In recent years, rich people in big cities of Vietnam have acquired a new hobby: raising wild birds.
To serve these customers, hundreds of hunters have traveled around the country to seek and trap rare birds in the jungle. The threat of extinction of wild birds is now at the peak.
Wild birds and prisons
Playing the role of a rich man who is searching for rare birds, I entered a bird shop on Phan Dinh Phung Road, HCM City. The house is only 30sq.m but there were a hundred of bird cages. There were cages with only one bird but there were others with 20-30 birds each. There were dozens of bird species, from popular to rare ones.
The shop’s owner pointed to a cage and said: “These are red-whiskered bulbuls that I’ve just bought from hunters. They are wild birds so they are still shy and do not eat bran. But they will be tamed in the next several days. The price is from VND30,000 to VND50,000 ($1.5-2.2) per bird. Tamed red-whiskered bulbuls which sing very well are VND400,000-500,000 ($20-25) per bird.”
He pointed to another cage and continued: “Those are magpies that have been tamed for over ten days and they also sing very well. The price is only VND50,000 ($2.5) a bird. The price at my shop is the cheapest in Hanoi. You can buy birds to raise or to give them to your friends or relatives as gifts.”
He kept introducing other birds, including a rackle which was in a beautiful cage. The man said that he bought two baby rackles from a hunter, at the price of $20 a bird. One died. The remaining rackle was three years old already. It had been tamed and could speak some words. This species is rare so the price is up to $250 a bird.
To prove his words, the man told the rackle: “Let’s say ‘co khach, co khach’ (guest comes, guest comes).” But the rackle stood still for a while and then jumped up and down in the cage. It did not say even one word.
The man said: “Perhaps today it rains. The weather is wet so it did not want to speak. Usually, it can speak “chao khach” (Hello), “moi uong nuoc” (would you like to drink water) and whistles.”
Leaving the “bird prison” on Phan Dinh Phung road, I went to Tran Hung Dao street, where has many bird shops and vendors who sell birds. At this place, wild birds are sold publicly. Whenever a truck passed and honked, birds got panic and beat their wings in cages. Many birds had wounds on their heads and lost feathers on their heads and wings.
Seeing a black laughing-thrush, with white ears, in a big cage, I asked: “Could this bird sing?” The salesman answered quickly: “Yes, it sings very well. Let’s see the yellow line on its beak, it means that this bird can sing. Buy it. I will sell it at cheap price for you.”
The man walked away from the bird for around 4-5 meters and began whistling. The bird also whistled for several seconds. After that, it jumped in confusion in the cage.
A bird buyer told me to be careful because he previously had bought a similar laughing-thrush at the price of $45. He had raised the bird for several months but it did not sing. He released the bird after that.
Bird hunters
While I was listening to a salesman introducing his birds, a Jorai ethnic minority couple stepped into the bird shop with two cages full of wild birds. The salesman hurriedly pulled them inside the shop and paid for the birds, including over 40 red-whiskered bulbuls and nearly ten spotted doves.
The couples were happy for quickly selling the birds. They left the bird shop to sit down at a tea shop on the pavement. I also left the shop and followed them to ask them about how they hunted birds.
The man, named Ksor Nhiel, who came from the Central Highlands of Gia Rai, said that in the past, it was very easy to catch wild birds in forest because there were a lot of birds while there were a few bird hunters. He could earn tens of USD a day.
He said that this job became difficult now because there were hundreds of bird hunters like him. He had to go deep into the jungle to hunt birds, mainly magpies, spotted doves and red-whiskered bulbuls which are not expensive.
On Quang Trung road, where is the home to two bird shops and several bird vendors, I asked a bird-selling woman’s permission to take some photos of her nice birds to introduce to my friends. She agreed. I asked her that she had ever been seen forest rangers. She said that she was a small trader and she only sold cheap birds so forest rangers neglected her. She added that there were hundreds of big bird shops where sold rare birds but they were not inspected by any agencies.