Patience, commitment and courage, for the protection of migratory birds

1980-1984 Fake rings and protected Wetlands

The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) was growing rapidly. In 1980 we launched a campaign against bird trapping in Belgium, and migratory bird hunting in the German Wadden Sea becomes a major focus in 1981. A protest action against the annual pigeon shooting competition in Florence (Tuscany), in which 3,000 carrier pigeons were routinely shot by "sport shooters" during a weekend, also begins in 1981 and resulted with a ban on this massacre in 1984.

In addition to the work in Italy, much of our energy at the beginning of the 1980s focused on the issues around illegal wild bird trade. In Germany, there were many "bird lovers" who not only breed and keep native finches as house birds, but also trapped them with nets. Trapping was even allowed in some cases, but only to refresh the genetic health of captive bred populations. However, these ‘restrictions’ provide many bird breeders with a driver to fuel the so-called pet trade. Bullfinches and goldfinches, hawfinches and crossbills are a profitable business.

In order to put a stop to the illegal trade, CABS members conducted undercover research within the trading scene, buying birds as evidence and having the birds examined by experts to determine their origin. It is becoming increasingly clear that the local bird markets were swamped with wild birds. With counterfeit rings, the birds appear to ‘legal’ by the trappers, but many of the birds bore injuries to their legs and toes where the traders would force narrow ‘real’ rings onto their legs.

After a wave of advertisements, many of the alleged breeding farms were closed, the federal states enact stricter laws, and most pet shops voluntarily stopped selling native birds. The first Federal Nature Conservation Act, passed in 1986, banned bird trapping in Germany. We have no idea that 40 years later we will be dealing with the same problem in Italy.

Migratory birds not only need safe migration routes, but also suitable breeding habitat. An inheritance enabled the committee to buy a protected area. Together with the Raisdorf nature conservation group, a wetland area on the outskirts of Raisdorf (today Schwentinental) was purchased in 1984. Hedges were planted, nesting boxes are hung up and shallow water scrapes were created to benefit waders and other water birds. Over the decades, the area will become the core of the association's own protected area in Schleswig-Holstein and will be safe for generations to come.

1985-1989 Bird Guards in danger

It was clear that the bird trappers and poachers would not be happy about the interference of foreign bird lovers. With the expansion of our anti-poaching operations in Belgium and Italy, it is clear that they see the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) as a real threat to their traditions. The bird trappers were not used to resistance and reacted extremely aggressively.

In Belgium, CABS members regularly ran the gauntlet during protest marches in Eupen, Verviers or Malmedy and on the German-Belgian border. Almost every weekend there were skirmishes between conservationists and the angry bird trappers. Armed with whistles and sirens CABS members would draw up along the border, where on the Belgian side poachers had set up nets and decoys as outlawed under the Birds Directive. Unperturbed the activists would regularly run into the Belgian territory amongst the chaos and take the nets and decoys. The main goal was always achieved: the media interest around this so called ‘Bird War’ brought the subject to the attention of the entire nation. The downside being a few broken noses, sore ribs, black eyes and even a few pot shots taken in our direction.

At the end of the 1980s, the mood against bird trapping began to tip in the right direction. The government of the neighbouring North Rhine-Westphalia put pressure together with the Belgians in favour of abolishing the ‘tradition’. In 1988, following an official environmental complaint from CABS, the European Court prosecuted the Belgian government for the violations of the EC Birds Directive.

In 1985, the first real CABS bird protection camp was held in Brescia/Italy: after previous excursions in 1983 and 1984, German and Italian committee members came together for the first time to scour the mountains and collect traps and nets. Initially, these are only weekend actions and the strategy was limited to neutralising as many of the prohibited traps as possible. Police support, as established since the late 1990s was not available at the time and so dozens of our volunteers endured a number of hostile incidents of broken bones such as in 1987 at Colle San Zeno and 1988 in Treviso Bresciano (both Lombardy). Shattered windscreens and slashed tyres were the order of the day.

Given the professional manner with which the incidents were met, we received an accolade from the federal government. In 1987, Federal Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer acknowledged the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) as an official nature protection NGO. In line with public interests, this title authorised us to submit expert opinions on nationwide planning projects and to be consulted on legislation.

