On Java’s Mount Slamet, two former trappers find new calling as bird protectors

BANYUMAS, Indonesia — As youngsters, Ari and Junianto would clamber over the upland above Sambirata village, gathering sap to glue-trap the birds nesting below Java’s Mount Slamet. “If it gets wet it’ll lose its stickiness, so you’d have to place it during the day,” Junianto, now in his mid-30s, told Mongabay Indonesia as he pressed on through thin mist up Mount Slamet together with Ari. A mother Javan blue flycatcher (Cyornis banyumas) is seen feeding her young in their nest. Image courtesy of Burung Indonesia/Jihad. Junianto learned to trap birds in the fourth grade. Before long, hunting had become his primary occupation. Often he would carry a small snake as bait for bigger birds. Within half an hour, they’d usually catch a white-eye (from the Zosteropidae family) or an olive bulbul (Io