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Rare Birds Slaughtered For 'Ivory'
Rare Birds Slaughtered For 'Ivory'
The helmeted hornbill is a huge, cackling bird native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. It has a wrinkly, featherless neck and a long, black-and-white banded tail. Atop its short spike of a bill is the “helmet”—a solid wedge of keratin (the same material that makes up your fingernails) called a casque.
That wedge, which male hornbills use for head-to-head airborne combat, may be their undoing. Around 2011, an explosion in demand from China’s new rich for this so-called “red ivory,” named after the hue the casque takes on when it’s carved, has led to wholesale slaughter of helmeted hornbills in Indonesia.
Organized criminal syndicates have spread throughout the tropical forests of Sumatra and Borneo, employing locals to shoot every hornbill they come across. They do this in the hope that at least some of the birds are the valuable helmeted hornbill, says Nigel Collar, a senior research fellow BirdLife International, a coalition of independent bird conservation groups from around the world.
Learn more about the beautiful bird from the video.
Wildlife needs our help now more than ever. Let's stop buying products derived from these animals, or eating them. All life are worth saving — http://KindMeal.my.
Source: http://bit.ly/1UF9yz2
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