🔗 Share this article

The conservationist's eyes scan across miles of tall grassland, hunting for suspicious activity in the pre-dawn darkness.

He speaks in less than a whisper as we try to find a spot to hide in the grasslands. In the distance, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, the only sound is the sound of breathing.

Suddenly, as the sky starts to lighten with the approaching day, there is the crunch of footsteps. The poachers are here.

Trapped

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

They have benefited from the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming bugs and berries. As the year winds down and cold breezes bring the early cold of winter, they head to warmer places to breed and eat.

There are over 1500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major migration routes they follow cross through China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an oasis 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 "mist nets", so fine you can barely see them.

The one we nearly walked into was stretched across half the length of the field and propped up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was desperately trying to untangle itself, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its numbers are thriving, so is its environment.

Tracking the Trappers

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has forgone many sleeping hours to set songbirds free, and he has spent the last decade convincing the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

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

So he recruited volunteers who did care and formed a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He held community gatherings and invited the leaders of the relevant authorities. These consistent and determined acts of persuasion seem to have paid off. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, while pointing out that the response is not uniform.

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He was raised in the 1990s in a much changed capital.

He remembers wandering in the grasslands on the city's edges where he encountered birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

China's booming economy brought millions of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were viewed as land for construction, not conservation areas to conserve.

The change stunned Silva. The grasslands began to shrink, as did the wildlife they housed.

"I made the choice back then to pursue environmental protection and I took this path," he says.

This has not made for an simple journey. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers found out he was being investigated by Silva and retaliated.

"He gathered several of his accomplices who surrounded me and beat me up," Silva remembers. He says he went to the police but the perpetrators were not held accountable.

He has also lost his team of helpers over the years. This work demands patience and night vigils. Silva says few people are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to address this major issue, you must commit completely. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says donations covers some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but funding has declined because of the slowing economy.

So he has found new ways to hunt the hunters.

He analyzes satellite imagery to find the paths created by the poachers. He charts these 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 hundreds of small birds during darkness.

"Certain prized species sell for a high price," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

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

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. This originates from the imperial era. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. Silva says older Chinese people don't realise they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous birds had to die in a trap so they could buy a caged bird.

"This generation often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with some disposable income, they have adopted the practice of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people about ecology. Once adults' values are formed, they're extremely difficult to change."

Disrupted

Along a riverside path in Beijing, a trader has several small cages with tiny twittering birds.

A separate individual is positioned near a nearby market holding a bird cage shrouded in a dark cloth. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is valuable, worth nearly 1900 yuan.

This is a glimpse of an traditional side of the city where small unofficial traders have established a niche trade.

The area alongside the water extends over several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to dentures.

Information suggested that wild songbirds could be bought in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were concealed by dark cloth.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had appeared. They were questioning the bird owners and taking names. Unyielding, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his