White-tailed eagle shot down in Saxony – Anhalt (Germany)

“Flight recorder data” convict hunters as perpetrators! Last week, a strictly protected white-tailed eagle was shot down by an irresponsible hunter in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

What the shooter didn’t know:
The rare bird of prey carried a GPS transmitter from the LIFE EUROKITE species protection project, which – like a flight recorder – precisely recorded the course of the crime.

According to the project manager Dr. Rainer Raab, it is the first time in Germany that the illegal shooting down of an eagle with the help of a transmitter could be documented meticulously and to the meter.
The evaluation of the transmitter data showed that the carcass was transported to a residential building after the death on February 24 and kept there overnight.

After a check revealed that the address was the residence of the responsible hunting tenant, the nature conservation authority carried out an inspection there.

Confronted with the allegations, the 81-year-old man admitted shooting down the eagle with a hunting rifle and taking it home with him.
Apparently, the man didn’t notice until the next morning that the bird was wearing a transmitter.

In order to cover up the crime, according to the nature conservation authority, the transmitter was tied to a piece of wood and thrown into the Biese river the following day.
The dead bird was also later “disposed of” in a body of water.
During a search, both the eagle and the transmitter were recovered and secured as evidence.

White-tailed eagles are one of the strictly protected bird species in Germany and enjoy a year-round closed season.

The committee against bird murder and LIFE EUROKITE have now filed criminal charges for violating the Federal Nature Conservation Act, the Animal Welfare Act and the Federal Hunting Act.

If convicted, the accused hunter faces up to five years in prison, a hefty fine and the withdrawal of his hunting license.

Read the detailed press release of the “Committee Against Bird Slaughter” and LIFE EUROKITE here: https://www.komitee.de/de/aktuelles/presse-meldungen/2022/protected-white-tailed-eagle-shot-in-germany/

And I mean…According to the Committee against Bird Murder, a total of 1,626 cases with more than 2,213 victims have become known in Germany since 2005, including 67 white-tailed eagles.

In Saxony-Anhalt in particular, 40 cases have been reported in recent years, including 15 captures, 10 nest destructions, seven shootings, six cases of poisoning and two cases of illegal husbandry.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; as experience has shown that more than 90% of all crimes go undetected.

The perpetrators who have been convicted to date are almost always pigeon or poultry breeders or hunters who regard birds of prey as competitors.

This case happened on March 1st and both the prosecutor’s office and the police who took over the investigation have not provided any information on the case yet!!
One speaks of the revocation of the hunting license in this case.

Based on previous experiences, no effective conviction of the killer can be expected
And that’s why no one obeys the law.

My best regards to all, Venus

Hunters always claim that they are the sole “experts” for wildlife and nature conservation, that they only have the “expertise” because only they have the so-called “Green Abitur”.
Let’s take a closer look at this “hunter training”.

Anyone in Germany over the age of 16 can register, there is no upper age limit.
Only an entry-free police clearance certificate is required. Any prior training to obtain a hunting license is otherwise not required.
Not even a high school diploma is a requirement.
Most of the candidates for a hunting license have hardly any relation to the future field of activity.

Hunting training is already available today in a two-week course, and sometimes even a pass guarantee is advertised.
Training amounts to 120 to a maximum of 180 training hours.

In the courses of the district hunting associations, which last several weeks, the number of hours does not increase as a result.The majority of the subject matter falls on the subjects of gun law, hunting law, weapon handling, hunting dogs, hunting methods, customs, “care” for later animal use or the like.

The actual nature conservation, ecological and wild animal biology teaching units are usually reduced to well under a third of the total teaching hours.
This is just enough to deal with the animals that you want to hunt in a kind of rough profile – comparable to prepared lay knowledge from pharmacy booklets.

Elementary basic biological knowledge that would be required to understand the complex relationships in flora and fauna remain largely unknown to those with a hunting license.

In this milieu there is a lack of any required knowledge about wild animals, their social ecology, interaction, ethology, population biology and so on.
The exam questions are dealt with in a multiple-choice procedure.
The individual surveys are compiled from a catalog of questions that can be downloaded anywhere on the internet together with the answers.
Some have to be answered orally.
It is even reported that a “certificate of expertise in nature conservation” was also attested to hunting license examiners who failed orally.

Even the shooting skills that are taught are often not sufficient to hit an animal deadly in every situation.

Further training is voluntary in all areas.
Among other things, the following is offered: trap hunting courses, courses on how to hunt foxes in the den, how to attract animals, crow hunting seminars, high seat construction.

All areas related to the direct hunting and killing of animals.
Training courses on wildlife biology, species or nature conservation are almost never found.

