Ngasem market: A silent witness to trade in rare birds

By Bambang Trisno

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Visitors to Ngasem bird market in Tamansari area, some 500 meters west of the Yogyakarta Palace, can witness rare and protected birds being freely traded.

These rare and protected birds cost between Rp 75,000 and Rp 150,000 each.

At the market, young eagles, for instance, are much more expensive than the adults. A young eagle might cost between Rp 150,000 and Rp 250,000 each. The young birds cost more than the adults because unlike the latter, they can still can be tamed and trained, thus making them more attractive to buyers.

The health and size of the birds are also important in determining their price.

However, most of the birds displayed at the market are obviously lacking care. For example, an adult eagle with a 50- centimeter wing span is placed in a cage measuring only 70cm long, 60cm wide and 50cm high. Therefore each time the eagle spreads its wings, it would hurt itself.

Other birds of prey such as owls (Strigiformes) can also be found at Ngasem bird market and they are sold for between Rp 50,000 and Rp 60,000 each.

A bird seller, Tri Sahidiman, said most traders get their birds from brokers who buy the birds from bird hunters operating in the Caruban forest area in Madiun, East Java.

"Buyers at the bird market here are not only bird lovers but also traders from other cities, including those trading at the Pramuka bird market in Jakarta," he said.

For each bird he sells, Tri said he can make a Rp 10,000 to Rp 15,000 profit. He usually manages to sell the birds in less than a week after purchasing it from the broker. However, he declined to mention how much he paid the broker for the birds. He said if a bird was not sold after more than a week, he would not make a profit from selling it because it would have cost him more to feed it and also the price of bird might become fall if its physical condition starts to decline.

"Just imagine, a bido eagle (Javan-Hawk eagle) eats two quails a day. If each quail costs Rp 2,000 in Ngasem, the eagle then costs about 28,000 a week only for its food," Tri gave an example.

Indonesia is home to more than 1,500 species of birds and also has 17 percent of the bird population worldwide. Unfortunately many of them are now on the brink of extinction due to widespread illegal trading.

It is estimated that there is only about 250 to 300 of Javan Hawk-eagles (Spizaetus bartelsi) left in the wild. A female eagle can only produce one egg a year.

The rare eagle was declared the national bird by the government in 1993. Since then, the Ministry of Forestry's directorate general for Forest Protection and Nature Preservation (PHPA) and some environmental organizations, such as BirdLife, have conducted some conservation efforts to protect the bird.

Law No. 5/1990 on the conservation of natural resources and ecosystems also states that endangered species must not be caught, wounded, killed, stored, possessed, transported or traded -- alive or dead -- without government permission.

Anyone who violates it can face up to five years in prison or a Rp 100 million fine, but the law is not enforced

Snakes

Besides rare birds, other animals such as snakes, mostly nonpoisonous, is also sold at the Ngasem bird market. A one meter long, one to two-month-old snake can be sold for about Rp 150,000 each.

Yadi, who has been selling exotic pets in the market for four years, said he can sell at least two snakes a week.

The 23-year-old man said that most of his buyers were university students who chose to have snakes as pets because unlike birds, snakes were easier to take care.

For instance, bird should be fed everyday and their cages cleaned daily too. Snakes, on the contrary, only have to be fed once in two weeks with quails or rats.

"They (the students) also often take the snakes to campus," said Yadi.

Apart from snakes, Yadi also sells other reptiles such as iguanas, monitor lizards, porcupines and Panama lizards. He also had several Australian ground squirrels and hamsters.

According to the traders, most of the buyers claim to be animal lovers and are willing to spend money to have their desired pets without realizing that they are contributing to the declining numbers of rare and protected animals.