As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday 22 January 2018

New research highlights extent of European bird killing

18/12/2017

New research in the journal Bird Conservation International has exposed the shocking scale and scope of the illegal killing and trapping of wild birds in northern and central Europe and the Caucasus. The paper Illegal killing and taking of birds in Europe outside the Mediterranean: assessing the scope and scale of a complex issue estimates that 0.4-2.1 million individual birds per year may be killed illegally in the regions covered – mainly for ‘sport’ or ‘predator/pest’ control.


The illegal killing of birds remains a major threat in Europe, despite the fact that 28 of the countries recently assessed by BirdLife are parties to the legally binding Bern Convention (on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats), and 19 are also Member States of the European Union, obliged to implement its benchmark nature laws, the Birds and Habitats Directives.

The new paper offers a first scientific baseline on illegal killing of birds in those parts of Europe. The bird groups most seriously affected in terms of absolute numbers are waterbirds and seabirds, followed by passerines. In Azerbaijan alone, between 160,000 and 900,000 waterbirds are estimated to be killed illegally every year; raptors, as well as pigeons and doves, are also badly affected. The bird group with the highest percentage of species affected is the raptors, with 51 out of 52 species assessed in danger of illegal killing.

In the Caucasus, the main driver behind illegal bird killing is ‘sport’ and food, while in northern and central Europe, the major motivation is predator and so-called ‘pest’ control. Of the worst 20 ‘blackspots’ for illegal killing identified in these regions, 10 are in Azerbaijan, but EU countries such as Germany, The Netherlands and Bulgaria also feature.





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