Majority of Egyptian bird trapping and killing found to be illegal

Birdwatch News Archive

Posted on: 14 May 2016

A study has revealed that more than 75 per cent of bird killing and trapping in Egypt is illegal.

BirdLife International has release new data on Mediterranean hotspot for illegal bird killing, and a graphic video of the killing methods (below).

Nature Conservation Egypt (BirdLife in Egypt) and the BirdLife International Secretariat released today a study on the socio-economic drivers of hunting and trapping practices in Egypt. With an estimated six million birds killed and trapped illegally every year, Egypt is one of the most dangerous places for migratory birds in the Mediterranean, followed by Italy and Lebanon. BirdLife International has also released a video to document the Mediterranean massacre that has already reached more than two million people in the first 48 hours of its availability.

continued ...

Egypt signs memo on migratory birds ahead of observing their day in Ain Sukhna

Apr. 08, 2015 16:34

By THE CAIRO POST

CAIRO: As means to protect migratory birds from wind energy plants, the Ministry of Environment signed a memorandum to draft an assessment of the environmental effects of the plants, and possibly shut them down during key emigration times.

The memo, signed with the Renewable Energy Authority and the Bird Conservation Project (BCP,) comes as Egypt plans to observe World Migratory Bird Day, designated by the United Nations on the second weekend of May. The 2015 theme of the day is “Energy – make it bird friendly.”

Representatives of several state bodies and locals will conduct a field visit to watch migrating birds in the spring in one of its top destinations in Egypt: Ain Sukhna resort in Suez, 120 km east of Cairo.

In a Wednesday statement, Minister of Environment Khaled Fahmy said his ministry is creating a plan to reduce risks facing residents and migratory birds by collecting solid waste on which birds gather, rehabilitate their natural environment, organize hunting, counter poaching and release seized birds into the wild.

As part of Egypt’s keenness on biological diversity encouraging international donors to develop green economy, the ministry is also carrying out a project protecting bird in cooperation with Birdlife International and the UN Development Program (UNDP,) Fahmy added.

The project aims to integrate BCP with the ministries of electricity, tourism and agriculture and the Holding Company for Water and Wastewater to raise awareness for the protection of migratory birds, according to the statement.

Continued ...

Avian flu variant stalks Egypt

Date:

February 7, 2014

Source:

Arizona State University

Summary:

A new study tracks the spread of an H5N1 variant in Egypt -- a country recently identified as a major epicenter for the virus. In results researchers track the spread of H5N1 cases using a technique known as phylogeography.

Continued

Egypt’s ‘Spy’ Stork Found Dead

A winged “spy” has been found dead in Egypt, and a local conservation group is crying foul.

Egyptian police detained a stork in August when a resident in Egypt’s Qena province, 280 miles southeast of Cairo, became suspicious after noticing a European wildlife tracker on the bird, The Associated Press reported. Authorities suspected the bird may have been linked to foreign espionage.

The authorities eventually set the stork free, but the bird didn’t get far.

The head of Egypt’s southern protected areas said today that local residents found the swan dead on an island in the Nile River, south of the ancient city of Aswan, according to the AP.

A local conservation group said Saturday the stork, which it had named “Menes,” had been killed.

The bird was “was captured and killed, to be eaten by local villagers,” Nature Conservation Egypt said on its Facebook page.

“Storks have been part of the Nubian diet for thousands of years, so the actual act of eating storks is not in itself a unique practice,” the group said, referring to the local people. The “short-lived success story of getting Menes released,” was not enough to keep the bird safe before it left Egypt, the group added.

The head of the protected areas, Mahmoud Hassib, denied the bird had been eaten, although he did not know the bird’s cause of death, according to the AP.

The stork is one of several animals Egyptian authorities have suspected of sinister plotting in recent years.

In January, Egyptian police north of Cairo sent a pigeon with microfilm and paper tied to its feet to a criminal investigation unit, concerned about a message on the paper that read, “Islam Egypt,” according to Ahram Online, an English-language Egyptian news organization.

And in 2010, the governor of a province on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula told the BBC that a spate of shark attacks was an Israeli plot to stunt Egyptian tourism. Israel denied the charge.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/09/egypts-spy-stork-found-dead/

Egyptian authorities detain suspected 'spy' bird

CAIRO (AP) - In a case that ruffled feathers in Egypt, authorities have detained a migratory bird that a citizen suspected of being a spy.

A man in Egypt's Qena governorate, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of Cairo, found the suspicious bird among four others near his home and brought them to a police station Friday, said Mohammed Kamal, the head of the security in the region.

There, officers and the man puzzled over the electronic device attached to the suspected winged infiltrator. On Saturday, a veterinary committee called by concerned government officials determined the device was neither a bomb nor a spying device.

Instead, they discovered it was a wildlife tracker used by French scientists to follow the movement of migrating birds, said Ayman Abdallah, the head of Qena veterinary services. Abdallah said the device stopped working when the bird crossed the French border, absolving it of being an avian Mata Hari.

With turmoil gripping Egypt following the July 3 popularly backed military coup that overthrew the country's president, authorities and citizens remain highly suspicious of anything foreign. Conspiracy theories easily find their ways into cafe discussion - as well as some media in the country.

Read on

Egyptians Hunt Down Migratory Birds for Natural Viagra

It is a little known fact outside of conservation and hunting circles, Sherif Baha el Din from Nature Conservation Egypt told The Guardian, but Egyptian hunters will destroy thousands of migratory birds in the coming weeks as they make their way from Europe back to Africa for the winter.

