My Green Gig: Life as a bird conservationist

work today. I'm going to have a conversation about birds with a passionate birder, which I just realized is a legit word to describe someone who observes birds as a hobby. He is moving Nian San Guran, a phd student researching on bird conservation at N US and he is also a friend of mine. Hello, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me here. It's been a while and I love your shirt. He's on theme today guys. Yeah, I'm just wearing my bird shirt. So it's got a bunch of birds on

it along with like monster and pineapples, pineapples. Ok. So I must confess when you first told me that you wanted to study birds. I was like birds because you did your final year project in university on freshwater fish, which is very different from a flying bird, right? So, what triggered your interest in our fey friends? Ok. You know, this is actually a question I get asked a lot. So, uh, first of all, hi, everyone. My name is Movin man.

Already introduced me and, and the thing is we actually went to school together. So we did our undergrads together. We were in laps. So we just, we just like good times throw back. But anyway, um yeah, so I came into university being very passionate about fish, I guess fresh water fish because I kept fresh water fish. I like going and scooping uh like looking at fish wherever I go.

But I've always been really interested in birds because I used to travel with my family and I'm super into nature and the most obvious thing that you get to see often times when you are in these places are birds, basically because they're always flying around. And then it becomes a question of like, I want to know what that species is because I want to know what I'm looking at. It's like my neurotic self just being like, I want to categorize. I want to know what that

thing is. And with birds, you get a lot of references, like you have a lot of field guides and things like that to help you identify the birds, not so much with other species. Actually, I think, and things like frogs, lizards, mammals, they are all so much harder to look at and observe also because they are so much rarer. They are often much shyer as well. So that's kind of where that thing started. So I

was already a birdwatcher back in the university days. But after that, I wanted to go into grad school and I wanted to do stuff that was not. So because remember we did so much ecology work when we were in undergrad. So we were going out to the field, getting the data in the site and then coming back, I know, I know exactly. So I decided, you know what, why not? I love being stuck with my laptop. So I want to do that even more.

So I'm going to go and learn genetics, right? I just want to sit in front of my computer and code it. So like in N us, the best genetics professor happens to be a bird guy, right? So it kind of made sense. I mean, I really like birds and I wanted to get like a new skill set under my belt. And so it kind of made sense to try and I managed to get a position in the university for the phd. And then here I am, I guess studying birds. I did not know this story, but was there a point

in your life? Where you realize that, hey, I want to become a bird conservationist and I'm going to make this my career. I think it's never really been a single moment. It's been more of like a process, I think. So. Right after undergrad, I was consulting for a while. I went back to do research assistant. Then I worked for in conservation in the IUCN for a little bit. So like this thing called the Asian Species Action Partnership for

a little while. And it was a very eye-opening experience because it really let me see how, what conservation planning looks like. So for those of you who don't know the IUCN is the International Union for

the Conservation of Nature. And it kind of like one of the major groups that spearheads conservation throughout the world and they have a whole bunch of different subgroups and committees that do a lot of this conservation planning and then translate these plans into actions on the ground, right? So when I was there, I realized I like conservation action, but I'm also very interested in this whole conservation planning

aspect of it, right? Like the big picture stuff, what are the big things we need to put in place in order to safeguard all of nature before? Exactly. Exactly. I mean, like with, with most things, right? But I think what we fail to realize what I failed to realize with conservation is that

not only do you need to know your stuff. Not only do you need to know things about like animals, plants, nature, how your organism behaves, but it's also kind of like really a study of people as well because people are the ones who are putting these things in danger. But at the same time, people are the ones saving these things as well. So convincing people to change the way that they view certain things can always be beneficial. So if people are always hunting a certain species, that means

they are very good at finding that bird. For instance, if they realize that, hey, bird watchers would pay a fair bit of money to come and see this bird and I can show them this bird because I'm so good at finding it. Then instead of selling the bird one time as a dead animal, right? You can keep selling the same bird multiple times to people, right? So you change the way that they think about the resource that they have. And so that was kind

of like the interesting thing for me, right? Like how do we change mindsets and how do we reorientate that in a way that is like, exactly. Yeah. So a lot of it is really about creative problem solving almost. And that aspect of conservation was really what excites me about it, which is that it's not just about the nerdy parts of it like, I mean, which we both love, right? Like being nerds is like in our blood, we love it.

