MIGRATORY BIRDS IN THE SEASON OF EXTINCTION
Millions of migratory birds fly to the south, most of them unable to complete the journey. Despite conservation efforts, wild birds are still being eradicated by all means.
On May 17, the Government issued Directive No. 04 on a number of urgent tasks and solutions to conserve wild and migratory birds in Vietnam. Despite many efforts of the Party, State and departments in protecting biodiversity, including wild and migratory birds as well as important bird areas.
However, the situation of hunting and consuming wild birds, especially migratory birds, is still taking place seriously in many localities, negatively affecting biodiversity, environment, potential risk of disease to humans and organisms; affect the implementation of international commitments on biodiversity conservation.
In some localities, it is part of the flight route of migratory birds and also where poaching is common.
Every late August and early September, flocks of migratory birds cross thousands of kilometers to the south to avoid the cold. Along the coast of Ha Tinh, the rich lagoons are often chosen by them as a resting place, replenishing energy to continue traveling long distances, but they do not know that this is a dead place.
Under the lagoon, the birds had their eyes sewn, their feet tied to the stakes, and were constantly pulled by hunters to emit calls to attract their fellows. Just plunge down and get stuck on a series of bamboo sticks impregnated with a super glue.
The living-storks-prey is not enough for the local, people here also think of ways to peel thousands of fake foam storks, filling them with melaleuca forests or on the field, interspersed with bamboo sticks impregnated with resin. With the way of hunting and killing, every day, a person can catch hundreds of storks, earning up to 3-5 million VND, dozens of times higher than a day’s work in agriculture.
The fake prey-bird is made by people look like the real thing, then set up traps to entice the birds to fly down. If you look closely, you can see that these prey-birds are made of foam but very detailed, with the same patterns as real birds.
More cruel, some people even went on social networks, instructing each other to trap storks by impregnating small fish with poison and then spreading it on the field to lure the storks to eat. The poisoned storks lay scattered all over the field, if they were heavy, they would die even if they were light, they wouldn’t have the strength to take off. All are collected by the people as a gift from heaven.
Although the local government has continuously organized the army to destroy the bird trap sites, there are places such as in Thinh Loc commune where the trap was destroyed the day before, the next day, people set new traps in that old place.
Vietnam has been identified as one of the most important areas in the network of migratory bird routes, with 63 globally important bird regions. However, according to the report of the General Department of Environment, the number of migratory birds flying over Vietnam in recent years has dropped dramatically, of which there are 11 critically endangered bird species and 50 near-threatened species.
Perhaps many people think that bird hunters must be very skillful to create birds that look exactly like the real thing. But in fact, the time they were busy trapping birds, and trapping equipment, there was a huge supply system on supporting e-commerce exchanges.
Spreading tools to catch wild birds on the e-commerce platform
Just search with the keyword bird decoy or glue bird trap on e-commerce sites, it is not difficult to buy all kinds of traps at cheap prices.
20,000 VND/ 1 fake stork looks like the real thing. 150,000 VND for 1kg of super glue, enough to attach 1,500 bamboo sticks, slaughter hundreds of birds. Everything is easy to shop with a few simple taps. After only a few days, the goods are delivered to the door, ready for a season of destruction.
Of course, hunting birds in large numbers, well-invested is not only to serve the food needs of a few households. The destinations of the birds are restaurants, eateries or even large markets. During the actual penetration, many images are captured that will probably make the viewer feel haunted.
Horrifying the process of killing birds
Cho Hoi – Cam Xuyen district, Ha Tinh province is one of the destinations of wild birds after being hunted. With the price of 60,000 VND / bird, the sky birds are secretly sold here as a specialty. Despite many serious injuries after the process of trapping, all of these birds are still alive and are plucked by the owner as soon as there is a customer.
Although it must be recognized as evil, the cruel killing stork process has not ended yet. The storks after plucking their feathers were burned alive using a gas torch. The temperature of this torch flame reaches 1,300 degrees, 13 times higher than the temperature of boiling water, imagine the feeling of storks struggling under this flame.
The vendors did not know that the people they were soliciting were reporters and plainclothes rangers from the Cam Xuyen district forest ranger. As soon as the functional forces appeared at the scene, many shippers rushed to run away, leaving behind unfinished birds. Gas torches were also left at the scene.
Violating establishments were all sanctioned by the Cam Xuyen district forest ranger, confiscated and destroyed all illegal birds for sale.
Although the penalty is high, the profit from the sale of wild birds is not small. Therefore, when there are sellers and buyers, the situation of trapping migratory birds is still ongoing. If no urgent measures are taken to prevent the extermination of migratory birds, it is possible that one day, the image of storks flying over rice fields like this will only exist in proverbs.
Recurrence of the bird trade
The above images were recorded by a group of VTV reporters in collaboration with the functional forces of Cam Xuyen district at the fair on September 21.
But only 5 days later, on the morning of September 25, when the police of Cam Xuyen district conducted patrols at the fairground area, they discovered a small trader carrying dozens of wild birds to the market for sale.
It can be seen that, although the authorities have taken drastic measures, when people still consider migratory birds as a blessing, it is very difficult to prevent this situation at the root.
Preventing the extermination of birds in the sky
During a sweep of migratory bird hunting sites by Ha Tinh province’s functional forces, it was not difficult to discover bundles of bamboo sticks that had not yet been impregnated with plastic, and boxes of super-adhesive glue that were still lying around. All were destroyed and burned so that people would not have the opportunity to exterminate migratory birds.
The birds-prey who were tied here for many days were also rescued by the functional forces, untied their feet to sew their eyes. Unfortunately, many people defied, waded out to pick up the stork, even loudly with members of the interdisciplinary team.
Ha Tinh has 3 localities where bird hunting often occurs: Nghi Xuan, Loc Ha and Ky Anh. In particular, the coastal Melaleuca forest area of Ky Phu commune has been a famous bird hunting ground for many generations. The bird traps spread out so much that the functional forces could not break it. Although it has not been completely stopped, many households have suffered heavy losses when being trapped, so they are no longer eager to hunt.
Although all households with a tradition of wild bird fishing are required by local authorities to sign a commitment before the bird migration season, when the authorities are absent, some households still sneak around. into the forest to set traps.
From the beginning of 2022 up to now, communes and districts in Ha Tinh province have organized 32 inspections, raids, released hundreds of birds of prey and destroyed 779 fake birds and tens of thousands of bamboo sticks impregnated with plastic, 21 loudspeakers calling for birds, thousands of meters of nets. Although many measures have been taken since the beginning of the bird migration season, when people’s awareness has not changed, it is difficult to prevent this situation from recurring.
