The trapping of Red-whiskered Bulbuls by profit-driven cage-bird keepers has devastated the species, reducing its population by as much as 95%
Assoc. Prof. Philip D. Round (Philip Round)
❝ The trapping of Red-whiskered Bulbuls by profit-driven cage-bird keepers has devastated the species, reducing its population by as much as 95%. The Red-whiskered Bulbul was once a common bird found throughout Thailand, including the South. Today, however, most of the remaining wild population is confined to mountainous areas in northern Thailand.
There is simply no valid justification for removing the Red-whiskered Bulbul from the list of protected wildlife. Such a decision could drive the small, remnant wild populations even closer to extinction.
The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) has lacked both the urgency and the effectiveness needed to establish a proper registration system for the large number of Red-whiskered Bulbuls already being kept in captivity. With an appropriate registration system in place, breeders could legally breed birds in captivity to meet the demand of the cage-bird market.
นกปรอดหัวโขน (Red-whiskered Bulbul)
Most officials currently working in the Wildlife Conservation Office of the DNP have only been in their positions for a relatively short time, and therefore have not witnessed or fully understood the dramatic decline of this species. I do, because I have been watching birds in Thailand for the past 47 years. ❞
Assoc. Prof. Philip D. Round, ornithologist and lecturer in the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University. He is internationally recognized for his research on bird migration and as one of the ornithologists involved in the second-ever rediscovery of the Large-billed Reed Warbler, 139 years after its previous scientific record.
