and work with the Indonesian authorities to ensure action is taken to intercept and arrest those responsible.

I have had the pleasure of supporting FLIGHT’s work in person. Being onsite alongside investigators as they directed the police to a trafficker they had been following, witnessing the confiscation of thousands of wild-caught songbirds, and supporting the team to trek into the forest and release them back into the wild. I have supported FLIGHT’s efforts to reforest vast areas of land with fruit trees to provide food to sustain future generations of wild birds, and attend meetings with the Indonesian customs and forestry officials to congratulate and acknowledge the essential role they play in tackling this illegal trade. Such on-site experiences have led me to believe that by working in partnership with FLIGHT this trade in Indonesia can one day be eradicated.??

All birds belong in the wild, living and not longing for their freedom. Thanks to the work of FLIGHT this freedom has been secured for hundreds of thousands of birds and this cruel trade, in Indonesia at least, can no longer hide in the shadows.

Written by Dave Neale, Global Director of Animal Sentience and Welfare, Animals Asia Foundation