EAZA’s Silent Forest Campaign
We raised funds for EAZA’s Silent Forest campaign, supporting fieldwork to bring the critically endangered Bali Myna back to Indonesia’s wild forests.
In 2018, GTT signed up to EAZA’s Silent Forest campaign and raised funds to support fieldwork for the conservation of the Bali Myna (Leucopsar rothschildi). This striking white songbird is Critically Endangered, found only in Indonesia, and is one of the most iconic bird species on the planet.
The campaign’s name says it all: across Asia, forests are falling silent as songbirds vanish, taken by the illegal trade and squeezed by habitat loss. Indonesia has one of the highest numbers of bird species assessed as threatened with global extinction in the world — and the highest in Asia (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable; IUCN Red List, 2017) — so we felt this was a truly valuable project to support.
The funds GTT raised were spent on three things:
- Supporting Indonesian students and ecologists to conduct studies of the Bali Myna.
- Devising robust pre-release, release and post-release protocols, so birds bred in captivity have the best possible chance when they return to the wild.
- Introducing a robust system of monitoring and studying released Bali Mynas, using tracking to help determine the key ecological needs of the species.
Every bird released and tracked adds to our understanding of what the species needs to survive — and brings the forests of Bali one small step closer to singing again.