The wild bird trade is a major driver of species loss in Indonesia. However, studies of the Indonesian bird trade have focused on the island of Java, providing little information on the bird trade in other regions, such as Kalimantan. We conducted the first-ever market surveys in rural West Kalimantan from July 2015 to August 2016 and in the capital city of each of the five provinces of Kalimantan from August 2016 to February 2017. At each market, we recorded the number of individuals of each species, the price per individual for each species, and the source of each individual. In addition, we asked 32 bird traders and owners from Kalimantan to fill out a questionnaire addressing their perceptions of changes in price and availability of commercial species over time. Across our survey, we located 201 shops and 25,298 individuals for sale from 153 identified species. We conclude that our market surveys document only part of the trade and affirm that the bird trade is of considerable size in Kalimantan. We recommend that conservationists focus on conserving Kalimantan's remaining forest and reducing demand through education and behavior change programs. We echo the calls of other conservationists for Indonesia to update the Conservation Act (No. 5) of 1990 to include current species of concern and for law enforcement efforts to stop both local trade and cross-island trade between Kalimantan and Java. Our study underlines the threat to the persistence of many Indonesian avian species.

The songbird trade in Indonesia is a major driver of avian species loss. Songbird traders represent the link between trappers and consumers for this lucrative industry, though details on the dynamics of this relationship remain understudied. To understand why songbird shop owners entered the trade, if businesses were lucrative, and assess owner receptiveness to adopting alternative businesses, we investigated socioeconomic characteristics of 95 songbird shop owners via an interview-style survey across 13 regencies in West Kalimantan. Responses from shop owners showed a widespread lack of legal permitting for businesses and the sale of bird species. Indeed, the majority of respondents (63%) did not have the mandatory business permits, which suggests that nonwildlife regulatory laws could be leveraged to reduce the volume of the illegal songbird trade in West Kalimantan. Nearly half of all respondents (40%) noted that bird trading was not their sole income source, nor was it particularly lucrative. More than half (55%) of all bird traders interviewed expressed interest in switching to alternative businesses if given the resources and opportunity to do so. This study offers novel insights into motives of engaging in songbird trade in West Kalimantan. This study also supports the possibility of addressing the songbird trade via a combination of law enforcement and alternative business programs.

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