🔗 Share this article

Silva Gu's eyes scan over miles of dense fields, hunting for any movement in the pre-dawn darkness.

He utters a hushed tone as they attempt to locate a place of cover in the grasslands. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, the only sound is the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten before dawn, there is the crunch of footsteps. The poachers are here.

Caught

Overhead, countless migratory birds, many so small that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have benefited from the extended daylight in northern regions, consuming bugs and berries. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they journey to southern locales to find food and shelter.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the global population – more than 800 of those are migratory birds. Several of the major migration routes they follow intersect in China.

The area of meadow in question, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer few options to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "fine nets", so thin you can barely see them.

The one we nearly walked into was extending over half the length of the field and held up with bamboo poles. At its center, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to free his legs, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a protected songbird, a species under protection in China, and an important "indicator species" – that means if its numbers are thriving, so is its ecosystem.

Pursuing the Poachers

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his own savings. He has sacrificed many nights of sleep to rescue birds, and he has spent the last decade urging the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Back in 2015, authorities were indifferent," he states.

So he recruited volunteers who were concerned and launched a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He held public meetings and brought in the officials of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of persuasion have shown results. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to tracking down other kinds of illegal operations.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that the response is not uniform.

Silva's love of birds started in childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a distinct era for the city.

He remembers wandering in the grasslands on the city's edges where he discovered birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were considered land for construction, not sanctuaries to preserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands started disappearing, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

"I made the choice back then to work in conservation and I chose this direction," he says.

This has not made for an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was being investigated by Silva and retaliated.

"He assembled several of his accomplices who confronted me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he reported to the police but the perpetrators were not held accountable.

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are prepared for the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to address this major issue, you must give it your all. You can't do it part-time."

He says donations covers some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan annually – but donations have dipped because of the economic situation.

So he has developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He examines satellite imagery to find the paths created by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' migratory routes and looks for areas where they may rest. The satellite images can even show netting setups which can capture scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats command a premium," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now quite wealthy."

While there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the penalties to deter the activity do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a mark of prestige. This originates from the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build elaborate bamboo cages to display their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among retired men in their 60s or 70s. Silva says some elderly citizens don't realise they are breaking the law, or understand that numerous birds had to die in a trap for them to purchase a caged bird.

"This generation didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with a little money, they have inherited the practice of caging birds," he says. "China developed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once people's attitudes are formed, they're really hard to change."

Busted

On a long low wall in Beijing, a trader has several tiny enclosures with chirping songbirds.

Another man is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage covered by a dark cloth. He tells passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an old Beijing where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

The path alongside the water stretches for several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

We were told that wild songbirds could be purchased in a small park. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were choreographing a traditional dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were concealed by dark cloth.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had arrived. They were questioning the bird owners and taking names. Defiant, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his