SINGAPORE: The trade in illegal exotic birds has always plagued Singapore and Malaysia, but a new study says the situation is becoming a pandemic for birds coming from the Solomon Islands. According to Chris Shepherd, the Southeast Asia deputy regional director of Traffic, an international wildlife trade-monitoring group, in a report, said that 7 in 10 exotic birds from the Solomon Islands are transported through Singapore, with Malaysia coming in close second. The group said that Singapore was the number one laundering point for the birds caught in the Pacific islands. “These birds are then re-exported to other territories, mainly to Taiwan, or sold here as pets,” the report said, pointing to a need for buyers and the government to crackdown on the illegal sale of endangered species. Traffic's analysis of the Solomon Islands' trade data, from 2000 to 2010, found that Singapore was responsible for about 50,000 birds exported – 72 percent of bird exports. According to Traffic, many of the birds are passing through customs and international trade organizations' oversight due to their being “captive-bred,” which makes discovering that they are actually wild birds difficult for untrained observers. Captive-breeding is the process of “breeding legally acquired wild animals in human-controlled environments, such as zoos and conservation facilities.” Singapore and Malaysia have seen the import of parrots, chattering lories, and other endangered birds including the cockatoos in recent years. And the number is rising, said Traffic. All of these species exported from the islands are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (Cites), which restricts the trade of animals caught in the wild. Malaysia, he second-highest importer of endangered birds from the islands, froze all trade of wildlife from the Solomon Islands in 2004, following the Malaysian authorities' suspicion that the birds came from illegal sources.
