The Italian government has given the green light to hunting of the European turtle dove this autumn, despite the species being listed as “vulnerable” to extinction since 2015. The decision grants the country’s 500,000 licensed hunters permission to shoot a maximum of 15 doves each, which would amount to 7.5m being killed in total, according to Bird […]
Tag: bird slaughter
POLL: Should the EU enforce the ban on the trapping of songbirds?
After two hours of scouring the mountains of Brescia, Stefania Travaglia finally finds what she is looking for. Among the remote farmhouses of an alpine hamlet, a spring-net trap is partially hidden behind a grassy embankment and a few trees. Tangled in the wire mesh, an exhausted fieldfare thrush sits silent and unmoving. Travaglia sets […]
France authorises the trapping of hundreds of thousands of birds
The French government has approved the legal trapping and hunting of more than 150,000 wild birds in France this season – a total higher than last year’s permitted catches. The figures, published on 5 September, legalise the use of various trapping methods, some of which are widely considered inhumane and invariably inflict pain and suffering […]
25 Million Birds Slaughtered in Southern Europe Every Year!
Rare and beautiful birds – including the national bird of Britain – are being illegally shot dead for fun or trapped before being plucked, skinned and eaten – or simply discarded. Across southern Europe and North Africa birds are dying at rates that are driving endangered species to the brink of extinction. From the lawless […]
POLL: Should Malta be allowed to trap and slaughter migratory birds?
Within a day of arriving on the Mediterranean island of Malta on their southbound migration last August, three of 18 white storks were shot and killed by poachers. Less than two weeks later, just one of the birds was left alive. By Aug. 29, 19 days since the flock arrived, all of the birds had […]
POLL: Should the Ortolan Bunting poaching ban be strictly enforced in France?
The French Ministry of Ecology, Nicolas Hulot has committed to ending the large-scale trapping of Ortolan Bunting, which takes place to meet demand for a cruel dish where the songbird is blinded, plumpened and drowned in brandy. It’s a practice that has driven population declines of up to 84% in Europe since 1980. Ortolan is […]
POLL: Should birds be killed around airports to avoid bird strikes?
Nearly 70,000 gulls, starling, geese and other birds have been slaughtered in the New York City area, mostly by shooting and trapping, since the 2009 accident in which a jetliner was forced to land in the Hudson river after birds were sucked into its engine. It is not clear whether those killings have made the […]
POLL: Should France enforce the law protecting the Ortolan Bunting?
The French population of the Ortolan Bunting (Emberiza hortulana) has declined by 50-75% in the last 30 years. This, despite hunting of the species being forbidden by law since 1979. It was even made a protected species in 1999. However, each year, about 30.000 Ortolan Buntings are illegally trapped and killed during the autumn migration […]