🔗 Share this article

The conservationist's eyes scan across miles of tall grassland, hunting for signs of life in the inky blackness.

He utters less than a whisper as we try to find a place of cover in the fields. In the distance, the huge urban center of Beijing remains asleep. As we wait, the only sound is the sound of breathing.

And then, as the sky begins to brighten before dawn, the sound of footsteps emerges. Illegal trappers are present.

Caught

In the skies above us, a multitude of winged travelers, many so small that they can fit in the cup of a hand, are journeying southward for winter.

They have utilized the extended daylight in Siberia, or Mongolia, consuming bugs and berries. As the year winds down and icy winds bring the initial freeze of winter, they head to warmer places to nest and feed.

The nation hosts more than 1,500 bird species, accounting for 13% of the world's total – over eight hundred of those are migratory birds. Several of the major migration routes they follow converge in China.

The area of meadow being monitored, on the fringes of the Chinese capital, is an refuge for small birds – any further and the urban landscape offer little opportunity to rest among clusters of concrete.

It is also an oasis for the poachers and their "mist nets", so delicate you can barely see them.

The trap we stumbled upon was stretched across a large section of the field and propped up with wooden sticks. In the middle, a meadow pipit was fighting hard to escape, but the more it struggled, the more its feet got ensnared.

This was a protected songbird, a protected bird in China, and an important "bio-indicator" – meaning if its population is healthy, so is its ecosystem.

Pursuing the Poachers

Silva, who is in his 30s, carries out this mission for free using his own savings. He has given up on many nights of sleep to rescue birds, and he has spent the last 10 years convincing the police in Beijing to take this crime seriously.

"Initially, no-one cared," he says.

So he recruited volunteers who did care and established a group called the Beijing Migratory Bird Squad. He organized public meetings and invited the leaders of the relevant authorities. These small and persistent acts of advocacy have shown results. The police realized that catching poachers also led to uncovering other kinds of criminal activity.

"It became clear our objectives became somewhat shared," Silva says, while pointing out that implementation remains inconsistent.

His passion for avian life started in childhood. He grew up in the nineties in a very different Beijing.

He recalls exploring the fields on the city's edges where he found birds, frogs and snakes. "However, beginning in the 2000s, everything changed."

China's booming economy brought a huge influx of rural workers to cities. This expansion meant grasslands were viewed as areas for development, not sanctuaries to conserve.

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

"I made the choice back then to pursue environmental protection and I took this path," he says.

It has not been an easy life. A major Beijing's biggest bird dealers discovered he was being investigated by Silva and fought back.

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

He has also lost his army of volunteers over the years. This work requires covert operations and lost sleep. Silva says not many are willing to take on the challenging and occasionally risky job.

"My life is devoted to this," he says. "I made it a project because if you want to tackle this challenge, you must give it your all. You cannot be half-hearted."

He says fundraising covers some of the costs – more than 100,000 yuan annually – but support has waned because of the economic situation.

So he has adopted new ways to hunt the hunters.

He examines satellite imagery to find the routes worn away by the poachers. He maps those against the birds' migratory routes 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 command a premium," Silva says. "In big cities like Beijing and Tianjin, those who want to own songbirds are now quite wealthy."

Although there are environmental regulations in place, Silva argues the penalties to punish the crime do not outweigh the financial benefits of catching and selling songbirds.

Keeping a caged bird was – and for some people in China, still is – a status symbol. This dates back to the Qing dynasty. Nobles and elites would build elaborate bamboo cages for their birds.

It's a tradition that continues mainly among older individuals in their later years. 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 pet.

"These individuals often lacked enough to eat growing up. Now with some disposable income, they have adopted the practice of caging birds," he says. "The nation progressed so fast, there was no time to raise awareness about ecology. Once people's attitudes are set, they're really hard to change."

Apprehended

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

A separate individual stands outside a nearby market holding a bird cage covered by a dark cloth. He informs passers-by quietly that his songbird is rare, worth about 1900 yuan.

This offers a view of an traditional side of the city where informal vendors have established a niche trade.

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

Information suggested that protected birds could be purchased in a nearby green space. The location was not concealed.

Music was blasting from a speaker under the low trees where a troop of elderly ladies were choreographing a fan dance. Nearby several men, all over 50, had gathered with bird cages – some had two or three in their hands. Most were concealed by black fabric.

But today there would be no transactions because the police had arrived. They were interviewing the bird owners and taking names. Unyielding, one man said he was {taking his caged bird for a walk|simply exercising his