Asia Times: THE WILD SIDE Thailand's hornbill savior gets her message across


	April 6, 2002	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

THE WILD SIDE
Thailand's hornbill savior gets her message across
By Michael Spencer

BANGKOK - For the female hornbill, the choice of a good mate can quite literally be a life-or-death decision. Not only are hornbills one of the rare birds that mate for life, but their bizarre breeding habits absolutely demand that the female selects a mate she can rely on to feed her while she is incubating her eggs. Exactly why she should be incapable of feeding herself during this period is one of the strangest tales in the realm of animal behavior.

Before breeding, the hornbill couple makes a rigorous search for a potential nesting site. What they are looking for is a natural cavity in a tree trunk 15-40 meters above the forest floor preferably with fruiting fig trees in the vicinity. Having agreed on a suitable nest site, they then mate whereupon the female enters the hole in the tree and proceeds to imprison herself inside with a wall of mud and debris leaving only a narrow slit through which she can poke her bill.

During the three to four months of her confinement, the male tirelessly forages for food, feeding it to his mate and the chick through the crack. Once the chick has hatched, the female of some species pecks a hole large enough to squeeze out leaving the chick to seal itself back in. Both parents continue to provide food until the chick gets the urge to fledge and breaks out of the nest.

With their characteristic horn-like casques atop their beaks, hornbills resemble no other bird species. Measuring up to 1.5 meters in length, these enigmatic birds belong to an ancient family called Bucerotidae that first appeared in the fossil record about 50 million years ago. Worldwide there are 54 species, 31 in South and Southeast Asia, thirteen of which are found in Thailand's tropical forests.

The Asian hornbills are known as the quintessential forest birds not only because they are unable to withstand direct sunlight for long periods, but their nesting habits mean that they need a ready supply of large old trees to be able to breed. Simply put, they need the forest for their survival. However, inversely the forest is also partly dependant on hornbills for its own health and diversity. Hornbills help the forest regenerate by eating the fruit from more than 60 different species of tree and act as gardeners by dispersing the seeds throughout the forest.

Hornbills are omnivores, whose varied diet consists mainly of fruit but also includes insects, reptiles, mollusks and even small birds. Their favorite meal by far, however, is the fruit of the strangler fig. Males have been observed regurgitating up to 150 of these tasty berries at a time when feeding his family in their self-imposed isolation.

Rarely seen except when they are sweeping in great flocks from one remote jungle valley to another, tropical hornbills are shy and elusive birds that spend most of their lives high in the canopy of the rain forest. Although they are very secretive during nesting, it is possible to observe them by following the male on his regular visits to the imprisoned female. This is also the time of greatest danger for hornbills. Not only are they at risk from natural predators like the yellow-throated marten and the binturong, but also from hunters and unscrupulous traffickers who capture the adult birds and chicks for sale to collectors through the illegal bird trade.

In theory, all of Thailand's hornbills are protected by the Wildlife Preservation Act, but in reality the size and remoteness of their jungle habitat makes it a difficult law to enforce. In consequence, all 13 of the country's species are considered endangered and certain species like the Rufous-necked Hornbill critically so.

The hornbills of Thailand would certainly be a lot worse off today if 20 years ago they not acquired an energetic champion who was determined to ensure that these magnificent birds survive to thrill future generations. Originally trained as a parasitologist, Dr Pilai Poonswad came to be involved with hornbills in a roundabout way when she was appointed scientific adviser to a British Broadcasting Corp documentary film team in 1980. Given the task of finding a hornbill nest, she endured various adventures in Khao Yai national park before chancing on a great hornbill almost by accident as it flew overhead.

The bizarre sound the hornbill makes in flight sent her running for cover. Its lack of wing covet feathers produce a noise that can be heard up to a mile off. Pilai thought it was the snorting of a gaur (a kind of wild cattle) about to charge out of the forest. The crew was able to get their footage, but by the time the filming ended Pilai had fallen under the spell of these curious birds and she resolved to study them further.

Over the next few years Pilai and a small team of volunteers and graduates slowly began to unravel the mystery of hornbill's complex behavior patterns. They had to remain very discreet for if the male is disturbed in the early stages of the breeding process he will not return to the nest. If she has not already molted, the female will eventually break out, but if she has started to lose her feathers, she may die inside her self-made tomb.

