An Appetite for Extinction

The Yellow-breasted Bunting, which lives throughout Eurasia, from Finland to Japan, was once recognized as the region’s most widespread and abundant bird species. That would, you might imagine, bode well for securing its future. But then that’s what was assumed about the Passenger Pigeon in North America, too.

Annually, millions of Eurasian Yellow-breasted Buntings migrate to South and Southeast Asia for the winter. Unfortunately, for hundreds of thousands of these birds, their journeys end permanently in China. There, poachers set out nets to catch the birds. The snared buntings are killed and fried, then sold as a delicacy on the black market. This wholesale slaughter is the prime cause of an incredible 84 percent to 95 percent reduction in the bird’s population in the past 35 years.

This startling statistic comes out of new research published in Conservation Biology that shows that a burgeoning appetite for the bunting’s meat, along with destruction of reedbed habitat in its winter range, could send it down the same path as the Passenger Pigeon. “The Yellow-breasted Bunting was one of the most, if not the most, widespread birds across Eurasia. Three hundred years ago the Passenger Pigeon was probably the most common bird on the planet,” says Martin Fowlie, communications officer at BirdLife International, who has also written about the massive dropoff in bunting populations. “Both suffered very, very rapid declines over a very rapid period of time.” The researchers found that since 1980, Yellow-breasted Bunting populations—once estimated to be about 100 million—have decreased by up to 95 percent. BirdLife International reports that danger zones for the bird include Eastern Europe, parts of Russia and Siberia, and Japan.

The main culinary market is in China, where growing affluence has increased demand for the delicacy. But the buntings are also prized in other parts in the region, including Cambodia and Nepal. Efforts to monitor poaching activities on the ground in China have revealed the scale of the problem, Fowlie says. “At one site there were a million taken in a season, and that was mirrored at several sites across China.” Trapping and consuming Yellow-breasted Buntings was outlawed in the country in 1997, but a thriving black market quickly replaced the legal trade. The birds are so popular that traders can sell up to 10,000 a day. Male buntings are also sold as stuffed trinkets; they’re said to bring happiness to the buyer’s home.

BirdLife International recently designated the bird as critically endangered in Europe. The organization also warns that for the species to survive, Eurasian countries must work with the Convention on Migratory Species to formally agree to monitor the birds across their range, and ultimately combat poaching. Fowlie adds that enforcing existing laws in China is important, too, as is educating consumers about the impact of their appetite. “They need to actually know what is happening at a wider scale,” he says.

Experts also hope that birdwatching, which is on the rise in China, will help the bunting avoid the Passenger Pigeon’s fate. It might turn out that an army of binocular-wielding admirers is the songbird’s best chance at survival.