The second largest bear population on the European continent (after Russia) lives in the Romanian forests.
It is estimated that this is about 6,000 brown bears, but a scientifically sound census of the brown bear population has not yet taken place.

Nevertheless, since July 2018, the hunt for bears is again permitted, and approved by the government. The previous months had been preceded by media reports of increasing bear attacks on people, settlements and farm animals in some regions of Romania. The World Animal Society criticizes this decision: Instead of releasing the brown bears for shooting, must be set at the true causes of human-bear conflicts.

Brown Bear Hunt – Status Quo

Between 1989 and 2016, several hundred brown bears per year were killed in Romania – plus a high level of unreported killings by poachers. Strong public protest eventually led to the fact that in October 2016, the Romanian Ministry of the Environment suspended the hunting rate for brown bears.

Since then, the media have been reporting an increasing number of attacks from bears to humans. A Romanian local politician argues for Harghita County – located in the northeast of the Transylvania region – to double bear attacks on people, settlements and farm animals to a total of 263 cases within one year!!.

As a primary solution, the Romanian government now plans to launch the brown bears and in July 2018 recognized the brown bear hunt as a permissible measure by approving the National Action Plan. How, when and where this should be implemented is not clear from the National Action Plan. But how is that to be rated from an animal welfare point of view?

Conflicts between man and bear

First of all, it must be stated: Humans do not belong in the prey scheme of a bear. However, when animals approach human settlements, or bears in the wild feel threatened by humans or want to protect their young, conflicts can occasionally occur. The main cause of bear attacks is the man-made habitat loss of the bear.

Habitat loss of the bears

Brown bears are increasingly losing their natural habitat and shelter in Romania. Infrastructural measures, such as road construction, dismantle the habitats populated by bears. On the other hand, illegal exploitation of Romanian forests, such as forest clearing and building permits in national parks, destroys the livelihood of the bears. For example, the Austrian timber company Schweighofer was heavily criticized in 2015 for systematically selling illegally harvested timber for years;
Sanctions and fines for illegal logging were either reduced or abolished by the Romanian government.

The brown bears are consequently expelled from their territories and have to look for other food sources. As a result, the bear continues to advance into areas inhabited by humans, farmers fear for their animals, and refuse bins on the outskirts of villages, which are located near the forest areas, also attract foraging bears.

The resulting conflicts are used as a pretext to justify the shooting or capture of the animals, rather than to address the causes of habitat loss.

The brown bears have been read from their territories and have looked at other sources of food. As a result, the bear continues to fear for their animals, and refuse bins on the outskirts of villages, which are located near the forest areas, so attract foraging bears.

Felling in the Romanian Apuseni Nature Park (archive image, “Spiegel”)

 

According to a report by “Spiegel” from 16.12.2017 ( http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/rumaenien-holzt-seine-waelder-ab-holzmafia-nutzt-gesetzesluecken-a-1180739.html ) in recent months, primeval forests in protected national parks have been destroyed several times through utilization, forest clearance and illegal building permits.

Estimation instead of counting the brown bear population

Another reason for the hunt is stated that the domestic forest of its size exclusively provides habitat for 4,000 brown bears.
However, a comprehensive, official bear count has not been used to capture the actual size of the brown bear population.
Instead, the number of 6,000 brown bears is based solely on the estimates of hunting associations. In the past, the regional hunting associations received a launch rate, which was then sold through auctions to private hunting companies worldwide (!!!).
These in turn allowed trophy hunters from all over the world – including Germany – to shoot down bears in Romania.

Should a hunting quota be set by the Romanian Ministry of the Environment in the future, many foreign hunters will return to Romania to hunt for brown bears, probably also many trophy hunters from Germany.

https://welttierschutz.org/rumaenische-regierung-legitimiert-baerenabschuss/

My Comment: When it comes to legalizing the killing of wildlife, the media deliberately confuses effect with cause. Wrong numbers, panic machismo and horror scenarios reach the public.