But at the same time, there's also this whole people aspect to it, which I'm sure as extroverts we can both kind of relate to, right? Which is the meeting, engaging with people and also getting to listen to people, find out more about people and that's kind of been the driving force behind this whole thing. Yeah, you get inspired and you inspire others as well, I mean, you hope, right? And you hope that you can make a change that way.

So then after that, I realized like, if I want to be involved in conservation planning, it's either 15 years of experience or getting a phd. And for once getting a phd is the quicker option, which is very rarely is the case. So and then I was like, ok, back to grad school here, I am, I guess and you know, just like every job, you know, there's always the good and not so good parts to it, right? What's the most rewarding part of the work that you do? You know,

I have a moment to tell you. OK, so basically share it with me. OK. So basically part of, of my work for phd involves like a lot of field work, which means I go out to get DNA from birds. Rest assured guys, we don't hurt the birds at all. It's just like a drop of blood, birds are released completely unharmed. And so what I study is understanding why species are distributed the way they are in the region, right? So my work is really centered in Southeast Asia. I do a lot of genetic work to,

to study that. So I'm, I'm studying how many species we have in the region. What are the distributions of these species and things like that? And to learn the distributions of these species and to get these samples, the field will kick me some pretty amazing places. And there's this place that we recently visited in the Philippines in the southwest, in the island of

Mindanao called this place called Lake. And it's gorgeous. So I think one of the, one of the best things about the job is like the places it takes me, we were sitting at this ridge just overlooking. So we kept at this ridge just overlooking this beautiful crystal clear blue lake and it was gorgeous and it was one of those moments where you look down and you're like, you know what life is? Good. Life is pretty good. PD is fine. Yeah, of course.

Ph isn't always easy. There's always a lot of challenges and I'm sure any phd student can tell you that. But it's like moments like that when you're like, you know what, when you feel super centered and you're looking out and you see the world and you look at nature and you're kind of like, yeah, this is what I'm doing this for. Oh my God. This sounds amazing. Speaking about observing birds, we do have a pretty big and huge birding community here in Singapore. We do definitely do. What are the

people like, you know, in this birding community? And I've seen before, groups of uncles and aunties with bazooka cameras around. I mean, I'm one of them like once in a while. Yeah. But, you know, some people have the notion that it is like an old people activity. Well, ok, that's actually a really good question because I think the budding community in Singapore is really, really, like you said, it's massive. But because of the fact that it's massive, I think in

part of that it's also highly diverse. Yeah, of course, you get your fair bit of uncles and aunties who are doing it. You also get people around our age, late twenties, thirties type of thing. Uh, but recently there've also been a bunch of like, teenagers who have started entering the hobbies, maybe it started off as an old person hobby with very few young people back in the eighties and the nineties and maybe even in the early

two thousands. But now I think it's really picking up amongst our demographics as well as people who are even younger than us. So that's pretty cool. It's true that I've been seeing also younger folks joining and sometimes, you know, the parents is the one that was encouraging. So both of them like a dad and son team and I guess there's also a lot of resources for bird watching now. Like I'm part of this

group called the Singapore Birds Project. And we have a whole bunch of resources online to help people identify birds more easily. Like all the bids in Singapore, we have PS for them and things like that a lot. So I think not only is it that bird watching is becoming more famous as a hobby, but there are more resources available for people to learn and more access to it. So you don't have to necessarily like back in the day, go to a library to borrow the field guide and

things like that. Now, you can literally just check on your phone, what the right times have changed? Well, speaking of technology and how things have improved along the years, do bird conservationists and researchers like you guys, right? How do you guys do your bird research? Do you guys like act like detectives and you see like the birds movement and you track like, I don't know bird poop, things like that? Ok. So there's many ways of doing

