Birds Die In Paradise

As we celebrate this International Week of Birds, I reprint a story I wrote years ago, where birds die in the name of poverty.
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Birds Die In Paradise
By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN

Somehere near Mount Pulag, Kabayan, Benguet,(November 24, 2010) Philippines — For countless years, this 9,609 feet peak and its forests reaching parts of Nueva Vizcaya, the second highest in the country, is haven for thousands of migratory birds fleeing the freezing temperature in northeast China and Japan from September to February.
It is also the graveyard for many of the birds that are killed for food and additional income.
Fighting sleep and the wind’s cruel whip on the cold night of the November 5th, I trekked with a bunch of bird hunters from the Kalanguya indigenous tribe to the mountain’s western face. There, I witnessed a very cruel way for birds to die.
Unmindful of gusts and frost at 4 degrees Centigrade, the bird hunters stretched a black fine nylon net some 50 meters long and 20 feet high. About a hundred yards away, they lit a bonfire from pine branches and dead logs and settled to wait for the night.
Before cock’s crow the waiting was over. The stillness was pierced by unimaginable sound and noise. There was a flurry of movement and scattered vague black shadows.
In less than a minute, there were thudding collisions and poultry-like crackling mixed with the men’s shouts.
Under the glaring woodfire, perhaps thousands of birds, attracted by the light rushed towards what they mistakenly saw as daylight, only to crash headlong into the waiting net. The helpless birds wriggled in the mesh, struggling for freedom.
Their weight caused the poles of the net to collapse, bringing down all the ensnared prey. In a flash, the untrapped school of birds swooped by and flew in all directions—safe but shocked by the near misfortune they have just escaped from.
The young men pounced on the defenseless birds with sticks, dealing blows on some birds’ heads while wringing them away from the net. Many struggled to escape, only to die. Others strangled themselves in the net.
An hour or so, the young men hauled off their catch, some alive, most dying and dead. The legs of the birds were lashed together with vines. As many fifty birds were tied together and hanged on both sides of a bamboo poles. The fifteen men carried one bamboo pole each on their shoulders and clutched another five to ten birds their hands. The captured birds shuddered and died, others sent off death wails and chirps as they awaited death.
The smaller birds were not taken. They were left to die in the cold.
“Mangkik” or “Ikik”, Igorot Traditional Bird Hunt
This is “mangkik”, a traditional bird hunt of the northern indigenous peoples of the Philippines collectively called the Igorots. To an ordinary watcher, it is a massacre. It is not a sight for those quick to succumb to emotions.
Walking back with the group, down the craggy mountain trail, I strained to stop a teardrop, my throat seemed dry I could not utter a word. I struggled to understand the ways of the wild, of the strong and the weak, of predators and preys and why man has to occupy the highest rung in the food chain. Yet, my own blood runs deep indigenous red from Igorot headhunting warriors of yore. I kept mum.
All around the world, this manner of bird hunting happens. Environmentalists speak against this form of bird catching saying many bird species are becoming extinct.
According to the Canadian National Science Foundation and the Natural Sciences (CNSF-NS), the basic reason for migration of birds worldwide is to search for food and to seek safe places to breed. All kinds of birds migrate. The birds that were captured on this peak followed the East Asian Migratory Flyway that includes the Philippines which is one of the most important shorebird and waterbird migratory flyways in the world because some 77 bird species travel the said route.
When birds band together to search for food, the group is more likely to find a new patch of food than is one lone individual. Flocking can be an alternative way to deal with food shortages, CNSF-NS said.
It also makes the birds vulnerable to bird catchers. Millions are killed and captured from Africa, Europe, South America and in Asia. Mostly are used as food but many are sold to zoos, restaurants, petshops and laboratories.
Adverse Effect on Ecosystems
Skirting poverty, more and more local peoples are involved in massive migratory bird hunting every year. Kabayan Mayor Faustino Aquisan said the birds trapped by mountain dwellers do not only mean food on the table but can be sold and traded for other household needs.
“Birds are delicious delicacy and they fetch good prices in the public market because it is not every day that one gets to buy these kind of food. Many locals also believe that birds have medicinal values”, he said.
