Wildlife trade threatens bird populations around the globe. Throughout Asia, birds are sold for food, pets, religious practices and competitions. Hong Kong SAR has long played an important role in bird trade in the region, both as an importer and re-exporter. Local bird experts undertook 13 monthly surveys between March 2018 and May 2019 in the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden in Hong Kong, the only remaining legal bird market and the primary selling point for birds in the city, to assess recent trade volumes. We documented 14,414 individual birds of 210 species for sale, with an average of 1,109 birds for sale per visit. Of the 20 most abundant species for sale, 16 most likely have wild-caught origins. Only 28% of the recorded species occur in the wild in Hong Kong, so most species for sale originate elsewhere. Mainland China is the most likely source of birds sold, with Indonesia and Africa also important exporters to Hong Kong. Most (92%) of the species for sale in the market are of Least Concern according to the IUCN Red List, but several of these are under high trade pressure in the region and warrant increased monitoring efforts. The number of birds we observed for sale in the market has declined over the past several decades since the last complete market survey, but many of the species occurring in trade have remained consistent across time. A mismatch in government records and birds observed in our surveys supports our recommendation for improved record keeping for more effective monitoring and enforcement of trade regulations to reduce trade of wild-caught specimens traded in the territory.
Dingle et al. (Sun,) studied this question.