bird research, right? So there are people who do huge ecological work, which often means like you put up your miss nets, mis nets are sort of like these really, really fine nets that you put up in the forest in the right? Lighting in the duck and the story, it is almost invisible, right? So once we almost got uncle in a mis net before. Yeah, it was hilarious. The area was actually closed off but someone was naughty and got into the area and we were like, oh,

please don't go there. He ran past us and then he almost got caught in the net. That was very funny. But yeah, so we typically put up mis nets. So like my job is relatively easy. I catch the birds. I take a little like a tiny, tiny, tiny, like like literally guys, microliters of blood. OK? Like so little, yeah, like practically a drop and we bring that blood back

to the lab for extracting DNA and stuff. We let the blood go, which is like it sounds exciting, but it's also very little actual fueled work per se, right? Like a lot of our time is spent in the lab and on our computers doing the analysis, which is OK. It means that I get to go to a lot of different places rather than staying for a very long period in one field site. Some people are bud Ecologist. So they want to find out about bird movement and stuff like that. So they might put

transmitters on birds to track their movements. Yeah. So then they can find out things about like, oh what is the area that the bird is feeding in? How far does it go? So things like that actually are really important for conservation as well. So the work I do, I find out what species live with, where, what are the areas that need to be protected to protect all the species in the in the area? Right?

Uh But a question is that can be answered from like, you know, using your radio transmitter is what is the minimum area required for this bird to exist? You know. So if I know it needs this kind of habitat, given the total area of the habitat and I know how much the territory size of each bird is, right? How much of the area it will go through? I can calculate how many birds can be supported.

But this area, right? So that is a very powerful tool for conservation because it kind of tells me like, oh, this area can support how many birds or how many pairs of birds in this area, how many? And so it can give me a very good numerical sense of things. Not perfect, of course, because a lot of these things are like, you know, relative, but it can give me good answers on that. And then of course, you have

other people who are observational studying, right? Like you do real natural history work, which is something that a lot of people don't do nowadays, which is there is a bird nesting. I'm going to set up a small tent and just watch the bird and see what the parents are feeding the baby, you know, like things like that. So you could. But the thing is like, what you observe at the camera is never going to be as a good, you're never going to be able to pick up exactly the thing in the bill as

if you were sitting there with binoculars being like, ok. Yes, it is bringing this species of frog, this species of spider, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. So that is very, very rarely done nowadays. I think we need more of it. But I know some friends in the Philippines who are doing this kind of work. It takes a long time like they are literally in the field 10 hours a day, almost. They bring snacks into the field in the field. They

are sitting in the tent watching the birds. That's true dedication. It is, it is, it's crazy. Can you share with us, you know, some of the interesting birds that you can perhaps find in Singapore other than the usual miners, peaches and crows, which I know all of us have seen it before. Like how many species do we have here? And do we have like really, really cool birds that the public

don't know about? So I think if we include visitors, migrants and things like that, we have about almost 400 species of birds in Singapore, like around 400 species of birds, which is a lot like ours. We're lucky in the sense that we are along one of the migratory flyways. So a lot of birds in the higher areas like the high latitude. So, like places like northern China, Russia, places like that. It

gets really cold in the winter. So winter, they take a little summer holiday, they come to the right to chill. And so we have a lot of birds that kind of do that here in Singapore because we're along the way, I suppose, to destination. Not exactly, not just for people but also for birds.

