The big-headed bird dying for human vanity
It sounds a little weird, but there are often many reasons to feel sympathy for the people causing conservation crises.
Whether it’s farmers protecting their livelihoods, people below the poverty line hunting for a meal or families duped into buying medicines that don’t work to try to save their loved ones, often the root of the problem is genuine human need.
But this is not one of those stories.
This is about the slaughter of helmeted hornbills - a brilliant bird that is being blasted to bits so people can hack the helmet off its skull and carve it into some vulgar status symbol.
This unsavoury trend has reared its ugly head again in Southeast Asia, slicing through their population and leaving them on the highest extinction warning level possible.
There is no practical purpose or fabled benefit from this - just needless ostentatiousness in its vilest form.
The situation is all the more heartbreaking once you get a sense of the bird beneath the helmet. Their call sounds like the cackle of a maniac and they use those helmets in aerial head-butting battles as the birds jostle for the more favourable trees to nest in.
Once nested, the female and single chick won’t leave, relying solely on the male for regular deliveries of food. So, when the hunter creeps into the forest to slaughter the male, the whole family perishes soon after in a grim three for one.
Nobody’s ego is worth that.
We have to end this - and end it in the tiny amount of time we have left before the damage becomes irreversible. To do that, we have to stop the traffickers.
These criminals are often the same individuals driving the slaughter of tigers and profiting from the sale of their skin and bones. Their time behind bars is long overdue and, through your donations, we’re cultivating informant networks and supporting the undercover operations that are bringing them to justice.
Only in that way can we give these brilliant birds (and the tigers that share their home) the respite they need to recover - keeping their helmets off mantelpieces, and saving their lives to keep them jousting around in the wild.
Please help save these brilliant birds. They're on the very brink of collapse, and most of the world doesn't even know they exist, but if everyone reading this donates just £3 you could help stop the traffickers and save their lives. Thank you.
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