Rare egret facing extinction, hunted and sold to restaurants

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Gresik, East Java

After waiting quietly in the jungle for a few hours, Saifudin, a resident of Manyar village in Gresik, East Java, yells cheerfully when he finally hits his target -- a plumed egret (Egretta intermedia), one the country's rare and protected birds.

Chasing the now-wounded egret fluttering toward a pond he strips off his clothes and jumps into the murky water. Fishing the bird out, he slits its throat with a rusty pocketknife.

Saifudin will sell the birds he poaches at the nearby Sembayat market, usually at a price of around Rp 6,000 (60 U.S. cents) each.

While he does not like killing the birds, which are specifically protected under Law No. 5/1990 in the conservation act, he says economic hardship has driven him to it.

Earning little from his main job as a sewage pump attendant, Saifudin said it was difficult in his area to find secure, well- paying work. "I'd rather hunt the egret because money from selling it can provide food for the family."

Saifudin usually catches around four to five egrets a day from several different species, including the little egret (Egretta garzetta), great egret (Egretta alda) and the Javan pond heron (Ardesla speriosa).

The owner of a restaurant specializing in selling fried egret, Choirul, said many people in Gresik were fond of the meat. He could sell 30 fried birds a day and earn a profit of about Rp 50,000.

Choirul admitted being involved in the business for the past 20 years and supplies of the bird, he said, had never run out. Besides buying the birds, which are still sold openly in local markets, he also gets his supplies directly from poachers.

A shrimp farmer from Pangkah Kulon village in Gresik, Kusnul Kuluk, said the birds ate a large amount of farmers' fish and shrimp and it was common for farmers to shoot them with air rifles. Others used spears to kill egret chicks or destroy nests and eggs, he said.

Environmentalists say poaching and the increasing number of fish farms in the area has caused a drastic slide in the birds population. Timin, a senior community figure from the village, worried about the rapid decline in the species, and formed a bird sanctuary in Krajan, Pangkah Kulon, where hunting for the birds was forbidden.

However, soon after Timin died five years ago, widespread poaching resumed. When The Jakarta Post went to the sanctuary, not a single bird was spotted, when villagers said there used to be thousands.

At Probolinggo and Manyar villages in Gresik, locals say the population of the birds has noticeably dwindled. The highest estimates of the egret population two years ago put the total number at around 400 birds in Gresik, whereas today there is less than half that, with the most pessimistic estimates saying as few as 100 birds may be left.

A community figure from Tebalo village, Manyar, in Gresik, Zainul Arif, said that it was difficult to stop the local people poaching the egret. One way to preserve the bird from extinction was by an informal village ban on the use of guns and spears to hunt the egret, a compromise measure that meant only traditional egret hunting kites could be used.

Of course, hunting egrets with any device is still officially prohibited. The director of the Pro Fauna Indonesia environmental group, Rozek Nursadi, said local government should get serious about protecting the bird by issuing and enforcing a bylaw in line with the national conservation law.

"If not, the animal will be extinct in a few years," Rozek said.