Current view: Data table and detailed info
Taxonomic note
Alophoixus bres, A. frater and A. tephrogenys (del Hoyo and Collar 2016) were previously lumped as A. bres following Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993).
Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A., Fishpool, L.D.C., Boesman, P. and Kirwan, G.M. 2016. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 2: Passerines. Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
IUCN Red List criteria met and history
Red List criteria met
Red List history
| Migratory status |
not a migrant |
Forest dependency |
medium |
| Land-mass type |
|
Average mass |
- |
Population justification: The global population size has not been quantified, but the species has become rare and difficult to locate in a very short time period (B. van Balen in litt. 2020, J. Eaton in litt. 2020). It was common at most, if not all, forest patches in Java and Bali until relatively recently (B. van Balen in litt. 2020). It was present commonly in 35 sampled locations across the range between 1981 and 1990 (van Balen 1999). Currently the species is at best rare in a few sites, and absent at many: it was only recorded in 8 of the 7,935 2 km x 2 km tetrad squares sampled during the 'Big Month' citizen science project in January 2020 (T. Squires and S. Marsden in litt. 2020). One of the most highly traded birds in Java, exploitation has driven considerable population declines.
Trend justification: Within the last ten years, it has been disappearing from recently occupied sites across Java and Bali, with records now few and scattered (eBird 2019). During the ‘Big Month’ citizen science event across Java and Bali in January 2020 the species was only recorded in 8 (0.1%) of the 7,935 tetrads visited (T. Squires and S. Marsden in litt. 2020). The IUCN SSC Asian Songbird Trade Specialist Group (ASTSG) consider the species to have undergone a decline of at least 50% over 10 years (S. Marsden in litt. 2020).
Previously the species was widespread and common in all types of forest and forest patches: it was recorded commonly at 35 sites sampled between 1981-1990 (van Balen 1999, B. van Balen in litt. 2020), and declines were scarcely registered until into the first decade of the 2000s. Symes et al. (2018) estimated that virtually the entire population was accessible to trappers, and suggested that coupled with the desirability of the species this could lead to a decline in excess of 90% over the next ten years.
As such, the population of Brown-cheeked Bulbul is suspected to be declining at a very rapid rate of between 50-79% over the past 10 years, based on rates of exploitation and the disappearance of the species from many sites across its range. This population reduction is suspected to continue at this rate into the future: at present there seems little likelihood of the pressure on the species abating. From the numbers recorded in bird markets, a continuing population decline can be inferred: where 178 individuals were recorded in a 2014 inventory of 19,036 birds (0.9 %) only 13 out of 14,617 were counted in July 2019 (0.1 %) (J. Eaton in litt. 2020).
Country/territory distribution
Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Brown-cheeked Bulbul Alophoixus bres. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/brown-cheeked-bulbul-alophoixus-bres on 22/12/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 22/12/2024.