Let’s make it clear: the hunting license is enough for leisurely killing of animals, which is often painful.
And to achieve an impressive arrogance towards the lives of others.

In his book: “Hunters where?” the hunter Bruno Hespeler writes the following about the training of hunters:

“Let’s think about whose knowledge we claim for ourselves – even if only in certain areas: zoologists, biologists, ecologists, veterinarians, qualified foresters, qualified farmers, zookeepers, lawyers and gunsmiths.
Each of these professions requires a training period of between six and ten years.
Farming and forestry, for example, is inevitably dealt with in many young hunter courses over four or five evenings plus a hike in the woods… Overall, the lessons are anyway based on the most likely test questions, not on well-founded basic knowledge.”

So who are we to believe that hunting is a contribution to the ecosystem?
Definitely not a hunter.
The hunting license is only enough to kill.

https://www.facebook.com/jagdvergehen/

And I mean…We all know- hunting is murder.
It is unproductive and does not regulate wild animals, as hunters claim over and over again.

It is estimated that up to 10 million wild animals, dwellers such as deer, wild boar, foxes, but also several hundred thousand cats and dogs are ruthlessly and stealthily killed while hunting each year; the number of unreported cases is said to be far higher.

Many of the wild animals die a painful death because they suffer serious gunshot wounds from hobby hunters, but are still able to escape.
Hunters still enjoy privileges; Although the protection of animals has been enshrined in the German Basic Law since 2002, hunting law has not yet been adapted to the state goal of animal protection.

This is thanks to a powerful hunting lobby that ignores wildlife ecological, ethnological and cognitive-biological findings as well as the changed social attitude towards hunting.

The only reason one goes hunting is because it gives pleasure and gratification to one’s urges.
Speaking of urges: pedophilia and rape are not socially accepted either.
And those who can’t control their urges here receive psychological therapy or are locked away.

Nor is the killing of animals as a hobby accepted by the majority of the population.

My best regards to all, Venus

From Magazin “Der Spiegel”: 02/26/2022
The South African government allows hunting of endangered species – including black rhinos, which are classified as critically endangered. The proceeds will go to impoverished villages.

South Africa has cleared a number of endangered species for shooting.
“A total of 10 black rhinos and 150 elephants can be hunted,” said the country’s Ministry of Forests and Environment.
Some leopards will also be shot under certain circumstances.
Proceeds from the sale of hunting licenses go to impoverished rural communities in the hunting areas.

Black rhinos are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The number of animals in the wild had recently doubled from an all-time low three decades ago to more than 5,000.
The ministry said the quota allocated was based on population estimates “which are currently trending upwards.”

In 2014-2017, black rhino poaching had increased dramatically.
On average, 1,000 animals per year were illegally killed during this period. However, the problem could be contained.
Last year, 451 black rhinos were illegally killed.

The official hunting quota for elephants has been set in accordance with international laws on trade in endangered species, the ministry said.
The elephant population is growing (!!!) and 150 animals is less than 0.3 percent.

According to the ministry, hunting of leopards is limited to animals over the age of seven (!!!) and only in regions where the populations are “stable or increasing”.

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/umstrittene-grosswildjagd-suedafrika-gibt-seltene-tiere-zum-abschuss-frei-a-f934924f-4524-4d83-9a3d-498c846bbf23

And I mean…If a hunter buys such a license, can the animal stay alive?
No! because the hunter wants something for his money, namely satisfying the desire to end a life.

This is blood money.
There has never been a worse excuse to legitimize hunting and poaching.
This is an excuse to bring rich big game hunters into the country.
Any Saudi prince or son of American politicians will take great pleasure in pulling the trigger.
Or can the old king of Spain do it again…

What a disgusting perversion…
Nobody has lost anything in the habitats of these animals.
Rhinos defend their calves should someone get too close to their habitat.
Elephants and leopards too, by the way.
Because humans don’t respect their habitats and rob them, the simplest “solution” always comes up: shoot them down.

Shame on South Africa!
The goal must be for Africa to benefit from its biodiversity and intact nature without destroying it.

And quite frankly now: if a country like South Africa isn’t even able to help these impoverished regions without shooting down these endangered animals, then something suspicious is afoot

My best regards to all, Venus

Or to put it the other way around: what kind of punishment is appropriate for someone who kills a turtledove?

A criminal court in Malta has now answered this question for itself and sentenced a hunter to a fine of 1,000 euros for illegally shooting down a turtle dove.
In addition, the man’s hunting license was confiscated for two years.

Judge dr. Elaine Mercieca saw it as proven that on April 20, 2020, the man had killed a turtle dove near the village of Selmun during the closed season. The main piece of evidence was a video created by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter that shows the shooting down.

