What is Going On?

[Wisteria]

Wil, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. I wish you strength and love in the days and months ahead as you adjust to life without your life's partner. I only hope that knowing your friends here all care about you will give you some comfort, and that you will find peace in knowing you are loved.

[Fleur]

Wil , I wish you strength today

big hug

[Felis silvestris]

I received some news through B.-U. Meyburgs discussion groups about the Amur Falcon killings. Maybe you remember back in autumn, there was also a petition going around. Meyburg had a mail by one of the persons responsible for some action and posted it on the discussion board. It has some positive news about actions being taken, I thought I share it here too:



… yesterday I had a meeting with Ramki Sreenivasan of ConservationIndia, the person who brought out this issue through his visit to Nagaland in second half of October, and Dr S. Subramanya. Full credit should go to Ramki for bringing out this issue to our attention. I want to brief you on some points and also update you:

1. BNHS/IBCN is fully involved in this campaign. Neha Sinha, Policy and Advocacy officer of BNHS (funded by RSPB) was involved with Ramki from the beginning and helped in some policy and legal issues.

2. After seeing the massacre, Ramki contacted the Nagaland officials who acted quickly, and prevented further killing. They have posted police and forest guards in the area.

3. The Indian Minister of Environment and Forests, Mrs Jayanthi Natarajan, has asked for an explanation and action taken report from the Nagaland government, so there is a flurry of activity in Nagaland.

4. Small scale opportunistic killing of Amur Falcon annually was going on for a long time, but this large-scale killing started only 5-6 years ago after the development of a reservoir. Possibly the presence of large number of dragonflies (due to reservoir water) attract falcons but this need to be confirmed through studies. Anyway, soon after development of the reservoir the villagers found out falcon concentration and started killing them, although it is legally banned. Two years ago, a separate government notification was brought out by the Nagaland government banning falcon killing but not much was done as the area is remote and difficult to monitor. Now, with this media campaign, people have realized the extent of killing.

5. Ramki is in regular touch with people of that area and yesterday he told me that strict steps have been taken to prevent further killing, and anyway falcon migration is over.

6. Yesterday, Ramki and Dr S. Subramanya (known person in BirdLife, and IBCN State Coordinator of Karnataka) agreed that we have to start a long-term environmental education (EE) programme in Nagaland to prevent all type of bird killing. I will discuss this with Cristi, Mike and Marco next week during BirdLife Asia meeting, and with Ian Barber (whom I am meeting on 17th). We will write a project proposal for funding by Indian MoEF, but we will also require more funds. EE in Nagaland has to be long-term as killing of birds is quite extensive in rural areas all over Nagaland (and some other states of north-east India).

7. International campaign should go ahead and RSPB, BirdLife International, CMS, Conservation International, Raptor NGOs, BirdLife partners etc should write to Mrs Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Paryavaran Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, India. They should congratulate her for her quick action. IBCN members are also writing letters to Mrs Natarajan. I will bring up this issue in the next meeting of the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife.

8. Ramki will be regularly updating so please check his website.

9. Atul Sathe, PRO of BNHS has been very active in contacting media so lot of newspaper reports have come out, shocking people. He is in touch with Ramki for updates. Please forward media reports from your country and elsewhere to Atul as he is keeping track. If anyone of you want media reports from India, please contact Atul.

10. Please share my email with BirdLife Partners and other conservation organizations.

Thanks.


Asad Rahmani

[Eden]

I received some news through B.-U. Meyburgs discussion groups about the Amur Falcon killings. Maybe you remember back in autumn, there was also a petition going around. Meyburg had a mail by one of the persons responsible for some action and posted it on the discussion board. It has some positive news about actions being taken, I thought I share it here too:

These are good news and I hope that all the activities will help to stop or at least to reduce killing.
This is the petition which was published in our forum:
https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/ ... land-india

[Manu]

Felis: Thank you to share this good news with us.

[tabitha]

Thank you, Felis!

[Jo UK]

I was plesed to see Wil Muller reading the forum. She feels that we are, somehow, family and she finds some solace and comfort just to read our posts.

WWill we are thinking of you and hope you will soon feel like writing something here, however brief. When you are ready. It is early days for you yet.

[heidu]

I was plesed to see Wil Muller reading the forum. She feels that we are, somehow, family and she finds some solace and comfort just to read our posts.

WWill we are thinking of you and hope you will soon feel like writing something here, however brief. When you are ready. It is early days for you yet.

I think we all here feel like a big family, and is happy that Wil Muller is reading and following the activity on the forum.
Sending my best wishes and good tought to you Wil

[Chimega]

These are good news and I hope that all the activities will help to stop or at least to reduce killing.
This is the petition which was published in our forum:
https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/ ... land-india

Felis, thank you for posting that update. Very good news!

And, Eden, I thought for sure I had signed that petition but apparently I didn't. Thank you for reposting it. I just signed it now. :)

[Chimega]

I would like to bring this situation to the attention of our members. Although I don't live in Canada nor do any of the people on the raptor forums live there, that I am aware, we are all writing emails and filling out a form online due to the destruction of a Bald Eagle nest to make way for the paving of a road to install a wind turbine.

