What is Going On?

[Chimega]

Many congratulations to Mr.Gennadi Skromnov from Looduskalender
and to Urmas for everything!! And thank you for all that you do!!

[BlueSavannah]

great and fantastic news .. congratulations :)

[Jose]

CONGRATULATIONS!!

And thank you so much for this beautiful site!!

[Olga]

Congratulations to Gennadi Skromnov and Urmas Sellis!

Best greetings from Finland!
I am so happy for you

[baska]

Ganz herzliche Glückwünsche aus Deutschland an Gennadi Skromnov und Urmas Sellis
für den diesjährigen Eerik-Kumari-Naturschutz-Preis!

Das habt ihr verdient! Ich freue mich mit euch!

[Brit]

Congratulations to 'Mr. Looduskalender' and Urmas. Wouldn't know anyone who deserves it more! And I only can say: Thank you!!!

[marian53]

Congratulations to Gennadi Skromnov and Urmas Sellis!
From the dutch

[Margossa]

Congratulations to Gennadi Skromnov and Urmas Sellis!
Thank you very much for your great job and everything you do.



Greetings from Poland!

[Mila]

Congratulations to Gennadi Skromnov and Urmas Sellis!
and Thank You for for all your effort to realise this great projekt Looduskalender!

[Margossa]

Happy World Migratory Bird Day !

11 - 12 May 2013

http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/

[Bairbre]

Congratulations Mr. Skromnov, Looduskalender and Urmas

[Cara]

*THANK YOU VERY MUCH!* Looduskalender and Urmas for the wonderful work!
I love Estonia and I love Looduskalender! And I have respect for Urmas and his team for the excellent work!

LOODUSKALENDER & URMAS - you have deserved the award so MUCH!!!

[terbobun]

That is beautiful Cara. Can't wait to see more of your drawings/paintings.

[Chimega]

I really don't know where else to put this so that it is seen by people who may want to try to help. If it is put in "other birds" or a section like that, it may not be seen for weeks or longer by many. Moderators, please move to an appropriate area if you see fit. Thank you.

Trapping of millions of birds in Egypt threatens European bird populations

Migratory murder on Egypt's coast

May 2013. Disturbing evidence has emerged from the Mediterranean coast of Egypt: Bavarian Broadcasting have documented a total of 700 kilometres of nets set to catch birds. The birds are then offered as a delicacy in markets and restaurants across Egypt.

The nets are very difficult to avoid for many migratory birds as they form a barrier across their flight path either across the Mediterranean or the Sahara when they are looking for a place to rest. The exact number of birds caught in this way can only be estimated, but experts believe that tens of millions are killed each year.

That songbirds are on the menu (and targeted by many hunters) in many countries of southern Europe and North Africa is nothing new. The existence of fishing nets on the coast of Egypt has long been known, but what is new is the scale of netting, which now extends from Libya across almost the entire coastline of the Egypt to the Sinai - interrupted only in a few places by military installations or major cities.

Read more, here.http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/eg ... ng.html#cr

[macdoum]

How does one juge HUMANENESS ?

Environment
Badgers
Humaneness of badger cull to be judged on noise of dying animals

Document reveals measures UK government will use to assess humaneness of badger culls that will begin shortly in England
Share 4125

Damian Carrington

The Guardian, Thursday 30 May 2013 11.45 BST
Badgers
The badger cull could begin any time from 1 June in parts of Gloucestershire and Somerset. Photograph: Raimund Linke/Getty Images


The noises made by shot badgers and comparisons with harpooned whales will be among the measures used to assess the humaneness of badger culls in England, a government document seen by the Guardian reveals.

The paper also acknowledges that none of the shooters will have experience of killing free-running badgers and that the requirement to target the heart and lungs is untested.

Anti-cull campaigners have reacted furiously to the heavily redacted document, which is marked "protect".

"With such large-scale killing in our countryside, it is simply unacceptable that the government is continuing to be so evasive about how suffering will be measured during the pilot culls," said Mark Jones, executive director of the Humane Society International UK, which obtained the document through the Freedom of Information Act.

