Bird killings quadruple in a year in Wales, says RSPB

17 June 2019

Laws to protect birds are being "routinely flouted", the RSPB has said, after figures showed a massive rise in the number illegally killed.

There were four times as many bird killings in Wales last year compared to in 2017, the conservation charity said.

Investigations officer, Jenny Shelton, said birds were usually killed because they posed a threat to game stocks.

Naturalist Iolo Williams said: "This is a Victorian practice going on in the 21st Century here in Wales."

In Wales in 2017 there were only three confirmed bird killings - of a poisoned peregrine falcon, and a red kite and buzzard, both shot.

But there has been a sharp rise since then:

In 2018, 11 poisoned ravens and a crow were discovered - one of the ravens was found dead in Ruabon Moor, in the Wrexham area. The other 10 were killed with the crow at Beguildy, Powys.

As well as that, a tagged hen harrier was found dead in May, at Tylwch, Powys, with shooting associated injuries.

In February 2018, a buzzard was found shot in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys.

Last August 29 a hen harrier disappeared over Ruabon Mountain, Wrexham.

It came after another had vanished in February.


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Wild Justice launches first campaign

16/03/2019

Wild Justice, the non-profit company set up by Chris Packham CBE, Dr Ruth TIngay and Dr Mark Avery to fight for wildlife and the environment, has announced its first legal campaign. The enterprise will challenge Natural England's practice of issue General Licences allowing the killing of certain bird species.

By definition, these licences do not have to be applied for; users simply have to abide by the terms of the licence in order to kill unlimited numbers of so-called 'pest birds', despite there being no legal definition of pest. Species that can be killed under the licence include Carrion Crow, Jay, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Ring-necked Parakeet and Rook, among others. The system has been in place for decades and has allowed the casual killing of millions of birds.

Wild Justice believes that this is unlawful and that Natural England has a legal responsibility to show that killing the birds is an appropriate last resort. The company is seeking a judicial review of Natural England's decision to issue General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 on 1 January 2019. Similar licences apply to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and the case will have implications in those countries too.

The organisation stated: "We are not asking for the 2019 General Licences to be withdrawn, but rather that Natural England does not issue further General Licences and instead develops a legal system for regulating and monitoring the killing of birds to establish whether lethal control is absolutely necessary."

In order to challenge Natural England, Wild Justice need to raise £36,000 and have set up a crowdfunding campaign. At time of writing, less than 24 hours after the campaign was set up, £11,669 had been donated.

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Rampant indiscriminate killing of Lebanon's birds continues

The shocking image of a dead Cinereous Vulture photographed in Lebanon and shared on social media suggests the indiscriminate killing of birds continues to be rampant across the country.

The shooting of vultures, a practice once common across Europe, that contributed to their widespread decline in the 19th and 20th centuries, is thankfully now a rare occurrence in Europe – although still happening here and there, as we saw with the killing of a Griffon Vulture in Montenegro recently.

The situation is sadly not the same across much of the Middle East where the intense killing of vultures, eagles and other birds for sport continues, as the killing of this visiting Cinereous Vulture illustrates.

Lebanon lies right at the heart of the Eastern Mediterranean Flyway, an important migratory route for birds migrating between Africa and Eurasia, which sees millions of endangered birds pass over the skies of the country, including Egyptian Vultures as well as other raptors such as buzzards, short-toed eagles, kites, honey buzzards and many falcons.

Widespread illegal killing of birds has always been a problem in Lebanon, so much so that a moratorium on hunting of birds was declared in 2004 – on paper, hunting was illegal since then, but the killing did not abate – on the contrary. A 2015 Birdlife International study estimated that 2.6 million birds were shot down in Lebanon each year, which per capita is the second most number of birds shot in the Mediterranean region, after Cyprus. Hunting is considered a tradition passed down the generations, smaller birds are usually cooked and eaten but vultures, raptors and other larger birds are shot just for sport.

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Banned diclofenac still kills critically endangered birds

ANJALI SUBEDI

KATHMANDU, March 16: Diclofenac drug was banned in Nepal in 2006 to curb the dramatic decline in the population of vultures. However, six years on, the drug is still a major threat to the critically endangered birds, according to Bird Conservation Nepal.

Speaking at a national workshop on ´effects of diclofenac on vultures and its current issues in Nepal´, vulture conservation officer at BCN Khadananda Poudel said that after the ban on the drug for veterinary purpose, many farmers began to buy diclofenac drug prepared for human use.

“Therefore, despite the ban, vultures could not be fully protected from the harmful drug,” he said. The workshop was jointly organized by Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN) and Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Nepal in the capital on Thursday.

During a BCN survey in 2011, moderate use of human diclofenac was detected throughout the birds´ nesting colony that stretches from Nawalparasi to Kanchanpur boarder side, Poudel informed.

“Animals normally need 30 mg of diclofenac, while humans need only 3 mg for the drug to show effect. We found that people were illegally using the drug for animals,” he said, adding that scientific studies carried out since 2002 show a decline of 91 percent in the vulture population in Nepal. 

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