World & Nation War reduced parts of Gaza to rubble. The population of invasive parakeets and mynas - a bird of the starling family - has exploded over the last 15 years, driving a decline in the populations of local species like the house sparrow and the white-spectacled bulbul.Ī 2019 study by Israeli researchers found that 75% of the most common bird species in Israel have declined over the last 15 years, while the population of invasive species has grown at rates between 250% and more than 800%. The trapping of migrant birds such as swallows and quail, as well as native species such as goldfinches, has severely depleted the local population.īut by trapping the parakeets, they might be doing the region a favor. There’s little if any regulation of the bird trade in Gaza, where unemployment hovers around 50%.
At some pet stores in Gaza, a pair is resold for twice as much. Al Najjar says he gets around $10 for a pair of parakeets. Once they’ve netted their quarry, the trappers return to Gaza’s crowded cities, where they sell the parakeets to pet shops. The Palestinian bird-catchers on the other side lure them with chirping played on portable speakers and catch them in nets and other traps. The birds nest on Israeli farms on the other side of the fence but fly into Gaza when workers head into the fields to tend crops. “I catch them to make a living and feed my children.” “It’s a beautiful bird, and everyone loves it,” said Khaled al Najjar, a trapper and father of two. In Gaza, the bright green birds with red beaks are sought-after as caged songbirds. Their quarry is ring-necked parakeets, an invasive species of tropical bird that has proliferated in Israel and the Palestinian territories in recent years, most likely after being brought there as pets.
It’s a rare if meager source of income in Gaza, which has been under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the militant Hamas group seized power 15 years ago. They fan out along the tense frontier with Israel in the predawn darkness, setting traps and training their eyes on the other side of the separation fence - where the parakeets are.ĭozens of Palestinian men and boys have taken up bird trapping in recent years.
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