🔗 Share this article

The activist's gaze sweeps over vast expanses of tall grassland, searching for suspicious activity in the inky blackness.

He utters a muted voice as the team seeks a place of cover in the open area. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing remains asleep. During the vigil, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten ahead of sunrise, the sound of footsteps emerges. The poachers are here.

Caught

Across the heavens, a multitude of winged travelers, some tiny enough that they could rest in the cup of a hand, are migrating south for winter.

They have benefited from the warmer months in Siberia, or Mongolia, feasting on bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and cold breezes bring the initial freeze of winter, they journey to more temperate climates to nest and feed.

There are over 1500 bird species, representing roughly 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 where we were, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an oasis for small birds – any further and the city skies offer few options to rest among clusters of concrete.

It is equally attractive for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so fine you can almost miss them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over a large section of the field and propped up with bamboo poles. In the middle, a meadow pipit was struggling frantically to untangle itself, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

It was a meadow pipit, a protected bird in China, and an important "indicator species" – which signifies if its population is healthy, so is its habitat.

Hunting the Hunters

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.

"In the early days, no-one cared," he states.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and formed a group known as the Bird Protection Unit. He organized community gatherings and invited the heads of the local police and forestry bureau. These consistent and determined acts of advocacy appear to have worked. The police realized that apprehending illegal hunters also helped in tracking down other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, adding the caveat that the response is not uniform.

This fascination with birds started in childhood. He grew up in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

He recalls roaming through the grasslands on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, the transformation was dramatic."

Rapid economic growth brought millions of rural workers to cities. This rapid urbanisation meant grasslands were considered empty places to build, not sanctuaries to preserve.

This shift shocked him. The grasslands receded, as did the wildlife they housed.

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

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

"He assembled several of his associates who confronted me and assaulted me," Silva remembers. He says he reported to the police but those responsible were not brought to justice.

He has also seen the departure of his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says few people are prepared for the difficult – and sometimes dangerous job.

"This is my full-time commitment," he says. "I treat it as a mission because if you want to solve this big problem, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly. You can't do it part-time."

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

So he has found new ways to hunt the hunters.

He studies aerial photos to find the paths created by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The aerial views can even show lines of net traps which can catch scores of small birds during darkness.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to keep birds are now often affluent."

While there are environmental regulations in place, Silva reckons the fines to deter the activity do not exceed the potential profits of catching and selling songbirds.

Owning a pet bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the Qing dynasty. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are committing a wildlife crime, or grasp that numerous birds were killed 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 inherited the habit and custom of keeping birds in cages," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to educate people about the environment. Once adults' values are set, they're really hard to change."

Busted

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

Another man is positioned near a local market holding a bird cage covered by a black veil. He informs passers-by discreetly 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 by the river extends over several miles and on a typical day, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to false teeth.

We were told that protected birds could be purchased in a small park. The location was not concealed.

Loud music played from a speaker in a shaded area where a group of elderly ladies were performing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all in their later years, 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 transactions because the police had arrived. They were questioning the bird owners and recording details. Defiant, one man claimed he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his