While it is understandable that indigenous peoples trap birds in the said manner for food and income especially on these trying times, it is also sad because they are unaware that the disappearance of many birds adversely affects the ecosystem” Regional Executive Director Samuel Penafiel of the government’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) told IOL.
“Not only are many bird species threatened to extinction but several plants that are naturally propagated by bird droppings and are important in maintaining vegetation die”, he said
According to the Department of Zoology, University of Bergen, of Norway, not only do bird sow seeds but that seeds that pass through guts of birds ensure high seedlings germination and growth. This is true with the bird thrush (Turdus spp) which ensure the propagation of the tree Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia L)
Prof. Bony Ligat of the Entomology Department of the Benguet State University said migratory birds are responsible in controlling much of insect pests threatening agriculture.
“Birds keep the world safe from insect plagues, something chemical insecticides cannot do. Most birds are technologically advanced, highly motivated, extremely efficient and cost-effective insect-pest controllers”, he said.
Government’s Action and Inaction
But while birds keep the ecosystem safe, not much is being done to protect them from the cruel traditional bird hunting tradition. Hunters and government wildlife service people alike are taking the flak from environmentalist who say that nothing is being done to protect the birds.
Indeed, Director Penafiel said that even DENR’s Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB) whom he used to head, has yet to come out with a directive or administrative order that can regulate, limit or police the actions of migratory bird hunters.
For the moment, the Philippines is not a signatory of the 1979 Bonn Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals and thus do not possess the guidelines needed to carry out protective and preventive measures for migratory birds and other animals
Even as there is a global World Migratory Bird Day which is held every May 9 to 10, it is not celebrated by the government. The special day focuses on man-made obstacles to bird migration, such as destructive bird hunting and wants to raise awareness of the difficult and often underestimated situation faced by migratory birds on their travels.
Migratory Rare Birds, Flying, Going, Gone
According to the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau of DENR, there are a total of 76 bird species recorded in Mt. Pulag National Park. This figure includes 14 migratory visitors and one or two introduced species. Of the recorded bird species, 30 are endemic to the Philippines and nine (9) are endemic to Luzon. Fourteen species have a global distribution of less than 50,000 sq. km (restricted-range species). Mt. Pulag is host to twenty-four percent of the total resident breeding bird species in the Luzon Island and thirty-two percent of the total Philippine endemics. Eight species of birds are listed as threatened and are facing threats due to habitat loss.
These are the flame breasted fruit dove, Luzon racquet-tailed parrot, Luzon scoops owl, Philippine eagle owl, whiskered pitta, Philippine water redstart, white-browed jungle flycatcher, and the chestnut-faced babbler.
However, these are not the only migrating birds captured through this mountain. Conservation International (CI) recently listed those endangered migratory birds captured by hunters and recorded by scientists as follows: the Chinese Egret (Egretta eulophotes), the Little Egret; Sandpipers- Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica), the Common Red Shank (Tringa totanus), and the Rufous-necked stint (Calidris ruficollis). Long-billed and long-legged, these shorebirds move about mudflats, their heads down, to feed; Terns – the Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) and the Little Tern (S. albifrons) , and; Black-bellied plover (Pluvalis squatarola
Besides these are more common birds like kingfishers, ardeids, quails, thrushes, warblers, wagtails and shrikes.
Bird Hunters Cry Foul
The pressure by environmentalists for the government to clamp down on migratory bird hunting has brought out mixed reactions from bird hunters. Local tribal leader Sagyo Dokok of the Kalanguya tribe says the practice is older than anyone can recall and it is unfair to prevent it.
He also believes the birds are brought to them every year as a gift from the God or the spirits to sustain part of their food needs.
George Facsoy of the Sadanga tribe says coming out with laws to stop or limit tribes people from migratory bird hunting will only be as good as the paper the law will be written on. “The government has so many laws to conserve the biodiversity but what has it implemented? Wildlife habitats continue to die due to logging and mining”, he sneered.
If and when the Philippine government will recognize the problem and issue a law against “mangkik”, one thing is certain. It will be long in coming. With a limping economy and rising unemployment and poverty figures, it is unlikely to take up the case of the birds when it has nothing to feed to its burgeoning population./30