THE KILLING CRISIS
BirdLife’s research has revealed that an estimated 25 million birds are
illegally killed or taken each year across the Mediterranean, Northern
Europe and the Caucasus. James Lowen investigates the shocking
discoveries that galvanised our Flight for Survival campaign.
boy clutches a fistful of Eurasian
Golden Orioles Oriolus oriolus: he
seeks buyers for his haul. What looks
like a fishing net sags on the ground
at a marketplace, but its wriggling contents
are avian, not aquatic: Northern Wheatears
Oenanthe oenanthe. A tiny cage is crammed
with more European Turtle Doves Streptopelia
turtur than some birders see in a decade. A
Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca dangles from
a branch, toes snared inescapably in a glue-like
substance. Four men beam with pride, shoulders
cloaked in weaponry, feet nudging the corpses
of 30 White Storks Ciconia ciconia.
The images are both rife and sickening,
and the species caught are as varied as the
countries in which illegal bird killing occurs. Too
many of them are globally threatened species,
whose declining populations cannot support
this additional pressure. No country seems
exempt – from the Atlantic to the Aegean, the
Arctic to Africa, but also seemingly in Asia and
the Americas. No matter what legislation is in
force, every nation is to some extent culpable.
But over and beyond such breadth and depth,
it is the sheer numbers that terrify. Diligent
investigations led by BirdLife International reveal
that an estimated 25 million birds are illegally
A
killed every year along the Mediterranean
coast, through Northern Europe and into the
Caucasus.
BirdLife lifted the lid on the illicit massacre in
2015, when researchers led by Dr Anne-Laure
Brochet published evidence from countries
bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Their
groundbreaking scientific paper in the journal
Bird Conservation International [see page 60]
morphed into a shocking report entitled The
Killing. Two years later, Brochet and colleagues
confirmed in another paper that the practice
was also rife throughout Northern Europe and
into the Caucasus.
“When I first did the sums and realised how
many millions of birds were dying each year, my
first thought was - how is it possible that there
are still birds in the sky?” recalls Brochet.
Compiling the reports was no mean feat –
reliable information on illegal activities is always
hard to source. For most countries, little official
data is available.
“Most governments downplay the issue
rather than approach it neutrally on the basis
of evidence,” says Willem Van den Bossche,
BirdLife Flyway Conservation Officer. Instead,
BirdLife Partners and local ornithologists
Northern Wheatear
Oenanthe oenanthe
Photo Karel Barrik
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