Yeah. What are some of the coolest birds in your opinion, especially if we include the migratory ones that you know, even for you, you get really excited and not sure if you have rushed down before to actually capture. There have been a few times. Ok? So there's a group of birds called Pita. So peters are like super colorful and every loves take photo of them. Ok? Like not,

I also love to look at them. There's this one species of Pita that is typically people find in Taiwan but also in the southern coast of China and maybe maybe northern most Vietnam where they breed there. It's called the Fair Pita. Perfect name like it is, it is, it has a really beautiful coloration and usually conventional wisdom has that the whole population goes to Borneo to migrate. So like Brunei, but a few

years ago we got one record of came to central catchment. Oh, wow, everyone went, everyone went whole Singapore was there whole Singapore just packed into the forest and then there's another bird that turned up in Chick and pull out U oh, so there's a few things. Ok. So there's a few things that turn up in Chick Java. So there's the Green Brought Bill, which is a very cute plush. But, and it's really interesting because like the green brought bill is one of those. But you used

to live in Singapore back in four days, right? But it went extinct. And then now we're slowly getting records of it from Chik Java. We're not entirely sure what the reason is. Maybe there's some deforestation happening in southern Johor. Then the birds are like, I can't live here any, any money you find somewhere else. Then they are like, oh there's a green spot there and the green spot happens to be, right?

So maybe that's what's happening. We don't necessarily have evidence for that per se, but that's like my best guess I would say. But recently there was this huge horn bill called the White Crown Horn Bill that turned up in Uber. And it's a big horn bill, ok. And the Oriental pi is actually the smallest horn bill in the region, which is like shocking one of the smallest horn bills in the region probably shares that with the Busy Crested Horn bill, which is also quite a

small horn bill. And I say small in relative terms, right? Because like even the smallest at horn bill is going to fill up this table comfortably, right? Like, yeah, you just be like, ok, so, but the white Hobo is a big horn bill. It's over a meter long. So the thing about it that makes it particularly interesting is that it's not a common horn bill. If I had to predict which hon bill would randomly turn up at, right. The first few choices

would not be white crown. So this was kind of a surprise for us. Hello, my name is Steve and I'm Theresa Tang. And we are the hosts of CNA correspondent, a podcast that takes you to the heart of the work our correspondents do across the globe from China's COVID response to the Childcare Center massacre in Thailand and the fall of Najib Razak to the rise of Anwar Ibrahim as Malaysia's Prime Minister, we speak to the people

at the reporting front lines. So if you want to know how the biggest global stories unfold, make sure you follow or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Ok. Move in now it's time to put your skills to the test with a little surprise game segment that I have prepared for you. So I'm going to play two different bird calls. Just two. Alright. And for each call, you will have to guess the species of bird within

five seconds. And I'm super excited for this one because I actually do send some of the unknown bird calls that are here when I'm out in Asia to move in whenever I cannot figure out which bird it belongs to. And he just magically tells me the answer. So, move in. Are you ready to wing it? Let's do this. All right. Ok. But call number one. Ok. So this is the Asian coal. This is also the bird that wakes us all up on like lazy weekends when you want to sleep in. Right. This is

the bird that we hear. So it's the Asian coal. This bird is really interesting because it used to only come to Singapore as a migrant and it was very rare, but it is a nest parasite which means it lays its eggs in other people's nests and the butter, it lays its eggs in. It is actually the house crow. Oh, interesting. Right. Ok. Are you ready for the second call? Ok. This one is the straw, which is basically the flagship species of bird conservation in Singapore. Is it? Oh,

I'm surprised that you get both. Correct. They're like, this one has a super distinctive call and often times when you hear the full call, like we did, right. It's actually two birds going at it. It's not just one bird. So the two birds are so well coordinated. It just sounds like one song. Yeah. Yeah. But actually it's a male and female. So strong, right? It's true love guys.

And it's critically endangered globally. But in Singapore it's doing well because we have such little poaching pressure that the birds are still around and our best guardians are all the auntie uncle who walk in the park and we just, you know, if they see anyone, I mean, you can't even make noise because they will be like, exactly. Ok. So right now we have a little bonus bird call for you because you're so good at it.

