Page 64 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04

AGENDA ANALYSIS

EUROPE’S SECRET

KILLING FIELDS

THANKS TO RECENT PRESS COVERAGE, WE’RE ALL
AWARE OF THE UNLAWFUL SLAUGHTER OF BIRDS
IN MALTA AND CYPRUS, BUT ILLEGAL HUNTERS IN
CROATIA AND SERBIA ARE GETTING AWAY WITH
MURDER TOO, WRITES NICK ACHESON.

BirdLife Serbia’s
´
Milan Ružic removes
bird traps during a
night-time operation.

ilan Ružic stands looks and shrugged shoulders many lifeless quail in his hands police on theSlovenian border
in the dark, hours he will face when he presents and picked up too many turtle stopped a truck with 120,702
before dawn, his haul to the local police. doves, bloodiedbut still weakly wild birds, most of them killed
Mlistening to a quail. “What are we supposed to do?” flapping, to give up now. inSerbia,” Milan says. “It was
Quail often belt out their three- they will ask, as they always do. “Up to 170,000 birds are the worst case [of illegal killing]
note song at night, but this is killed illegally in Serbia each ever reported in Europe.”
too loud, it’s comingfrom a CARRY ON CAMPAIGNING year,” Milan says. “The majority,
harvested field and it’s August, Despite his weariness, Milan – 5 50–60,000, are common quail. QUAIL CONSUMPTION
when they shouldn’t be singing. who works for BirdLife Serbia – Many are shot during the e open In Croatia, to the west, the
k
The song, Milan knows in will carry on dismantling illegal season, but the use of ele ectronic number of birds killed illegally
b
his weary heart, comes from an lures, lobbying lures makes it illegal.” is higher still. According to a
illegal tape lure, placed to attract politicians Though these birds die e in report prepared by BirdLife
hundreds of migrant quail to and civil Serbia, they are vic ctims International, half a million
the field where at first light they servants of aregional r racket wild birds die illegally in the
braces
will be shot. This time, however, and marshhalling which emb country each year. As in Serbia,
ng
they’ll be lucky. Milan walks to a team of huntin thousands of them are quail,
the tape lure, switches it off and volunteers, and touri sm but here common coots are
r
carries the evidence of illegal he will carry on andt he consumed in local restaurants,
gling
hunting to the back of his truck broadcasting Coots are smugg especially around the Neretva
where it joins two other lures about Serbia’s eaten in of birds to h Delta that lies between
high-
he has disabled that night. illegal bird Serbian end restau rants, Dubrovnik and Split.
restaurants.
Then his heart sinks again massacress. mostly in Italy. “Though some coots are shot
– at the thought of the blank He has heeld too “In 2001, Italian legally,” says Vedran Lucic of
64 BBC Wildlife April 2018