For many years, the forest in Romania has been ruthlessly cut down. Not only from the indigenous wood mafia, but also from other wood -mafia countries of Europe ( see above the report about the Austrian Holz Mafia “Schweighofer”).

The wooden mafia cleverly exploits leeway and gaps in the law, and corrupt politicians and government officials are covering it. So more and more forest is disappearing and the habitat of the bears and many other animals as well.

And as soon as the animals are forced to search for food in residential areas, the machinery of death begins for them:
the hunters demand higher firing quota, the government approves it because it brings, as hunting trophies, the hunting associations the most money. And every government in this world works hand in hand with hunters.  The main thing is that our European parliamentarians  just keep their butts on the chair and they do not want to do anything about environmental crimes or control the protection of endangered wildlife.

Result of the story: the “problem” with the bears in Romania, and not only there, is a man-made problem.

In the comments, I read that the Germans are angry with the “corrupt” Romania, because the government has approved the official launch.

Yes , Yes…
… and we shoot the newly arrived wolves out of panic … because they could be dangerous in our walk in the woods!! Other countries need to protect the wildlife, while we’ve flattened everything that lives in the forest here.

My best regards, Venus

 

“Every time the mother was on a tree, we felled that tree, and when she jumped on another tree, we also felled that tree. We cut down the trees until they can not go anywhere else. Tens of thousands of dollars are paid to buyers from Asia and the Middle East for an orangutan baby”.

A former orangutan smuggler now working as an informer tells how babies are torn by their mothers. At least three orangutan babies are to be taken out of the jungle every week and transported mainly through Thailand to third countries, especially in the Middle East, where owning an exotic rainforest animal is a great status symbol. Demand is always there, and what these babies experience is cruel.

The illegal trade in monkeys is a billion dollar business. Orangutan – they are hunted, even prostituted and brutally executed, or they kill their mothers and smuggle the babies to Thailand, as in a recent case. Orangutans, which only live in the wild on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, suffer from the illegal trade. There are even orangutan brothels, we reported: https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/2018/05/20/the-monkeys-brothels-of-indonesia/

Three alleged Indonesian traders were arrested by customs officials on the Malaysian holiday island of Langkawi in late September 2018 in an attempt to transport small orangutans and other animals to Thailand. It was not the first time this year that smugglers were caught trying to cross Orang Utan across the border.

Journalists from Australia have gone in search of clues and found an informant who had also worked as a smuggler for orangutans. Reliable sources told Australian journalists that the police know who the perpetrators are, where they live, and there is evidence, but no arrests were made.

The informant reports how gangs steal baby orangutans to sell them as pets or status symbols, almost completely eradicating an endangered species.

The informant also said that smugglers often use commercial flights and paid corrupt officials – information from other sources confirms that.

“The demand is always there, they always want orangutans,” said the former smuggler.
“Every week, I’ve got at least three orangutans and given them to two women and one man. This demand was there every week. ”
A hunter receives about $ 50 to take a baby away from his mother, who is usually shot or beaten to death. He talked about how the babies are hidden in their luggage and how they got hugs as a substitute for their mothers’ pillow.

The former smuggler claimed that a recent brutal murder had persuaded him to stop trading orangutans.

“I looked at myself and I imagined that it would have happened to me to be separated from my child,” he said

“After swearing an oath, I felt I had dealt with people.”

“When I see baby orangutans now, I think about my baby.”

Two babies and the taxi

 In a police raid in Bangkok, two Sumatran baby orangutans were saved and they made headlines just before Christmas 2016, when Nobita and Shizuka found themselves in a box in a taxi. They were probably drugged after their mothers were shot or beaten.

The two orangutan babies Nobita and Shizuka, who were found in the taxi, are in a state rescue center south of Bangkok a year later, far from their jungle. The taxi driver was arrested but quickly released. Nobody was punished.

