Authorities confiscate endangered hornbill from private zoo

Endangered species are not to be used for personal benefit. This is the message that local officials want to get across after confiscating a young writhed-billed hornbill on display at a mini-zoo in Boracay Island on Sept. 18. The writhed-billed hornbill (Aceros waldeni), also known as the Visayan wrinkled hornbill, the Walden's hornbill and by its local name, dulungan, is one of two hornbill species native to the Western Visayas region. “The dulungan is restricted in the islands of Negros and Panay with its only viable population being extant on Panay,” Philippine Initiative for Conservation of Environment and the People Incorporated (PhilinCon) president Dr. Enrique Sanchez said in an email interview. The dulungan, he said, "serves in the forest ecosystem as an indispensable seed disperser." According to an earlier report by Chinese daily newspaper Global Times, the German national who owned the mini-zoo “voluntarily surrendered the bird after weeks of negotiation.” The hornbill was then brought to the PhilinCon rescue center where it is being rehabilitated. It will later be released back to the wild. Sanchez said the bird was still a fledgling—a young bird that has just acquired flight feathers—when it was illegally taken from its nest. It is a common practice among poachers, he said, to take hornbills from the nest in the wild and sell them through middlemen to interested people, such as resort owners in Boracay. The dulungan is not just endangered, but critically endangered, which the International Union for Conservation of Nature designates for species facing an extremely high risk of extinction within a few generations. “A conservative estimate for Panay would be one to two dozen [in captivity], in addition to approximately 18 birds in a breeding center of the Western Visayas State University,” said Sanchez. He also said that illegal keeping of wildlife is rampant, especially among rich families. “[They keep] animals including mammals and monitor lizards. Among the highly endangered ones in captivity is the spotted deer,” said Sanchez. The Visayan spotted deer is another endangered species that can only be found in the rainforests of Panay and Negros. Sanchez said that education and drying out of the market would help stop the pet trade among these wildlife species. “Aside from that, a long-term undertaking for law enforcement must be executed and perpetrators sued in the court,” Sanchez added. However, Sanchez said that many of the people who have knowledge about the illegal trade would rather keep silent as they think the illegal activity involves rich and powerful families. Currently, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, 164 animal species in the Philippines are threatened. Thirty-one of these, including the dulungan, are critically endangered. — BM, GMA News