🔗 Share this article

The activist's vision darts across miles of dense fields, looking for suspicious activity in the early morning gloom.

He utters a muted voice as we try to find a place of cover in the open area. Behind us, the sprawling city of Beijing slumbers on. During the vigil, we hear only the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten before dawn, the sound of footsteps emerges. The hunters have arrived.

Trapped

In the skies above us, billions of birds, some tiny enough that they could rest in the cup of a hand, are traveling to the south for winter.

They have benefited from the long summer days in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming bugs and berries. As the year comes to a close and icy winds bring the first frosts of winter, they are flying to southern locales to find food and shelter.

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

The area of meadow where we were, on the edges of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – farther in and the urban landscape offer scant chance to rest among forests of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "barely visible nets", so thin you can hardly spot them.

A net we almost encountered was extending over a large section of the field and supported with bamboo poles. In the middle, a small finch was fighting hard to escape, but the more it moved, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a meadow pipit, a species under protection in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – that means if its population is healthy, so is its habitat.

Pursuing the Poachers

Silva, who is in his 30s, does this work for free using his personal funds. He has given up on many nights of sleep to release trapped birds, and he has spent the last 10 years urging the police in Beijing to prioritize this issue.

"Initially, there was little interest," he remarks.

So he gathered a team who did care and formed 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 advocacy have shown results. The police discovered that apprehending illegal hunters also led to uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"We found our objectives became partially aligned," Silva says, noting that implementation remains inconsistent.

Silva's love of birds started in childhood. He grew up in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

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."

Rapid economic growth brought millions of rural workers to cities. This fast-paced development meant grasslands were viewed as empty places to build, not conservation areas to preserve.

This shift shocked him. 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 easy life. 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 remembers. He says he went 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 demands stealth and sleepless nights. Silva says not many are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"I do this full-time," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to solve this big problem, you must give it your all. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says fundraising pays for some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan a year – but funding has declined because of the economic situation.

So he has found new ways to track the poachers.

He examines satellite imagery to find the trails created by the poachers. He charts these against the birds' flight paths and looks for areas where they may stop for the night. The satellite images can even show netting setups which can catch scores of small birds at night.

"Siberian rubythroats and bluethroats sell for a premium," Silva says. "In urban centers like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are environmental regulations in place, Silva argues the fines to punish the crime do not outweigh the potential profits of trapping and trading songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the imperial era. Wealthy individuals would build ornate bamboo cages to display their birds.

This custom that continues mainly among older individuals in their 60s or 70s. Silva says older Chinese people may not understand they are breaking the law, or grasp that numerous birds were killed in a trap for them to purchase a caged bird.

"This generation often lacked 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 little opportunity 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 vendor has several small cages with tiny twittering birds.

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

This offers a view of an traditional side of the city where small unofficial traders have created their own market.

The path alongside the water extends over several miles and on a sunny weekday morning, there were people looking at everything from vintage jewellery to false teeth.

Information suggested that protected birds could be purchased in a nearby green space. It was easy to find.

Loud music played from a speaker under the low trees where a troop of elderly ladies were performing a traditional dance. Close by several men, all over 50, had congregated with bird cages – some had multiple in their hands. Most were covered in black fabric.

But on this occasion there would be no sales because the police had arrived. They were questioning the bird owners and recording details. Defiant, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his