It is a well-lubricated, well-organized criminal gang. Behind her stands the “Mafia,” said Edwin Wiek, founder of the Wildlife Friends Foundation in Thailand.

Wiek operates several conservation projects and programs throughout Southeast Asia. The native Dutchman is a pioneer in the protection of wild animals.

The return of babies to Sumatra is his ultimate goal, but the rehabilitation of orangutans is laborious and costly. Even if they are released into the wilderness one day, he worries about their fate.

“Unfortunately, we have recently found that some of the orangutans returned to Indonesia from illegal captivity have landed in a zoo in Indonesia, where they are bred without any system, for commercial purposes only,” he said.

“These government officials in Indonesia know very well what is going on,” said Wiek. “They know who the hunters are, they know who the traders are, and without the help of the authorities, they would not take these animals out of the country.”

https://netzfrauen.org/2018/12/28/orangutan-5/

My comment: World trade in wildlife is evolving as the world of drug trafficking. Where they have money, they are covert … the profits are so high and the risks are so low that this business is an invitation to corruption!

The misery of our world arises from the corrupt oligarchy of the rulers, and the next misery is a discouraged, wordless and cowardly society with indifference and zero empathy, which only observes how the ruling mafia gradually obliterates all life.

And this society is the one that always wants to say us, that humans are more important than animals, it wants to tell us how we have to behave and that we cannot save this world because it is as it is.

My best regards, Venus

 

 

Not only in Europe, more than 53 million wild birds are legally shot down by hunters each year, but also in other countries.

Several countries on the Mediterranean are famous for mass killing of migratory as resident birds. Lebanon is no exception and perhaps one of the worst culpits.

The estimated number of illegally killed birds in Lebanon is more than 2,600,000 annually.
Several storks on their way to Europe took a route between residential areas due to an unusual wind.
The hunters of Beirut shot them from the streets, the balconies and the roofs of the houses! A terrible slaughter took place!

We have received terrible pictures.

The images provided were taken in spring 2017 are from “Association for Bird Conservation in Lebanon” and give a glimpse of the situation.

Some Lebanese hunters and a terrible loss of wildlife

 

Every spring hundreds of thousands of white storks and other birds migrate north to where they breed. About 530,000 white storks use the eastern flight route, a shortcut across the Mediterranean, according to a message from Stop Hunting Lebanon from 04 March 2019.

https://greenworldwarriors.com/2019/03/04/the-silent-mass-slaughter-of-storks-and-migrating-birds-in-lebanon/

The slaughter was so terrible that the Ambassador of an Eastern European country sent a complaint to the Lebanese President about the killing of this beloved breeding bird.

Everything that moves will be shot, including these two pelicans

Normalised in society, illegal shooting and trapping has become an extremely popular pastime in Lebanon.

Along the east-west roads, every twenty meter stands a hunter, who fires on every bird silhouette that flies over him. This sport is practiced by everyone, from rich to poor. Still mainly by the Christian Lebanese.

As a result, the mean estimated number of illegally killed wild birds in Lebanon is more than 2,600,000 annually. The estimated mean number of individual birds killed illegally is 248 per square kilometre each year. There are 327 species of bird occurring regularly in Lebanon, with around 59% of these being killed illegally in significant numbers.

In Lebanon, these migrations of birds have sustained the growth of a widespread hunting industry that has remained largely unregulated for decades.

Excessive and unlawful hunting practices make the country one of the most dangerous areas for traveling birds that often journey thousands of miles to roost and mate.

These include endangered species, which are among the estimated 2.6 million birds that are shot or illegally trapped in Lebanon on a yearly basis.

By 1933 Lebanon was under French mandate and French influence. Hooves we have more to say? Traditionally fond of rifles, the Lebanese plunged themselves to full surrender to the hunt.

