Conservationists from Chester Zoo are rolling out an emergency rescue plan for a bird so rare that survey teams searching across 12 mountains in Java failed to find a single one.
The Cheshire-based wildlife charity has played a central role in developing the strategy for the Javan green magpie, a species so close to extinction that fewer than 250 may remain on the planet, and is now working with international partners to put it into action.
The strategy brings together government bodies, conservation organisations, specialist groups from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and zoos from Indonesia and across the world in a coordinated attempt to pull the species back from the brink.
Bird specialists from Chester Zoo were among 48 international experts who travelled to Indonesia to help shape the project, setting out urgent actions to tackle bird trapping, habitat loss and illegal online trade, while strengthening a conservation breeding programme the zoo helped establish over a decade ago.
Fighting Illegal Wildlife Trade on WhatsApp and Facebook
Online trade of the species, despite it being legally protected in Indonesia, continues covertly through WhatsApp and Facebook.
Chester Zoo currently cares for 12 of the approximately 130 Javan green magpies within the entire global conservation breeding population, birds whose survival in human care may now represent the species’ last line of defence.
With the plan now being implemented, the zoo’s partners at the Cikananga Wildlife Centre in West Java are working with the Indonesian government to strengthen official backing, while conservationists are already preparing the ground for future reintroductions.
Corinne Bailey, Regional Field Programme Senior Manager for South East Asia at Chester Zoo, said:
“We are now planning the final details of conservation translocations, drawing on conservation breeding of the Javan green magpie, as well as preparing in situ community and poacher engagement to reduce the threat posed by the illegal wild songbird trade.”
The zoo’s involvement with the species stretches back to 2012, when it helped establish the first conservation breeding programme at the Cikananga Wildlife Centre, providing funding for new aviaries and expertise in husbandry.
In 2015, six pairs were transferred to Chester to establish a further insurance population in Europe.
A 10-Year Strategy to Prevent Global Extinction
Andrew Owen, Chester Zoo’s Head of Birds, who has led the zoo’s involvement with the species since its earliest days and co-authored the plan, said:
“This is a bird that most people have never heard of, and that’s part of the problem.
“The Javan green magpie is running out of time, and running out of places to hide.
“When survey teams searched across mountain after mountain in Java and found nothing, it brought home just how desperate the situation has become.
“Chester Zoo has been fighting for this species for over a decade.
“We helped build the breeding programme that now holds almost every individual known to exist. But while conservation breeding buys time, it isn’t a solution on its own.
“This new action plan is about giving the species a future in the wild. That’s what drives us.”
The action plan, developed at a four-day workshop in Java in late 2025, sets out more than 80 actions to be implemented over the next ten years.
These range from targeting illegal online trade networks and working with mountain hiking communities, to expanding the coordinated breeding programme and developing plans for the eventual reintroduction of birds bred in human care into protected wild habitats.
The plan also highlights the species’ cultural significance in Indonesia, where it is known as the Ekek Geling, a name derived from the Sundanese community’s description of its distinctive call.
Historically prized for its song, the bird became caught up in Indonesia’s competitive songbird trade, which experts believe has driven it to the very edge of extinction.
Chester Zoo and its partners are now calling for urgent international support, financial and practical, to implement the plan’s recommendations before it is too late.
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