1990-1994 The first successes

Our actions in Belgium formed the blueprint for CABS’ bird protection campaigns: With targeted actions on the ground, media and lobbying, good contact with the EU, the skilful use of court proceedings and a lot of patience, we demonstrated how a seemingly hopeless project can be brought to success: In 1992, the Belgian government significantly shortened the trapping season and in September 1993 bird trapping was finally banned! In just nine years, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), together with our partners, has brought down one of the strongholds of bird trapping in Europe. If it succeeds here, why not elsewhere?

In Italy, too, the campaign, which began in 1975, led to a first major victory: in 1992, Italy enacted a modern hunting law - many bird species are placed under nature protection, bird trapping with traps and nets is banned, the hunting season was shortened to four months and the sale of shot birds was also prohibited.

As a result of the new restrictions, Italian hunters began to decline – of the former two million hunting licence holders, only 900,000 were left in 1995. Nevertheless, the remaining hard core hunting fraternity continued to cement their political influence in Rome. With special permits for bird trapping and the shooting of protected bird species, hunters secure the rights they actually lost in 1992. There were also generous exemptions for catching thrushes and larks, which are needed for hunting as live decoys. And the shooting of chaffinches and brambling is allowed year after year under flimsy justifications.

In 1994, CABS filed a lawsuit in Milan to file a lawsuit against two of these special permits. The Administrative Court of Lombardy agreed with our findings and stopped finch hunting and bird trapping. A great success – one that has made us loyal customers of the courts for around 20 years. Because the hunting-friendly regional governments will continue to issue dozens of such special permits every year well into the new millennium, which we continued to fight against. This will not end until 2014.

While judges and lawyers in Italy are arguing about finches, in 1994 the CABS conservation area in Schleswig-Holstein grew to over 95 hectares in size with the purchase of large areas in the Schwentine lowlands. And in the German Wadden Sea, after 13 years of the CABS campaign, waterfowl hunting ended once and for all on 31.12.1994!

1995 - 1999 Autumn under palm trees and pines

The forces that were freed up, which had been tied up in Belgium for a decade, enabled the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) to expand our actions to France and southern Italy in the second half of the 1990s. While bird trapping was finally banned in Germany, Belgium and Italy, France showed no ambitions to advance bird protection. Quite the opposite: Brutal trapping methods such as horsehair snares, stone-crush traps or limesticks experienced a renaissance as alleged traditions.

In 1996, we began extensive research in France. The extent of bird trapping with snares in the Ardennes was documented, as was the trapping of lapwings with clap-nets in Champagne or lark trapping near Bordeaux. Later, research on stone-crush traps and limesticks in southern France also followed. The results were presented in Brussels and serve as the basis for several environmental complaints by the committee to the EU Commission. Protests collect hundreds of thousands of signatures against bird slaughter in France. Unfortunately, the log fight continued. After all, in 1999, on our initiative, the fishing of Ortolans was banned and lapwing trapping in Champagne was restricted. However, France will remain the problem child of international bird protection until the 2020s.

The situation in southern Italy was quite different: along the mainland coast and on the islands around Naples, illegal bird trapping with snap traps was widespread at the beginning of the 1990s. Whinchats, nightingales and redstarts are mainly targeted – all highly endangered in Central Europe. The CABS missions on the island of Ischia, which began in 1993, were significantly expanded from 1996 onwards. Soon, CABS members and our Italian partner associations LAC and WWF began regular inspections in the islands of Ponza, Capri and Procida, as well as the famous Amalfi Coast. Initially, thousands of traps were collected, but due to the good cooperation with the police, which is practiced here for the first time, the recorded number of poaching incidents began to diminish.

We are also active in Sardinia: Since 1996, bird protection camps have taken place every autumn on the Italian Mediterranean island, where well over 10,000 illegal horsehair snares were routinely dismantled during these early years. At that time, no one could imagine that 20 years later, there will come a time when you would hardly find 100 of the brutal traps here!

2000 - 2004 Parrot conservation and goose hunters

In the year 2000, bird trapping is no longer a big issue in Germany, cage and aviary birds are now mainly caught in the tropics. Exotic ornamental poultry - formerly a status symbol for the rich - became affordable for everyone due to globalisation. Parrots caught in the wild from South America, bullfinches from Asia and African finches are available on pet markets everywhere. During this time, Germany was one of the most important sales markets for wild birds caught in the Amazonian rainforest. For a parrot in the living room, many perish during transport, often confined with more than 20 others.

