The success of Baihualing village has now spread to other places across Yunnan. Since realizing the small birds are cash cows, villagers have given up hunting them and now conduct regular patrols in the forest, stopping bird-hunting and deforestation instead.

In Sanhe village, Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture, many "bird hunters" have transformed into bird protectors and shaken off poverty.

"Although local tourism was affected by the coronavirus pandemic, I still earned 7,000 yuan ($1,088) via bird-watching," says Li Zhonghua, a villager of Sanhe, adding that he takes his 3-year-old son to feed birds every day and teaches him to love and protect them.

"Visitors also bought many local specialty products after viewing the wild birds, which brought me much more income than I expected," says Yuan Kaiyou, another villager in Sanhe.