Inside the Pacific's largest exotic animal export industry

On the outskirts of Honiara, the capital of Solomon Islands, a row of metal cages clings to the side of a forest-covered hill.
Inside, birds screech and shuffle.
A large hornbill pecks at the wire with its giant curved beak. Another hops restlessly from its perch to the ground below and back up again.
Next to them are huddles of red and green parrots, gently cooing pigeons and white cockatoos, their feathers dusted brown with dirt.
Cockatoos waiting to be shipped overseas as part of the wildlife trade. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
These birds will be sold off to collectors. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Snakes and other reptiles are popular in the exotic pet market. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Behind the cages, the forest stretches deep and wide. In front, a wooden box hides a coil of snakes. Mosquitoes hum in the humid air.
These trapped animals are in limbo, awaiting shipment to private collectors and exotic pet dealers around the world.
Angelina Palmer, known as Angie, moves between the enclosures with her workmates, checking food bowls and replenishing water.
"These are going to Jordan and Malaysia," she says, tapping gently on the wire to calm a restless bird.
Angelina Palmer has been involved in the wildlife trade business for more than a decade. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
But for now, the creatures are grounded. Fiji Airways, one of the only international airlines flying out of Solomon Islands, has suspended the transport of live animals, citing animal welfare concerns.
With no other carriers willing to take wildlife cargo, Angie's business is at a standstill.
Solomon Islands is the Pacific region's largest legal commercial exporter of wildlife for the exotic pet trade — a little-known but thriving industry that supports a vast network of trappers, village buyers and exporters across the country.
The birds are fed multiple times a day. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Accurate data on the trade is hard to access but according to the UN, more than 1,000 live animals are shipped out of the Pacific nation each year as part of a global market estimated to be worth more than $40 billion annually, up to half of which is illegal.
Now, that industry is under growing scrutiny. Authorities and private companies are beginning to tighten controls amid concerns over animal rights, wildlife trafficking and biodiversity loss.
Some conservationists argue that greater regulation is long overdue, while those within the business fear what the changes will mean for their livelihoods.
"It's a big problem," Angie says.
"Not just for me but for all the trappers out in the provinces who rely on this too … that's how we survive."
Solomon Islands has some of the most biodiverse forests in the world. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Road access is limited on Santa Isabel, so most residents travel to different villages by boat. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
The seaside town of Buala on Santa Isabel. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Exporters like Angie source animals from around Solomon Islands's archipelago.
On the south-east coast of Santa Isabel, one of the largest and most biodiverse islands in the country, trappers create nooses from fishing lines, carefully placing them around trees to ensnare lizards and birds.
These are sold to village dealers for $SBD100–300 ($18 to $56) each, who then send them to exporters like Angie in Honiara for $SBD50 per animal.
Brian Pitumana is a local trapper. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
"If you're lucky, maybe you'll find one in a day," says Brian Pitumana, a young man who traps animals for export overseas.
"But it's not easy. You have to sit and wait a long time, and sometimes you're unlucky."
Brian is also a member of the Sesari Rangers, a local conservation group comprised of tribespeople who are keen to protect their forests and the creatures that call them home.
The group has banned logging and mining on their land and limited the areas where animals can be harvested.
Hornbills are popular birds to catch. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
The business is informal. Trappers only catch a dozen or so animals in a given year, though some of the animals can die of strangulation if the men do not check on their traps soon enough.
Nevertheless, the income is significant for communities with few other ways to earn a living.
"Sometimes the government tells us to stop sending the wildlife, otherwise they'll run out," says John Leroy, a wildlife buyer from the nearby village who deals directly with both the exporters in Honiara and many trappers on the island.
"But it's just talk, so we still send them."
The village of Gnuhalage in Santa Isabel where John Leroy lives. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
It's an open secret on the island that men from logging ships smuggle birds out of the country, exchanging them with villagers for alcohol, food and electronics.
The birds are most likely taken to Asia, where there is a large black market for exotic animals, says Rory Bako, the head of environment for the Isabel province.
"I've seen people go and trade with the white parrot cockatoo; they trade for tape recorders," he says.
Despite this knowledge, Bako's team is "understaffed" and unable to police logging ports to ensure no animals are trafficked from there.
"Our challenge now is, we don't know when actually the shipments are happening, we don't really have the support to travel to those places."
Brian Pitumana demonstrates how he catches lizards and birds using a fishing line. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Fishing line is used by trappers to catch wildlife. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
The government has tried to impose restrictions on the trade, recently banning the sale of the lucrative monkey-tailed skink and certain butterfly species after a 2023 UN notice raised concerns.
But enforcing these regulations is difficult, and the government is reluctant to outlaw the industry altogether, fearing the impacts on Indigenous traders and trappers.
