FEATURE
Like many species
that frequent the Asian-
Australasian Flyway,
the Great Knot Calidris
tenuirostris (Endangered) is
already feeling the strain of
habitat loss: hunting is an
unwelcome added pressure
Photo JJ Harrison
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Lake Burullus, for example, is utterly daunting
in scale. “Almost half-a-million birds being
extracted from a single spot every year is a
huge, nerve-wracking phenomenon,” laments
Alex Ngari, BirdLife’s Africa Flyways Coordinator.
And yet Lake Burullus is only ninth on the list.
The top eight spaces are occupied by locations
in Cyprus (two), Egypt (one), Lebanon (two) and
Syria (three). The worst of the problem areas
is Famagusta in Cyprus, where an average of
689,000 birds are estimated to be killed illegally
each year.
Across northern and central Europe and the
Caucasus, far fewer birds are illegally killed. But
here, too, the unlawful killing is concentrated.
The six worst locations are all in a single
country, Azerbaijan. The top 20 overall are
crammed into just five more: Armenia, Bulgaria,
Georgia, Germany and the Netherlands.
Thus far, you would be forgiven for thinking
illegal bird killing to be a problem solely in
and around Europe. But despite scant current
evidence, there are ample indications that huge
“ Almost half-a-million birds being
extracted from a single spot every
year is a huge, nerve-wracking
phenomenon “
ALEX NGARI FLYWAYS COORDINATOR, BIRDLIFE AFRICA
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numbers of birds are being killed worldwide.
BirdLife will soon publish their investigation into
illegal bird killing in the Arabian Peninsula, Iran
and Iraq. And the issue spreads further still.
“We have received information that the inner
Niger delta is a hotspot for avian slaughter”,
says Ngari. “We need to investigate what is
happening in the rest of the African continent.
This could be the tip of the iceberg.”
Turning our attention to Asia, at spots across
Sumatra (Indonesia), local people hunt the
Eyebrowed Thrush Turdus obscurus, shorebirds
such as the Great Knot Calidris tenuirostris
(Endangered), and waterbirds. In the Philippines,
migrants funnelling through Luzon’s mountains
have been taken by local people for decades. It
remains to be determined whether such killing is
within the law. In parts of south and east China,
shorebirds migrating along the East Asian-
Australasian flyway are certainly illegally mist-
netted for food. In 2013, Chinese authorities
seized two million songbirds in a single raid
– Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola
(Critically Endangered and considered a delicacy
in Cantonese cuisine) among them. Asia’s
problem is sufficiently worrying for BirdLife
to help the East Asian-Australasian Flyway
Partnership and Convention on Migratory
Species (CMS) to establish a task force on illegal
hunting and trade.
In parts of the Americas, including Barbados,
migratory waders are hunted. “Birds are being
killed everywhere,” says Van den Bossche, “but
outside countries with strong legislation, it is
less straightforward to determine what is legal
BIRDLIFE • APR-JUN 2019