During privately financed trips to South America, CABS employees travelled to the Amazon to witness and covertly film direct evidence of the parrot trapping for German traders and the conditions at the exporters. The gruesome scenes are later shown on German television on all channels. With increasing digitalisation, the Internet is also playing an increasing role in the illegal animal trade. CABS also uncovered the trafficking of reptiles, taxidermy and ivory and rhino horn trade. According to a study published in 2003 by the Committee on the mass trade in protected animal trophies on eBay, the company is tightening its monitoring of auctions.

Our campaign "A cage is not a habitat", launched in the 1980s, ended with a bang in 2007: the EU imposed a strict import ban on wild-caught birds of all species. Although not primarily for reasons of animal or species protection, but to protect against animal diseases such as bird flu, the effect is the same: the import of wild-caught parrots and other exotic animals to Europe was been stopped for the time being.

Meanwhile, another CABS project was causing a sensation: Following the fall of the wall in 1989, hunters from the west increasingly travelled to the large wetlands of the east to indulge in waterfowl hunting that was neither monitored nor regulated by the authorities. Our inspections in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt, which began in 1997, led to a calming of the situation around the turn of the millennium. Although there are still violations there today, in most nature reserves the migratory birds can now rest in peace.

Another important area of operation in the future appears on the horizon in 2001: In order to take action against the illegal hunting of birds of prey and bird trapping with nets in Malta, we began with a first small spring operation on the island. CABS also helped to fund an outboard motorboat to assist Malta Police in tackling poachers hunting at sea.

2005 – 2009 Bird hunters at court

In Brescia, northern Italy, a breakthrough came in the mid-2000s: instead of only dismantling traps, we developed close cooperation with the forest police, exchanging field intelligence to assist the authorities in catching poachers red-handed. In 2001, we still routinely collected around 12,000 bow traps, before the numbers began to tumble over subsequent years. The apprehensions of the police spread fear and terror - in 2005 there were still 3,753 bow traps, in 2009 there were just under 2,000!

Our successes also transcended our fieldwork. Our lawsuits, launched in 1994, against the shooting of protected finches and the operation of huge bird-trapping installations called ‘roccoli’, which have been repeatedly approved in Italy, began to turn the tides. Every year, the regional governments would pass new laws, which were then "overturned" by the administrative courts a few days later. When our lawyers were successful in 2008 with an appeal to the Italian Supreme Court, the nationwide end of the special permits was near. As a result of our campaigns, the European Court of Justice condemned Italy in 2010 for violating the EU Birds Directive, in 2013 an amendment to the law ended finch hunting, and the last trapping facilities were closed in 2014!

However, judgments are not only made in Italy. The illegal persecution of birds of prey in Germany has been keeping us busy since the late 1970s, but from 2005 onwards the extent becomes clear. Especially in North Rhine-Westphalia, goshawks, buzzards and kites suffer from persecution. After our surveillance footage led to the conviction of a hunter from Düren in 2007, CABS has made raptor persecution a key part of our campaigns within Germany.

In 2007, the first large autumn bird protection camp in Malta began. 30 bird conservationists from all over Europe came together to monitor illegal hunting and trapping on the island archipelago and caused an international sensation. In just a few years, it was possible to reduce the number of incidents of illegal hunting of protected large birds. At the same time the English name ‘CABS’ ("Committee Against Bird Slaughter") appeared for the first time, and the term "Bird Guard" – later a trademark – was also launched.

Also, in 2007, we started a completely different project for the protection of birds of prey: In the Zülpicher Börde, at the gates of our head office in Bonn, marsh and montagu’s harriers breed in grain fields and lose their broods year after year during the harvest. Together with farmers and local authorities, we protect the nests - the initially very local project has since gradually expanded, 15 years later the entire area is monitored extensively, and all broods of the rare birds are recorded.

In 2008, we also began to intensify our anti-poaching operations in Cyprus, which equally started on a small scale and has since built up to become a regular bird protection camp with teams of international volunteers deployed. Cyprus suffers gruesome largescale trapping of songbirds (particularly blackcap) around the SE of the island and in the British Sovereign Base Areas. The rappers use illegal decoys, nets and limesticks to fuel the trade of songbirds on the black market where they are considered an under the counter delicacy known as ‘ambelopoulia’. Just a few birds can sell for 60€. Driving the trapping to industrial scales in a region with a suffering economy.