Egyptian bird hunters trap thousands of migratory birds in a variety of different ways.

Some set up a wall of nets along the Mediterranean Sea to capture the common quail, others set up “shade traps” on the ground, complete with an electronic bird call device that lures the birds in to their senseless death, while others set up nets in trees.

On their long and perilous journey south, migratory birds will seek out acacia trees for rest, but they’ll find hunters waiting for them instead, who will shoot at everything in site, according to The Guardian.

Bycatch, which refers to birds accidentally called up in the murderous fray, are rarely spared even though some pubescent, unenforced laws in Egypt require such caution. As such, scores of shrikes and warblers and other birds will also die unneccessarily.

The European Golden Oriole is particularly vulnerable as hunters seek them out as “natural viagra” for residents of Arab Gulf countries that need a little help in the bedroom.

At one tree at an oasis somewhere in Egypt, Jonathan Franzen, who visited the country last year to report on threats to migrants across the Mediterranean for National Geographic, watched as hunters massacred approximately 5,000 golden orioles.

Read further

Trapping of millions of birds in Egypt threatens European bird populations

Migratory murder on Egypt's coast 

May 2013. Disturbing evidence has emerged from the Mediterranean coast of Egypt: Bavarian Broadcasting have documented a total of 700 kilometres of nets set to catch birds. The birds are then offered as a delicacy in markets and restaurants across Egypt. 

The nets are very difficult to avoid for many migratory birds as they form a barrier across their flight path either across the Mediterranean or the Sahara when they are looking for a place to rest. The exact number of birds caught in this way can only be estimated, but experts believe that tens of millions are killed each year. 

That songbirds are on the menu (and targeted by many hunters) in many countries of southern Europe and North Africa is nothing new. The existence of fishing nets on the coast of Egypt has long been known, but what is new is the scale of netting, which now extends from Libya across almost the entire coastline of the Egypt to the Sinai - interrupted only in a few places by military installations or major cities.

Continued

New agreements for bird sensitive energy development in Egypt!

The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), the Migratory Soaring Birds project’s national partner in Egypt, and the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) crystallising their collaboration for bird sensitive energy development in Egypt.

The purpose of this MoU is to provide a framework of cooperation destined to incorporate and promote the conservation of migratory soaring birds and biodiversity in general within the energy sector in Egypt. Both parties recognise that the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energies is necessary as a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ensure energy sufficiency and promote economic growth. However, the development of renewable energy should be undertaken in an ecologically sustainable manner, and subject to appropriate environmental planning and safeguards. Renewable energy can be bird sensitive through adoption of best practices being applied in the industry by planners, policy makers, donors, governments and renewable energy investors.

EEAA and BirdLife International’s coordinated Migratory Soaring Birds Project funded by UNDP/GEF has embarked on the task of developing tools and guidelines to ensure that the risk assessment and management process for renewable energy and associated infrastructure in Egypt appropriately takes into consideration and effectively addresses key conservation concerns with regards to migratory soaring birds. As part of this partnership, EEAA backed up by BirdLife International will provide NREA with the proper technical tools and materials developed through the Migratory Soaring Birds project along with capacity building activities empowering them to properly address bird conservation and renewable energy development.

This agreement will mark the first step of a long-lasting collaboration between EEAA and NREA that will see bird sensitive energy development in Egypt take off!

http://www.birdlife.org/community/2013/03/new-agreements-for-bird-sensitive-energy-development-in-egypt/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-agreements-for-bird-sensitive-energy-development-in-egypt

‘Stop the pigeon’: Egypt police sends bird to criminal investigation department

In an incident that brings back old mailing tools, a pigeon was found Sunday in Egypt’s northeastern city of Qalyubia with a written message tied to one of its feet and a microfilm attached to the other, a local newspaper reported. 

The Qalyubia Security Directorate said that a security guard called Saber Ibrahim filed a report (numbered 302) after he found “an injured homing pigeon carrying a message that reads "Islam Egypt" and a microfilm,” reported Ahram Online.

“The pigeon has been sent to the Criminal Investigation Department while the microfilm has been sent to the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) to be developed,” reported the website.

The pigeon was seized and taken by police, along with the letter and the film, to a criminal laboratory for investigation. No further details were announced until now.

However, the incident prompted some sarcastic responses among Egyptian Twitter users, who associated the letter to President Mohamed Mursi, who has always referred to his Freedom and Justice Party’s Renaissance Project as a bird that would fly Egypt’s obstacles.

Egyptian activist Samira Ibrahim tweeted saying: “Breaking: The Renaissance pigeon is now under custody and is now held a Shubra police department.”

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/14/260348.html

Witnessing illegal bird hunting on the North Coast

With fall hunting season in full swing, another year of unregulated bird hunting is plaguing the North Coast.

As birds migrate south from Europe for the winter, hunters have set up nets along the coast that run almost continuously from Arish to Salloum. The only gaps are where new compound developments have been built over the past decade.

Hunting season runs from the end of August to early October, and the people hunting migratory birds range from kids with guns who shoot birds for fun and food, to those who strategically place nets in military wetlands to collect large numbers of birds to sell for profit.

Regardless of who is doing the hunting, bird hunting in Egypt is indiscriminate and completely unregulated, resulting in declining bird populations and disturbed migratory patterns.

Continued:  http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/witnessing-illegal-bird-hunting-north-coast