Insights from the media into the bird trade in India: an analysis of reported seizures

Abstract

India has an extensive bird trade that provides income and livelihoods for many people but involves considerable unregulated and illegal activity, threatening both native and exotic species and posing potential health risks to people and wildlife. Action to curb illegal trade is vital, but there is currently a lack of information on trade routes and the species involved to inform the development of strategies to address such trade. We therefore examined media reports of bird trade seizures published during 2010–2020 as a cost-effective approach to gaining insights into the composition and structure of the bird trade in India. We collected 182 media reports referring to 109 seizure events by searching for keywords on popular search engines and Indian newspaper websites. We found that 25,850 birds were seized, most frequently members of the family Psittacidae. Of the 58 species identified, 18 were native and 40 non-native to India. The greatest numbers of birds were seized in Uttar Pradesh. Analyses of trade networks indicate that Uttar Pradesh is an important trade hotspot particularly for native species and has strong transnational connections with neighbouring Nepal. We identified West Bengal as an important trade hotspot, particularly for non-native species, probably because of its extensive land borders with neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh. Our study highlights priority areas for interventions as well as key knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to facilitate the development of strategies to manage illegal, unsustainable and otherwise harmful trading of birds.

Local impact, global challenge: the role of domestic markets in the illegal wildlife trade

“…For instance, tortoise and hard-shell turtle pet trade networks in India tend to be decentralized, with a large number of actors, whereas soft-shell turtle wild meat trade networks are more centralized, with a small number of key actors controlling the trade (Sengottuvel et al, 2024). In some cases, wildlife trade concentrates around specific hotspots, such as Chennai in southern India, which is a central node for the domestic and international bird and reptile pet trade (Kalra et al, 2024; Sengottuvel et al, 2024), whereas in others it is dispersed across urban, peri-urban, and rural markets (Uddin et al, 2024). Intermediaries help to perpetuate wildlife trade in domestic markets by providing financial incentives to local hunters and by forging links with international markets, as in the case of the trade in Goliath frogs in Cameroon (Tasse Taboue et al, 2024) and of passerine birds in Brazil (Silva et al, 2022).…”