Here is the website.
http://ontario-wind-resistance.org/2013 ... form-50309

These are the details.

On the morning of January 5th, 2013 Nextera Energy removed a bald eagle nest (species of special concern in Ontario), and the tree it was in, in order to accommodate an access road and a wind turbine for their company in the Summerhaven project in Haldimand Cty. The MNR gave a permit for the company to do so the night before. Pictures of the destruction here. http://ontario-wind-resistance.org/2013 ... t-habitat/

The Bald Eagle builds the largest nest of any North American bird, up to 4 meters (13 ft) deep, 2.5 meters (8 ft) wide, and one tonne in weight.

The Bald Eagle is extremely sensitive to human activity, and is found most commonly in areas free of human disturbance.

Every year, the number of active territories and the number of active nests slowly increases. During the last five years, nesting productivity has stabilized at 1.4-1.5 fledglings per active nest, which is likely sufficient to maintain a stable population. Currently, most of the Bald Eagle nests in southern Ontario (59%) are located along the north shore of Lake Erie. Bald Eagles have not yet returned to the north shore of Lake Ontario, probably because of a lack of suitable habitat away from human development.

Here are the email addresses you can mail to, should you decide you would like to write these people responsible for or helping with this outrage.

[Chimega]

MNR Approver Joad Durst: joad.durst@ontario.ca
MNR Minister Michael Gravelle mgravelle.mpp@liberal.ola.org
MNR Parlimentary assistant: Mike Colle – mcolle.mpp@liberal.ola.org
PC Natural Resources critic: Laurie Scott: laurie.scott@pc.ola.org
NDP Natural Resources Critic: Sarah Campbell scampbell-qp@ndp.on.ca

[Felis silvestris]

Everyone who can get German TV - NDR from North Germany! There is another "Expeditionen ins Tierreich" today evening at 20:15 - showing among others Black Storks in a region called "Sächsische Schweiz" - Saxon Switzerland
I have seen it on an earlier occasion and it is very nice!

[Manu]

Everyone who can get German TV - NDR from North Germany! There is another "Expeditionen ins Tierreich" today evening at 20:15 - showing among others Black Storks in a region called "Sächsische Schweiz" - Saxon Switzerland
I have seen it on an earlier occasion and it is very nice!

Thank you for the hint .

[macdoum]

On ARTE right now,prog about Black Storks in Germany..

I think its the same programme posted by Felis above

Everyone who can get German TV - NDR from North Germany! There is another "Expeditionen ins Tierreich" today evening at 20:15 - showing among others Black Storks in a region called "Sächsische Schweiz" - Saxon Switzerland
I have seen it on an earlier occasion and it is very nice!

It was indeed a beautiful docu. I think it continues tomorrow night also.

[Felis silvestris]

Please will members take the time to read this announcement.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=539

[Felis silvestris]

On ARTE right now,prog about Black Storks in Germany..

I think its the same programme posted by Felis above
It was indeed a beautiful docu. I think it continues tomorrow night also.

It is a beautiful docu, and the part with the WTE, Black Storks is at the mediathek at the moment: http://videos.arte.tv/de/videos/wildes- ... 50124.html
Really worth watching, especially, a WTE youngster from the previous year is visiting his parents (?) at their nest! They are not happy! Wonderful pictures of the hunting eagle and also of nesting Black Storks (and lots of other nice stuff)
By the way, not the same as I posted the other day, it's a different region of Germany, Spreewald - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreewald

Thanks macdoum for sharing and Manu for the hint!

Edit: I just checked, "Wildes Deutschland" is a series of nature docus German program ARD is (and has been showing) on Monday evenings. Spreewald is one of so far 12 parts! Today evening Arte will show Schwarzwald - Black Forest. The docu about Sächsische Schweiz is a part of it, with a different main title.

[Manu]

I watched the documentary yesterday which Macdoum shared yesterday. It is really beautiful. Specially the parts with WTE and Black Storks.
Thank you Macdoum for the hint .

[leonia]

The videos from this series of "Wildes Deutschland" ("Wild Germany" = those parts of Germany, where nature is relatively natural) are available on video-discs (http://www.ardvideo.de).
There are already two of them. On the first one you find the videos about Nordfriesland, Schwarzwald, Vorpommerns Küste, Berchtesgadener Alpen, Spreewald and Sächsische Schweiz. On the second one Pfälzerwald, Uckermark, Bayerischer Wald, Main, Thüringer Wald.
We like them very much!

[Felis silvestris]

I found one on my video tape about the German part of Danube I did not even remember having taped. But sometimes I see a program announced some time in advance and program it ... seems I forget about it afterwards

[Jo UK]

As we have members from all over the globe many of us have a problem with the different date formats.
For instance, is today 1-20-2013 or
2013 - 20 -1 or
20 -1 - 2013

The current webcams which werre produced in USA display the USA format, which confuses Europeans.
The European format confuses the North American members.

One way to overcome this is to write the name of the month, when we need to write a date in our posts.
So toady is 20 January, 2013.