A total of 7,533 birds of various species are still quarantined on Wednesday in Padang Bai, Karangasem, Bali, until Wednesday, January 21, 2026, after a foiled smuggling attempt.

“There was a resident report earlier about a suspected shipment of wild birds from Lombok headed for Denpasar,” said Wayan Saputra, the head of the Padang Bai Quarantine Operations Unit.

Following the report, quarantine officers worked with the navy stationed in Karangasem, the Padang Bai sectoral police, and the Flight Protection Bird to monitor and inspect the situation.

A little after midnight, officers took suspicions on a white truck with license plate number AG 9808 EF driven by Muhammad Hanifullah and Mawardi. Upon inspection, wild birds were found inside the vehicle, being transported without official paperwork.

The seized birds include: 5,720 weaver birds, 500 tailor birds, 250 zebra finches, 388 opior wallacea birds, 313 sangihe golden-bulbul, 5 flowerpeckers, 22 flame-breasted sunbirds, 23 scarlet-headed flowerpeckers, 20 drongos, 106 bar-winged prinia birds, and 8 great tit birds.

“These birds were packed in 172 baskets,” Saputra said, adding that the estimated state losses reached Rp100 million due to the smuggling. The smugglers are facing two years of jailtime and fine payments up to Rp2 billion, based on Article 35 in conjunction with Article 88 of Quarantine Law No. 21 of 2019.

In response to the arrest, Marison Guciano, Executive Director of the NGO FLIGHT, stated that Bali has long been a transit point for bird smuggling from Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, and Java.

“[The birds] are not marketed in Bali,” said Marison.

The songbird trade activist explained that Bali is often delegated as a transit route due to the strict supervision in Banyuwangi’s Tanjung Mas Port over shipments from Lombok. This situation has led illegal bird smugglers to shift routes.

Marison said that just last year, more than 6,000 birds from Lombok were seized in Banyuwangi port.

Bali is also a haven for bird smugglers due to a number of large shelters for illegal birds. “This was the largest bird seizure in Bali’s history,” the activist said, hoping that the birds could be released back into their natural habitat as soon as possible.

Marison emphasized that the large-scale illegal bird trade not only threatens the declining bird population of Bali and Lombok, but also worsens the risk of zoonotic disease transmission, which spreads from animal to human and vice versa.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/2082009/thousands-of-songbirds-saved-from-smuggling-in-bali