Another oddity is that only four species of hornbill have ever been observed drinking water - they apparently get all the moisture they need from their food. The researchers also cleared up another mystery. Politely put, how does the female keep the nest clean? They observed how the female aimed its tail out of the nest slit at the appropriate time and quickly house-trained the chick to do the same.

In the course of her research, Pilai also learned the worrying fact that these fascinating creatures were under severe threat from hunting and habitat loss. That is when she says she found her mission in life, namely to ensure the survival of Thailand's wild hornbill populations.

The initial step was to set up a research project through Bangkok's Mahidol University Science Faculty to study the ecology and status of hornbills. As the project expanded it was decided to create a foundation to coordinate research and increase public awareness. In 1993, the Hornbill Research Foundation was born and had the honor of being named by Her Royal Highness Princess Mahachakri Sirindhorn.

One of the first priorities was to establish whether the 13 species that had once been present in Thailand still were. The spectacular rhinoceros hornbill, for example, had been considered extinct in the country for decades. It was hoped, however, that a few isolated individuals might still be hidden somewhere deep in the forest and when Pilai heard reports in 1996 of sightings near Naratiwat in the south of the country, she immediately set out to investigate.

At first, the fragmented forests she found on Budo mountain looked unpromising. They were not in a protected area and several villages in the vicinity were said to be involved in hornbill poaching. Convincing the suspicious poachers to show her the locations of the nests was no easy task but when they did, what she found was beyond her wildest hopes. Not only was the Rhinoceros hornbill very much alive, but also in the first year of research alone, she and her team managed to locate over 40 nests belonging to five different species.

From a scientific perspective, it was imperative to protect the hornbills and the remaining habitat. The task was complicated by the fact that the local villagers had been making money from capturing and selling the hornbills on the black market where a single white-crowned hornbill chick fetches up to 30,000 baht (US$690).

Pilai pondered the best course and decided to try to convince the villagers to give up their lucrative illegal activity. She organized village meetings and stressed the fact that hornbills were a part of our natural heritage that should be held in trust for future generations. She suggested to the poachers that one day their grandchildren would perhaps despise them for having sold and destroyed this heritage.

Harsh words, but they struck home. At local meetings, the matter was discussed further and eventually a consensus was reached that poaching was no longer an acceptable activity. When the Hornbill Research Foundation went to the poachers and said it was looking for research assistants to monitor and protect the nests, they leapt at the chance to redeem themselves.

The ex-poachers were perfect for the job. They knew all the tricks of the illegal trade and knew a lot about hornbills as well - they just needed to use their knowledge for a different purpose this time. In all, 28 ex-poachers from nine villages around Budo mountain are now working as field assistants. Although they do not make as much as they did from poaching, they say the work makes them feel better about what they are doing and has given them added status in the village.

Word has spread among birdwatchers and ecotourists that Budo mountain is a prime hornbill viewing spot and the increased flow of visitors willing to pay for guides and meals has given the villagers a further economic incentive to protect the birds.

In July 2000, the protection efforts received an important boost when the Budo Sugaipadi area was declared a national park.

In order to cover the costs of the protecting the nesting sites, the Hornbill Research Foundation has created a program where individual donors can adopt a hornbill nest for $120 a year. In exchange for helping protect these birds, the adoptee gets a full copy of the field data at the end of the breeding season detailing when the chick hatched and fledged and even what the female ate during her confinement.

Although the Budo Sugaipadi National Park is a relatively small protected area, the project has shown just how quickly a threatened species can recover when given the chance: 150 chicks of six different species have been fledged since the start of the project and incidents of poaching from the protected nests are down to one or two a year.

A new concern at Budo Sugaipadi is the shortage of suitable nesting trees. The Foundation is helping out by improving and repairing existing holes and providing perch branches for species like the Helmeted hornbill that are unable to cling on the lower edge of the opening when feeding the female.

Drawing on the experience gained at Budo Sugaipadi National Park, the Hornbill Research Foundation hopes to eventually extend the program to other parts of Thailand with the help of organizations skilled at handling the community relations aspect of the work.

To the skeptics who say that saving the hornbills will not save the forest, Dr Pilai has the last word. "Hornbills are known in scientific terms as an 'indicator species," she says. "Because they are such fussy and sensitive birds, hornbills act as a barometer of the forest's health, if we can make sure the hornbills are happy, the forest will be in good shape."

Contact
The Hornbill Research Foundation, Mahidol University
Rama VI Road, Bangkok 10400
Tel: (662) 201-5532, Fax: (662) 644-5411
E-mail: scpps@mahidol.ac.th

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