2010 - 2014 Awakening to new shores

In the 2010s, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) was growing at an unprecedented rate. With more volunteers, increased financial resources, the experience from the numerous successful campaigns in the past and the good reputation through our successes, we can set off for new shores.

In 2011, the first action against Ortolan poaching took place in France – because "gourmets" pay up to €200 for an Ortolan in restaurants, poaching was very popular here and was also tolerated by the authorities. In the same year, we held the first CABS bird protection camp in eastern Spain, where, despite the ban from the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of songbirds were still being caught with limesticks. In 2014, we also created a first permanent presence in a CABS area of operation, with the appointment of a British Wildlife Crime Officer in Malta. This enabled us to expand our bird protection on the islands from four to over 18 weeks per year!

The fact that the border of the Committee’s work coincided with the external border of the European Union would become obsolete by 2013. The rapidly increasing importance of social media allowed us to look into an abyss that will occupy us from now on like hardly any other topic: poaching in Lebanon. First, we evaluated trophy images that Lebanese hunters published themselves on the internet. The monstrous extent of poaching of storks, birds of prey and dozens of songbird species is presented in a study and caused an international sensation. No one suspects that our "Bird Guards" would become active in the Middle East just a few years later.

In the geographically most opposite poles of our work - in the far north in Schleswig-Holstein and in the far south in Calabria - we took over the patronages of two further projects: Since 2013, the actions against illegal bird of prey hunting on the Strait of Messina have been taking place under the flag and financial support from the Committee. In 2014, we took over the sponsorship of the "Project Frogland" from a dissolved partner association. The aim of this project, which is financed by the Ministry of the Environment in Kiel, was the creation and restoration of wetlands in Schleswig-Holstein. By 2024, there will be more than 500 water bodies linked!

2015 – 2019 Cedars and Birds of Prey

During the mid-2010s, Spain proved to be a rewarding area of operation. The poachers here are far less difficult than in Malta or Italy, for example, so that only four years after the start of the actions in Valencia, an improvement is visible – faster than in any previous campaign. While in 2013 we had dismantled over 16,000 illegal limesticks together with the police, by 2019 there were just 300! But other methods began to emerge - in 2017 we find the first snap traps for songbirds in Valencia and at the end of the decade the first gillnets in Castellón.

On 2nd September 2017, we really entered new territory with the first day of anti-poaching operations in Lebanon. The cedar state is not only a different culture and outside the EU but hunting and poaching here extends way beyond the imagination of European nature and animal lovers. A seemingly hopeless mountain to overcome? Just the right thing for us! With the support of the United Nations Environment Programme, committed local partner associations and the daughter of the Lebanese President – Claudine Aoun – we launched our actions in the Middle East. The special challenges require new methods. Suddenly, the training of police forces is on our agenda and new allies are also needed: In Lebanon, for the first time, we are relying on cooperation with pro regulation ‘sustainable’ hunters and thus gaining access to poachers, whom they consider a tarnish on their hobby. What no one thought possible actually happens: The police come with us into the area, seizing nets and limesticks and arresting birds of prey poachers. After just a few years of regular work, the Eghbe mountain pass is the first area to be largely calmed.

After 10 years of actions in Malta, the picture on the Mediterranean island is mixed: in 2017, the illegal shooting of birds of prey and storks has been significantly reduced. However, finch trapping with clap-nets, on the other hand, remains a big problem because the government continues to allow trapping in autumn and thus repeatedly fuels the "tradition". The conviction of perpetrators also often fails due to the lack of evidence. Since the end of the 2010s, we have therefore been increasingly documenting each case in detail and thus providing solid casefiles to the public prosecutor's office. In 2018, 12 poachers were convicted based on our tip-offs, and in 2024 there will be almost 30.

But why wander far away when poaching is so close? With funding from the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, we launched ‘EDGAR’ in 2015 – the Raptor Persecution and Wildlife Crime documentation centre. We are gradually expanding our network from North Rhine-Westphalia to the other hotspots of this type of environmental crime, especially to Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Bavaria. In addition to documentation, the project focuses on its own inspections and investigations as well as the training of authorities and nature conservation associations. In just 10 years, we will document over 900 cases in Germany.