"Unlike, for example, forestry, logging or mining — where most of the foreigners are doing business — for wildlife trade, it's mostly locals," says Josef Hurutarau, director of Solomon Islands's environment division.
"So we believe whatever money they get from export, the locals are keeping them."
Solomon Islands, like Australia, is home to a high number of endemic species not found anywhere else in the world.
These unique and rare animals are highly sought after by exotic pet collectors, who are willing to pay top dollar to add these creatures to their collections.
Scientists fear that the remote landscape of Solomon Islands means hunters can smuggle animals out without being noticed, and if the trade continues unregulated, it could impact the populations of some species.
From Solomon Islands to Indonesia
Solomon Islands is just one arm in a booming global exotic pet market.
Each year, tens of thousands of animals from the Pacific are shipped to animal export hubs around the world, including Indonesia, where some enter sprawling wildlife markets like Pramuka and Jatinegara in Jakarta.
There, the trade is larger, more public and includes animals from many different countries.
A man sits among cages of birds at one of Jakarta's many wildlife markets. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
An iguana crawls up a vendor's arm at Jatinegara market. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Monkeys and other animals are kept in close quarters at Jatinegara market. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Cages of animals line the alleyways of the bazaar. Small macaque monkeys, still being bottle-fed, are sold for 1,000,000 rupiah ($95).
A vendor throws a yellow possum, the size of a human fist, in the air to show a customer how it uses the flaps beneath its arms to glide.
Nearby, iguanas watch silently as people march by.
Jatinegara market is one of the city's oldest and most diverse. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
Last year, Indonesia passed more stringent laws to combat wildlife trafficking, introducing strict prison sentences for people selling wild animals without the correct permits.
But policing is still low and animals are still smuggled between borders — particularly at the many seaports along Indonesia's islands.
"Based on other cases, we've found many exotic animals were smuggled into Indonesia to supply the exotic pet demand," says Dwi Nugroho Adhiasto, a wildlife conservationist and criminologist from Indonesia.
"They use passenger ferries from, for example, Papua and then Maluku, and then cruise to the entry point in East Java, to the international seaport and passenger seaport, and then from that point they transfer the animals by vehicles."
Mr Adhiasto says from there, many of the smuggled animals can end up in open-air wildlife markets like the ones in Jakarta or are sold online from people's homes.
Jakarta's Pramuka market is the largest bird market in South-East Asia. ( ABC Pacific: Prianka Srinivasan )
With the lucrative trade supporting many local businesses, governments can also be disincentivised to combat the exotic pet industry head-on.
Freyja Watters, a PhD candidate from the University of Adelaide researching the global wildlife trade, says Indonesia in particular is "quite resistant" to listing many of their species in CITES, a global treaty that helps monitor and protect vulnerable animals from the wildlife trade.
"South-East Asia is obviously a very biodiverse hotspot, so there's a lot of particularly amphibians and reptiles that are popular globally in the pet trade," Ms Watters says.
"A lot of the countries have difficulties establishing sustainability of their species, but will still trade them anyway."
From Indonesia to the world
Samson Michael collects exotic animals. ( Supplied: Jessica Tezak )
On the other end of the chain are collectors of wild animals, the majority of whom are based in the United States: the world's largest market for exotic pets.
Samson Michael has been collecting reptiles for most of his life and has an entire room in his Tennessee home dedicated to them.
He looks after each of them with great care, constructing bespoke enclosures to mimic their habitat in the wild and spending hours learning about each animal's behaviour and needs.
Samson is fascinated by reptiles. ( Supplied: Jessica Tezak )
The animals are housed in enclosures. ( Supplied: Jessica Tezak )
Samson has a room in his Tennessee house dedicated to his reptiles. ( Supplied: Jessica Tezak )
After seeing a monkey-tailed skink at a reptile expo, Samson developed a particular interest in Solomon Islands's reptiles.
Despite never having visited the Pacific country, he now owns 11 animals from there.
"I always feel bad seeing these animals getting taken out of the wild," Samson says, adding that he feels particularly bad for the local trappers involved.
"They make a very minuscule amount compared to what the animal sells for when it finally does hit the United States's open market."
Samson has 11 reptiles from Solomon Islands. ( Supplied: Jessica Tezak )
Back in Honiara, Angie watches YouTube videos of eclectus parrots speaking English to their owners.
She can't be sure if the animals were once in her care, but feels happy seeing them.
"You're looking at something that comes from here, from our country," she says.
"You feel proud, like that's one of our birds from the Solomons and now it's living with these other people who are really taking care of it."
Behind her, a hornbill lets out a loud squawk from its cage. Angie still doesn't know when, or if, it will be set free.
This reporting was supported by the Sean Dorney Grant for Pacific Journalism through the Walkley Public Fund.

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