Indonesia’s prize songbird vanishing from wild as illegal trapping fuels multimillion-dollar bird competition industry

In the dense forests of Sumatra, poachers like “Peni” armed with machetes, sticky traps, and recorded birdsong are systematically hunting one of Indonesia’s most coveted songbirds to near-extinction. The white-rumped shama, known locally as murai batu, has become the centerpiece of a booming illegal wildlife trade driven by traditional bird-singing competitions that now offer prizes worth tens of thousands of dollars.

What began as a cultural pastime in Java—where keeping caged songbirds symbolizes status and connection to nature—has transformed into a lucrative industry threatening the species’ survival. Champion murai batu can command prices reaching into the tens of thousands, their complex melodies and striking appearance making them highly prized. The competition circuit’s explosive growth over the past decade has created unprecedented demand for wild-caught birds.

The conservation crisis deepened significantly in 2018 when Indonesia removed the murai batu from its protected species list following pressure from commercial breeding associations. Critics argue this decision has made enforcement nearly impossible at the worst possible time, as the birds already faced intense pressure from habitat destruction and illegal capture. While the species naturally ranges from India to Papua New Guinea, populations within Indonesia are collapsing rapidly.

Conservationists report that some Indonesian subspecies have already been driven to complete extinction, while Java’s forests—on the country’s most populated island—are now largely empty of these once-common songbirds. This devastation has pushed poachers to expand their operations into previously untouched forests across Indonesia, threatening to spread the crisis nationwide as the illegal trade continues to flourish unchecked.