It is really bad for birds in the Mediterranean :(

[Mortisha]

This is such a damn tragedy. I really don't get humanity sometimes.

Last Song for Migrating Birds
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/ ... anzen-text

Every year, from one end of it to the other, hundreds of millions of songbirds and larger migrants are killed for food, profit, sport, and general amusement. The killing is substantially indiscriminate, with heavy impact on species already battered by destruction or fragmentation of their breeding habitat. Mediterraneans shoot cranes, storks, and large raptors for which governments to the north have multimillion-euro conservation projects.
All across Europe bird populations are in steep decline, and the slaughter in the Mediterranean is one of the causes.

[Brooksy]

It leaves you speechless doesn't it. I once met a man in Melbourne who admitted to blinding mules, goldfinches, and canaries because he says it makes them better singers, his excuse was his father and grandfather have always done it, Bloody Idiot

[Tintola]

I read this story, with all the graphic pictures in the National Geographic while I was waiting at the dentist. It made me ill thinking about it.

[casehulsebosch]

Should we not be looking closer to home?

I park my rig in Margaret River in the South West of WA every year while skipping back to NZ.

Margaret River is a wine region and I know it well. Too well.
Every year vineyard owners and operators shoot 28 parrots and silvereyes because they "effect their livelihood" and invade the vineyards.
This is not hearsay either.

Two years ago while driving East out of the greater Perth area I saw an orchardist with a shotgun shooting white tailed black cockatoos for the same reason.

These same parrots sell in NZ for $30.000 per pair. I just this week received confirmation from a friend in Europe that these parrots sell in Europe for EU 30.000

What's happening in France, Italy and Southern Europe as well as Africa is not new to me. Unfortunately it has been going on ever since Adam was a boy.

Let's sort out whats happening in our own back yard before looking overseas.

Cheers, Case, NT.

[elferoz777]

I agree.

WE have worse things here.

Though I will say this, if wild goldfinches ever become extinct I will blame the Maltese and my fellow Spaniards!

Every second person over there who is 40 or over traps the bloody things

[matcho]

Well, Ladies and gentlemen,

I can see that this post will open a can of worms.

Let us look at this issue with open eyes. The birds mentioned have been a staple diet of people in this region for thousands of years. I say the word "diet" because that is what they are, "diet". As much as we don't like this because we are "birdkeepers", "aviculuralists" or whatever we call ourselves the trapping for food, profit, or whatever will continue. Most of our exotic birds (not native) finches, hookbills, softbills etc were trapped from wild caught birds and imported into Australia. My (ex)partner and I spent some time in the Mediterranean on her home island of Kalymnos where local small birds were offered as fare. Don't kid yourself, this island is about 100 kms square and there are literally millions of small songbirds that use the island as a stopover during their normal migration. It is not a year long thing, only during migration time. In my past life I worked undercover in the Riverina area of NSW and often church functions where it was predominatley attended by people from the mediterranean area (read Italian) where sparrows were ritually shot from their roosting trees in and close to town, cooked, not gutted, plucked and seemed like crunchy rissoles. Any problems with this? I think not.

In regards to the comments about the storks, large birds etc I would hesitate on the side of caution. I travelled a couple of years ago through Turkey and it was an absolute eyeopener to see storks nesting in the middle of the city and suburbs on lightpoles that had erected nest sites for them. Locals love and protect them.

I do agree that we as the caretakers of this planet can do better but the figures given in this article to me err on the side of doom and gloom. It would appear to me if things continue as the way it infers there won't be any birds left. Lets not kid ourselves. Millions upon millions of birds are trapped everyear throughout the world for the pet trade which incorporates us, bird lovers/breeders or aviculturalists , but millions upon millions are caught, sold and released for religious reasons. They could have been eaten but are released, go figure. Saw it last year in China. Seen many docos where animals and birds that were on the brink of extinction have now recovered.

The graphic in catching the birds has been used for thousands of years around the world and is still used today by many indigenous tribes to this day.

Too much food for thought methinks.

[Brooksy]

I don't have anything against killing for food but you have to be realistic thats not what this report is about! Its the proud mental stupidity of Its my right and we have done it for gererations this way, I can't and won't ever change. It was good to see one guy in the story stand up on his own two feet, grow a backbone and take responsibility for his own actions and go against growing traditions.

[Chao]

Hi Everyone,
Please allow me to enter this conversation. this is a very interesting topic, some people thinks it's all OK to continue tranditional pratice, but we need to keep in mind the world population is a lot bigger now, so we do need to change the way we use to hunt and kill for food. also in modern day we have commercial/farm food therefore the need to kill and hunt for food is not always right.
Migrating birds migrat for a reason, so to shoot them when they pass by, it seems too cruel to me. it's almost like getting shot on the walk home from work. Also this will break their breeding cycles too.
In the case of Chinese catching and releasing animal for religion, I've seen it done on many time, but still that doesn't make it right, because we are taking the birds/turtles away from it's natural habitate and then releasing it, all the stress and pairs being broken up etc.
In Australia most of the bird breeders are great in terms of we only sell/keep/swap what we bred.

Chao

[finchbreeder]

Right and wrong/black and white. Not so simple. If the people need the food would we have them starve? No. The human plague that rules this planet must learn to be a benevolent ruler to the other creatures on this planet. We, all of us, in every country of the world. Must learn to treat all of the other creatures with care and concern. We must leave areas exclusively for the natural use of other creatures and nothing but observation by us. Will this happen? I hope so. Mankind has been becoming more civilised generation by generation. But we still do uncivilised things, so it is a slow proccess. As the wise teach the young so we will improve, I just hope we do it fast enough to save the creatures we are destroying. (And fortunately some of the very wise are young)
LML

[casehulsebosch]

All great if you have a weekly pay packet coming in but to the majority of this world's population it is all about where your next feed comes from.

As for Greece with a 48% youth unemployment rate is it any wonder that old habits die hard.

What are we doing about the problems in our own backyard?

cheers, Case, Virginia but en route to Wyndham for the G count.