This one is uh Kingfisher, right? So this would be the stock bill kingfisher, which is the, which is the biggest, which is the biggest kingfisher in Singapore. And one of the bigger kingfishers in the world. This one in particular is like a mangrove reservoir type species around like large bodies of water. If you see a big kingfisher with a brown head and like a big red. Yeah, that's this guy. It was my favorite, but it's so cute I think is

disproportionately big bigger than the rest of it. I love birds that look disproportionate. You know, it's like the best. You guys are cute. And while we're on the topic of bird calls, I have personally come across birders that sometimes play bird calls on their phones to attract a particular species of bird that they want to photograph. Um, some birders even feed these wild birds illegally just so they can get a good shot. So, do you know how all of these

actions will affect the bird's natural habitat or even behavior? Ok. So this is a complicated question because I think the answer to whether it's ethical or not can be determined on where in the world this is happening. Ok. So like in Singapore, the birds are fairly well protected, they have ample food, they have ample resources. No one's going out shooting the birds, right? And, and the reason for this will become more apparent when I, when I explain a bit further. So is it a good idea

to feed the birds in Singapore? Probably? No, but there are other parts of the world where for instance, people hunt birds, right? People hunt birds, the birds are very shy. So in many parts of Southeast Asia, for instance, where there is quite a strong bird hunting culture, not just for food, but for the pet trade and stuff like that where people set up heights to which bird watchers pay for to go and they feed birds there and the birds that are comfortable and you can get really, really,

really rare species coming out. And so what this does is that it can instill goodwill in the people in the area knowing that like, hey, there is some revenue, there's some money coming in from these people paying. So I'm less likely to hunt the birds. Perhaps it isn't in the best interest of that one bird individual that is always coming there feeding. But in a sense, the setting up of these heights, the feeding of these birds actually protects a much bigger ecosystem or much bigger

set of birds than that. Right. Because often times when you have bird watchers coming to an area you need, someone will have a small home stay so they can stay there. Someone opens a small restaurant so that people can eat. So you really start this whole revenue thing that builds over to other people than just the person that's managing this bird feeder. For instance, it becomes like a form of sustainable livelihood. Exactly. Exactly. To protect the

entire ecosystem. Exactly. So it's, it's a, in the big picture cut type of thing. Yeah, maybe it's not too bad. So, how has the birding community or people who do birding as a hobby? Contributed to scientific research of birds and towards bird conservation as a whole? I love this question, especially in the Singapore context. Right? Because a lot of the civilian people who are involved in a lot of these consultations, like the a consultations or even like in,

in working groups. So working groups are sort of like groups that are of people with expertise, brought together to work on specific projects. So a lot of the people in the bird working groups per se tend to be people who have bird watched for a long time time because they have a lot of experience like documenting what the birds do, where they live, what they eat, what they, they may not be scientists themselves. But the thing is like bird watching, especially if you're like super

hardcore about it. The observations you make lend themselves very well to science as a whole, you know. So actually, like there's this whole thing called E Bird in the world is set up by this lab in Cornell University where people just make lists of what birds they see and they take it to a location and they upload them this to the thing. So this is a massive massive repository of bird watchers sending in data. And then actually a scientist, we can use that data to make sense

of where the birds found how abundant they are. And because people have been uploading historical list from the eighties as well, right, we can even track. Are the birds as common then as they were now, are they more common now? What has changed? Exactly. Right. Oh, this, this area used to have a lot of the species but now no more things like that. So of course, the caveat here is that these sightings need to be managed properly, cannot be. People just submit rubbish,

rubbish, right? Just like nonsense, but like don't even exist there miscount and everything, right? So every country has a moderator. Yeah, an organization that, that, that moderates and stuff. So of course, depending on the country, right, some, some moderators are of course better than others. For example, like in Malaysia, this one of the moderators is Dave Bakewell, he's like amazing. So depending on the region, the quality of the EBA data,

it like differs quite a bit. Yeah, but under good moderation, it can really be a powerful tool for science. And it's made possible by all of these people who are just bird watching, you know, like for fun. That's amazing. Just like how a regular citizen can contribute. It's basically citizen science and it does have a very big impact in terms of bird conservation. Exactly. And the thing is, it, it feels like fun. Like, you know what you mean?

