to see the volume of birds that were in the market and the number of different species.

The songbird black market is immense, it crosses every border, it's across the globe.

We really felt that it was so important to actually start working with some of these

species before it was too late before they were driven over the precipice and became

extinct.

The ones in Jakarta, particularly the one called Pramuka Bird Market which is actually the

biggest wildlife market on the planet is a really depressing place to visit actually

as someone who's a bird lover, someone that's very passionate about conservation.

Unless we can control and stop the illegal wildlife trade in these songbirds the inevitable

result is going to be the extinction of multiple species across Southeast Asia.

So these forests really are falling silent.

So I've worked in the zoo community as a aviculturist, if you like a bird enthusiast, for many

many years.

Conservation has always been the driving force behind everything that I do.

And in Indonesia in particular, the songbird crisis is at such a height that I felt that

we really needed to do as much as we possibly can to try to protect these wonderful endemic

species.

I've been working within Indonesia with partner organizations, conservationists for a number

of years trying to save those species that have been driven to the edge of extinction

through the illegal wildlife trade.

As you walk in through these dark damp corridors, the initial thing that hits you is the smell

the smell of birds and bird mess, bird feces and under every corner there's a little shady

bird shop where there's birds cramped into tiny little cages under the covers in dark corners.

There's often dead birds in the gutter where they've thrown out to feed the cats of birds

or having survived over the night.

These birds are trapped by local trappers and then they go to a middleman

who trades the birds across the whole Indonesian archipelago, these birds may have to travel

for many days over, even thousands of miles to get there.

The vast majority of these are songbirds.

They are very unique in their adaptations are amazing.

They have beautiful colors, generally, many of them are a bright green, some are red.

They are very often, of course have very lovely songs.

And those are the ones that are most highly prized the birds that have incredible voices.

So one element of the bird keeping industry within Indonesia is the bird singing competitions,

and these are incredible events to see to witness.

At least competitions there'll be many people there, all of the bird keepers will be hanging

their birds up under a large canopy there'll be 30 or 40 birds in each competition.

It's a really frenzied environment where all of the bird owners are screaming and shouting

at their birds to try to encourage them to sing louder.

The value of these prizes is incredibly high for the top champion.

The top champion white rump Sharma, for example, the prize could be something like $50,000

for the winner, or occasionally, we've heard rumors that the winner will win a house or

a big fancy motorcar.

Very often the wild caught birds are the highest in demand if you like

they're the birds that they really want so they always feel that the wild caught birds

have more vigor than the captured birds.

That sort of fuels the trade in these illegally

caught birds rather than focusing on the captive bred bird.

If the bird is a protected bird,

he will use the ring.

So some of those birds have leg bands on, leg rings on on which is which are able to identify them

as captive bred, there is an element of captive breeding going on, but they also sometimes

put leg bands onto birds so the clearly wild caught.

These birds are really important to the ecosystem within Southeast Asia.

Many of the birds are fruit eater so they're very important seed dispersers.

They're also very important pollinators as well.

There may be elements here where the insectivores play a role in terms of pest control

within the environment.

So they're extremely important.

It's actually very difficult to rescue or confiscate birds from the markets, but when

we do they end up in our conservation breeding center partners, where they're able to breed

and reproduce and with hopefully with the ultimate aim of getting these birds back out

into the wild.

But of course it's very important that we have safe secure environments where we can

do so.

So we have to work and we want to work with local communities, so that we can create nice

environments for the wildlife but also for the local people in Indonesia, as well.

And we're looking at alternative livelihoods for these people.

So, the bird trappers, we want to change their mindsets and really give them alternative

occupations or livelihoods so that they don't need to rely on catching birds from the wild.

The main sort of ambition if you like is really to try to have bird watchers of the future

rather than bird keepers right so that's a long term aim but hopefully we'll get there

in the future.