🔗 Share this article

Silva Gu's eyes scan over miles of tall grassland, looking for any movement in the early morning gloom.

He utters less than a whisper as we try to find a concealed position in the fields. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing has yet to wake. As we wait, the only sound is the quiet of the morning.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten before dawn, we hear footsteps. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

Across the heavens, countless migratory birds, some tiny enough that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have utilized the long summer days in northern regions, feasting on bugs and berries. As the year winds down and icy winds bring the first frosts of winter, they journey to warmer places to find food and shelter.

China is home to more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the global population – over eight hundred of those are birds that migrate. Four of the nine major paths they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow where we were, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an haven for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among towering rows of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "fine nets", so thin you can almost miss them.

The trap we stumbled upon was strung across half the length of the field and supported with wooden sticks. In the middle, a tiny bird was struggling frantically to escape, but the more it moved, the more its claws became tangled.

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

Tracking the Trappers

The conservationist, in his thirties, carries out this mission for free using his own savings. He has forgone many nights of sleep to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"Back in 2015, no-one cared," he remarks.

So he gathered a team who were concerned and established a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held public meetings and invited the officials of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion appear to have worked. The police realized that catching poachers also led to identifying other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our goals were 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 much changed capital.

He recalls wandering in the fields on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "But starting from the 2000s, everything changed."

Rapid economic growth brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were seen as areas for development, not sanctuaries to conserve.

The transformation was alarming. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the ecosystems they sustained.

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

It has not been an simple journey. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was under scrutiny by Silva and fought back.

"He gathered several of his accomplices who surrounded me and assaulted me," Silva recalls. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not held accountable.

He has also seen the departure of his team of helpers over the years. This work demands covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"This is my full-time commitment," he says. "I treat it as a mission 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 pays for some of the costs – over 100,000 yuan a year – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has developed new ways to hunt the hunters.

He analyzes satellite imagery to find the paths created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may rest. The satellite images can even show lines of net traps which can catch scores of small birds at night.

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

Although there are wildlife laws in place, Silva believes the fines to punish the crime do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. This originates from the Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says some elderly citizens may not understand they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous birds were killed in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"These individuals didn't even have enough to eat in their youth. Now with some disposable income, they have inherited the practice of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people about the environment. Once people's attitudes are set, they're extremely difficult to change."

Disrupted

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

A separate individual stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He tells passers-by discreetly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an old Beijing where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

The path by the river extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were shoppers browsing everything from old trinkets to dentures.

We were told that wild songbirds could be bought in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker under the low trees where a group of elderly ladies were choreographing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all in their later years, had congregated with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were covered in dark cloth.

But today there would be no transactions because the police had appeared. They were interviewing the bird owners and taking names. Defiant, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his