Like you're doing it, you're bird watching for fun. You're not like I am here to count the number of birds because it is a bird censor or whatever. Right. It's just me doing it for fun and then I'm already going to make a list anyway. I might as well just put it. Exactly. Right. So it's kind of fun that way. But I'm sure, you know, during your bird conservation journey, you probably faced many challenges, especially in your work protecting

these birds. So, what is one conservation issue or challenge that keeps you up at night? That, you know, if you could, you would snap your fingers and that issue would be limited immediately. Ok. So this is quite contentious, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Um, and I'll give you my honest thoughts on this. So basically in Southeast Asia, right in the, in the region as a whole bird keeping song, bird keeping is a big,

big deal. Right. So that has often resulted in a lot of birds being trapped in the wild and being kept in cages. And if you go to some of these massive bird markets, the scale of it, it can be quite terrifying. Like there are so many birds and many birds have gone to the brink of extinction because of it. And if I could snap my fingers, I would change that. But I think the other thing that bothers me about

is like the songbird keepers, right? Are some of the people who know birds the best and you can tell that they really love birds. They love birds so much. I mean, that's why they're keeping the song birds, right? And in many cases, these things are culturally important. Song bookkeeping is culturally important. So how do we sensitively work through this? Right? You can't just tell people stop, stop keeping birds, right? Like, or just going to insist on,

on having these laws because laws are only powerful. If people respect them and follow them. If you set a law that you know, people are not going to follow, then is a waste of time. Number one and number two, it means that subsequent laws that you make are going to have less and less power because people are just going to be like, I don't have to follow if I don't agree with you. Right? So it comes to a point like how do I get this set of people, these bird keepers who actually

genuinely love birds, right. They take care of their birds, they care about their birds. And in fact, I wouldn't, I mean, like, of course, it's sad to see the birds in a small enclosed space, but, you know, in terms of their basic needs being met, right? Many of these birds in cages that are being kept by good song, bird keepers have more of their needs met than many birds in the wild. So how do you convince people who love birds so much that the birds will be better off

in the wild? Right? So of course, in the dream world, we would convert all song bird keepers to bird watchers, right? And then we have an army of bird watchers insisting on forest protection and conservation and things like that. But life is not so easy, it's complicated and there are many layers to it. They love birds, but there's also cultural context to it. There's also like the sense of not necessarily understanding what the ramifications of the trade are and things like that.

So a lot of his education, a lot of it is talking to people and a lot of it is like coming up with creative ways to tackle these issues. Thank you so much for that movie because I think you've shared both sides of the issue like these people are not necessarily they have ill intention. Yeah. In fact, they have good intention. They just love something so much and it's, you know, it's difficult for someone of that age. You know, if it's like an older folk to change its mindset and it's very easy

to write people off, I think. But conservation is really about active applied empathy and trying to understand where this person is coming from because you don't want to paint people as good guys and bad guys. right? You want to paint them as people work together. Exactly. And if you want to be collaborative about things, you just can't cast people as villains, right? They have to be fully fleshed out human beings with complex motivations. Empathy, not only to

the nature and animals but to humans. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that's kind of like the reason why I keep doing this, right? Because we're extroverts, we like understanding people and, and that's kind of part of the job I think of being a conservation as well. That's a nice wrap up to our conversation and thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I had so much fun just like old times. This is like old times. We'll catch up soon. Ok?

Alright. If you've always found yourself a little more than just fascinated with birds, perhaps you may want to consider being a birder just like move in. So thank you to our guests, move in and thank you to everyone for tuning in as Well, we hope you have enjoyed this episode and do remember to like and subscribe to this podcast so that you will know when a new episode drops. You can also leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcast and tell us what you think of this episode.

The team behind this podcast is Jacqueline Chancy Winn Joanne Chan Tiffany Ang and Christina Robert. Once again, I am man signing off.