A Lebanese hunter with a boat full of dead flamingo’s

During the time that the birds migrate, cars full of hunters drive along the mountain roads or are lined up. Ready to shoot all what moves within their distance.

https://netzfrauen.org/2019/03/07/lebanon/

My comment: Numerous dangers make life difficult for the white stork: not only habitat loss and many toxic chemicals, but also hunting.  Criminal and unlawful hunting practices make these country one of the most dangerous areas for traveling birds, often traveling thousands of miles to mate.

Hunters, poachers, bird catchers and pet traders, all these insane killers are threatening our migratory birds everywhere along their migration routes. Whether in Italy, France and Spain, in Malta and Cyprus, in the Balkans, Greece and Egypt and probably other countries as well, no matter how big or small, our birds are caught, tortured, shot down.

Theoretically, bird hunting is banned in the EU, but it will still be preserved “as a tradition” and in France they even want to increase the “catch quota”!

Once again, we witness the coalition between gangsters and governments.

My best regards, Venus

 

 

There was only bad news to report about the hunt in Italy in the last hunting season, considering the fact that various species of animals were extinct or decimated because of the hunting.

Or that non-native animal species were introduced to nature by hunting societies and thus disrupted the ecological balance, which ultimately harmed even humans, for example the wild boar.

But hunting in Italy is also a violation of private property, thanks to an outdated Article 842 of the Civil Code, which authorizes the hunters to invade foreign property without any consent of the owners.
And it is also an encroachment on the inviolable right to vote, which forbids the citizens to take a stand, as the example of the Piedmont region shows.

The hunt is also the only “sport”, which every year injures and kills countless people. As every year, at the end of the hunting season (1st September – 31st January), the Association of Hunting Victims, which has been active since 2007, has put together a dossier with the victims of hunting weapons.

Data on accidents during the hunting season in Italy (2018/2019)

Civil Non-Hunters: Total 27 victims, 18 injured and 9 dead
Hunter: Total 53 victims, 41 injured and 12 dead
Totally 80 victims, 59 injured and 21 dead
2 children were injured
In the hunting area, there were 13 dead and 50 injured (including 2 children), so 63 victims.
Outside the hunting area there were 8 dead and 9 injured, so 17 victims. Of these, 7 dead and 7 injured are not hunters but civilians.

Most hunting accidents are recorded in Campania in southwestern Italy with 15 victims. Followed by the Friuli, Lazio and Lombardy. Not known is the number of pets killed and protected wildlife; including wolves, bears and birds of prey. In addition, there are dangerous firing shots not far from inhabited settlement areas, and tons of lead residue from hunting ammunition in the countryside or hunters shooting at animals fleeing forest fires.

The Constitutional Court in Piedmont also made it clear last year that the hunt can not be recognized as positive from an environmental and animal welfare point of view.

But the association also points out that although the hunters are becoming fewer and fewer, they are still privileged by politics, especially the PD (partito democratico italiano) and the Lega.

It is an old story (and not only in Italy): the hunters have influence, but also the arms industry with its lobbyists in parliament and in the regions. Hunters and weapons industry. A deadly blend that damages nature and kills humans and animals …

https://www.animal-spirit.at/news/italien-80-jagdopfer-pro-saison

My comment: Hunters are still a small minority, in Germany0.45% of the population.

But because the majority is silent, the minorities operate dominant, with the right of the stronger.

The hunt has always been the sport of the rich and powerful. From the nobility to the Nazis, in Germany, later also politicians of Germany and of course the Ex- DDR (democratic German Republic). You know each other, have the same interests and you will be seen. No wonder that the hunters have a strong lobby.

We are anyway governed by the lobbyists, is there an area that is not lobby contaminated? As a voter, you can vote for all sacred times, but the rest of the time the lobbyists have the say.

“They use the failure of their conscience as proof of their integrity” and so they are even proud of their criminal machinations.

Hunters are murderers, nothing more and nothing less!

My bestr regards, Venus