He is particularly concerned that no information has been made public about how wounded animals that retreat underground to die can be included in the humaneness assessment or the proportion of badger carcasses that will be collected for postmortems.

"The design of the study to assess humaneness of the badger-culling pilots has been overseen by an independent expert panel," said a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. "All marksmen are required to pass a government training course and must adhere to best practice guidance. Humaneness will be monitored through field observations, postmortems and a report will be drawn up by the independent panel."

The key aim of the pilot culls to begin in Somerset and Gloucestershire from Saturday are to discover whether night-time shootings of free-running badgers can kill sufficient numbers of the animals in a safe and humane way. Successful pilots would see the rollout of culling nationwide as part of the government's attempts to curb the rising epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle, which now costs taxpayers £100m a year and saw 37,000 cattle slaughtered in 2012.

In a previous 10-year trial of badger culling, the animals were trapped in cages before being shot. This method is relatively expensive so in the pilots ministers have allowed marksmen to shoot free-running animals, although this introduces the risk of wounding. Among the factors influencing the accuracy of the shooting, the document notes: "No shooter will have prior experience of shooting badgers." It also notes previous research on free shooting of wild animals all targeted the brain, rather than the chest area.

The document presents four possible outcomes of the shooting, including "death caused directly by the shooting due to severe trauma to vital organs" and "death caused indirectly by the shooting due to non-lethal wounding associated with secondary infections and starvation due to reduced mobility". Missed shots and non-fatal wounding are the other possibilities.

The "time to death" (TTD) is cited as a key factor in assessing pain and distress and the document states: "A similar approach as to that which is used to determine TTD in whales is proposed for the current study." It adds: "Observation of a shot animal's behaviour and vocalisations is the only method available to determine the degree of pain that may be experienced during the dying process."

"I am stunned at the ludicrous and unfounded assumptions that Defra appears to make about the relevance of killing methods for entirely different species such as whales," said Jones. "No credible scientist would have confidence in the way that the government intends to assess the suffering of badgers, and yet Defra appears to be doing all it can to avoid independent scrutiny of its methodology."

A scientist familiar with the cull policy said: "You need to set a threshold – which is subjective – above which it is not considered humane and the cull is stopped. My view is that the threshold has to be pretty dumb high. It is not really acceptable for any animal to go off injured." The document states that daily data on the cull will be sent to Defra once the shooting begins "so ministers are aware of any welfare issues and if deemed necessary could halt the cull".

Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers Union, said: "The purpose of the pilots is to assess whether controlling badger numbers in a controlled way under licence by trained professionals is safe, effective and humane. We are extremely confident that the pilots will go ahead and will be effective."

Jilly Cooper, author, animal rights campaigner and Gloucestershire landowner, said: "I fear that massacring England's badgers in the vain hope of tackling bovine TB is going to be as brutal as it is useless

HAS OUR WHOLE WORLD GONE COMPLETELY MAD
From The Guardien newspaper 30/05/2013;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... dged-noise

[macdoum]

And this from Dyfi Osprey Project today

http://www.dyfiospreyproject.com/blog/2 ... w-too-late

PLEASE I think everone should read it. I think we all have the same concerns.
Posted in Osprays also:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=581

[Jo UK]

I read it. I listened to Iolo, too. What a powerful speaker, he is.
How very depressing is this news. Sad. Angry -

[Eden]

Murder of migration birds at Egypt’s coast

TV-report Tuesday, 18.6., ARD, Report München, 21:45 h
http://www.nabu.de/tiereundpflanzen/voe ... 15708.html

[Eden]

Petition against murder of migration birds at Egypt’s coast

https://www.nabu.de/tiereundpflanzen/vo ... 15711.html

[Eden]

Trailer to the movie „Emptying the Skies“ by big hitter Jonathan Franzen:
http://vimeo.com/67906317
Documentation about the work of the German Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS).