Is this the solution to bird hunting in Asia?

Powering over mudflats along Asia’s coasts, a group of Common Greenshanks (Tringa nebularia) look for a place to rest and refuel. As they make their descent, a fine mist appears in their vision. One by one they’re plucked from the sky.

They’ve unknowingly caught themselves in a mist-net.

These finely threaded nets hang high up in the sky between two stationary poles spread several meters apart. They camouflage themselves as a mist, giving it the name. By the time birds can see the nets, they’ve already been caught and dropped into its shallow pockets. These nets are a staple for ornithologists, who catch the birds to measure, weigh, tag and then release as part of their research, but outside of science these nets often have a more sinister use.

In 2024, BirdLife published a situation analysis about bird hunting in mainland Southeast Asia. In the report, BirdLife Partners unveiled that mist-net use for hunting is widespread. Once hunted, the birds are either sold at wild meat markets, sold for the caged bird trade or consumed. Dr. Ding Li Yong, the Head of Species and Flyways Conservation at BirdLife Asia, shared that this trend is believed to extend throughout the entire migratory route of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.

“The study that our partners conducted between 2019-2020 showed the incredible scale of the problem just in Southeast Asia. Mist nets indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of migratory shorebirds in Asia, whether by hunting, or the use of nets as deterrence in production mudflats.”

Dr. Ding Li Yong, Head of Species and Flyways Conservation in Asia

Mist-nets are particularly problematic for migratory birds along the flyway. As many of the species travel in large numbers, several individuals from the same species may get caught in one net. This adds to the mounting threats that migratory shorebirds face from habitat loss and climate change.

On top of the use for hunting, nearly every country surveyed in the 2024 report found that farmers use mist-nets to protect their crops from birds seeking out shrimp, fruit or grains. The researchers of this study found that this bycatch had a high mortality rate. However, there are less lethal alternatives to protecting crops.

The Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China has researched the use of deterrent nets with thicker chords that birds can more easily see. This is coupled with further guidelines on the use of bird control nets, and a pilot programme offering alternative feeding sites for the birds outside of agricultural plots.

There is still room for more development of effective bird deterrents that don’t require any netting whatsoever. Some possibilities include playing sounds or using coloured ribbons. This would pave the way for stricter standards and controls on who may be allowed to purchase mist-nets altogether. Limitations on the sale and subsequent distribution of these nets would even help birds in Africa, Europe and the Middle East where bird hunting via mist-net has also been widely documented.

Mist-netting of birds is unlikely to decline until law enforcement can reach rural areas where they’re being used. We’ve already seen this make dramatic improvements in the People’s Republic of China. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China has been leading educational events with local communities to inform them about laws to protect biodiversity, and have instructed provincial level prosecutors to prioritise control of the nets.

As part of their coordinated effort, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China is also working with e-commerce platforms to curb the sale of mist-nets online. Now, when consumers search for mist-nets on Alibaba, the most widely used e-commerce platform in China, they receive a pop-up similar to those you might see for the sale of alcohol or tobacco products elsewhere. This informs consumers that the use of the mist-nets to kill wild birds is illegal.

Vinayagan Dharmarajah, Regional Director (Asia) noted that; “The multi-pronged approach employed by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, of combining improvements to traditional law enforcement with community outreach and improving the practices of those selling mist-nets on-line, demonstrates the out of the box thinking required to address the issue. It serves as an excellent example for other countries in the Asia region and beyond.”

While BirdLife teams, alongside the Convention on Migratory Species, meet next week to discuss solutions to the mist-net problem at the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership MOP, we have already observed two things from China’s approach. First, enforcing laws after they’ve been broken means that birds could still be caught and die, yet this enforcement is still a critical step in halting hunting. Secondly, by stating the laws directly with communities in-person and online, law enforcement can prevent migratory birds from ending up in the wrong nets. This multipronged approach against mist-nets can help millions of birds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, and across the world, stay in our skies.