The committee welcomes the verdict, even if many feel that the sentence is too low.
The reason is that according to Maltese law it is “only” a closed season offense and not the shooting of a strictly protected species that is protected all year round.

Turtle doves are a huntable species in Malta and may legally be shot in autumn but not in spring when the birds are on their way to their breeding grounds.

https://www.facebook.com/Komitee.CABS/

And I mean…Hunting remains widespread in southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Malta.
Maltese hunters even start shooting turtledoves in spring

According to estimates by the University of Giessen (Germany) from 2016, millions of turtle doves are shot every year in the Mediterranean alone.
In addition to the official catches or kills for the pastime of the registered hobby hunters, the number of unreported cases is many times higher.
In Italy alone, it must be assumed that 5.6 million birds of various species are illegally killed every year.

The Italian Hunting Federation, a member of FACE, the European hunting federation, has campaigned hard to blast the very last lovebirds out of the sky.

Driven by their murderous hobby, hunters don’t want to give up their beloved prey.

Planck and Einstein thought hunters were psychopaths.
If one reads the daily news how many wild boars with their children or how many foxes are being massacred by hunters and only out of a lust for murder, this opinion is confirmed.

My best regards to all, Venus

Hunting lobbyists always like to use the lack of natural enemies as an argument when it comes to hunting encroachment on wildlife populations. At least in the case of foxes and other predators in our latitudes, this is a false conclusion.

Fox hunting has been banned in Luxembourg since 2015.
The horror scenarios projected by the local hunting association FSHCL, but also by the German colleagues at the time, did not come to pass: Environment Minister Carole Dieschbourg confirmed only last year in response to a parliamentary request from the opposition that after years there were no indications of an increase of the fox population in Luxembourg.

Controls and counts with wildlife cameras would rather indicate a stable, constant stock.

Even the infestation of foxes with the fox tapeworm has decreased since the hunting ban.
While the fox tapeworm was still diagnosed in 40 percent of foxes in 2014, it was recently less than 20 percent.

Nor can one blame the foxes for the decline in ground breeding or even biodiversity.
In Luxembourg, for example, the partridge was almost extinct at the beginning of the 1980s, despite the fact that fox hunting was still intensive at the time.

According to the Minister for the Environment, the loss of biodiversity, particularly among ground breeders, is due to the destruction of the habitat and the associated loss of insects as a source of food.

Luxembourg could be a model for Europe when it comes to fox hunting.

However, there is probably a lack of political will in this country to make hunting at least animal welfare-friendly.
For most animal species there is not even a reasonable reason for hunting within the meaning of the Animal Welfare Act.

Together with many other animal protection societies and the Fox Action Alliance, Wild Animal Protection Germany demands the abolition of fox hunting and the review of all animal species subject to hunting law with regard to a reasonable reason.

https://www.wildtierschutz-deutschland.de/single-post/fuchs-luxemburg

And I mean…While the German lust killers, also known as “hunters”, pursue the foxes with all sorts of violent means at this time of the year, the neighboring European countries present themselves in some cases much more rationally when it comes to hunting.
And they are proud that the abolition of fox hunting, which has been going on for over six years, is so effective.

German hunters kill and dispose of over 400,000 foxes every year
In most federal states, the red fox is hunted without a regular closed season.
During the mating season, during the gestation period, while rearing the young, while wandering in search of a territory.

They are hunted with traps, dogs are sent into their burrow, the retreat for the birth of the puppies, they are kept in barren kennels to train so-called burrow or ground dogs on them, they are victims of battue hunts and fox weeks.

Every year well over 400,000 red foxes die in Germany from hunting!
Foxes cannot be used as food, and fox fur has long ceased to be popular.
About 97 out of 100 foxes killed are thrown into bushes or, at best, buried.

The hunters in Germany basically justify the fox hunt with three “reasonable” arguments:

– The fox also transmits diseases that are dangerous to humans, such as rabies and fox tapeworm,
– It is by no means endangered because of its high population and thirdly
– The fox has to be hunted because there is a risk of wiping out ground-breeding birds that have become rare.

There is also not just one single scientifically reliable research paper that could be used to justify the three steep theses mentioned.
This is especially true for the blind claim that more intensive fox hunting would have a stabilizing effect on the populations of endangered species.
That is just as much nonsense as the statement that hunting can significantly reduce the fox population.

The opposite is true, as scientists and wildlife biologists can attest. The more vehemently these animals are pursued, the higher their reproduction rate.
In this way, losses can be compensated for quickly.
Nature arranged it that way.

So…the only honest reason for fox hunting and any other hunt is, that the perpetrators enjoy it.
And a murderer won’t let that can be spoiled.

My best regards to all, Venus