The hard life of an Indonesian bird catcher

Bird catchers use glue and recordings to catch their prey and often encounter dangerous animals. However, high prices and steady demand do not make life more prosperous as charmers remain at the bottom of the bird hunting and smuggling chain.

The deadly trapping of songbirds in Indonesia

Roughly a million songbirds, including some protected species, are estimated to have been smuggled off the western Indonesian island of Sumatra over the past year. The lucrative nature of the songbird business threatens the populations of a number of bird species as well as the balance of the forest ecosystem.