GOT International

   DEATH ON THE WING

                  Bonelli's Eagle, Latin: Aquila fasciata, Sp: Águila Perdicera, Cat: Àliga Cuabarrada, Ger: Habichtsadler, 
                                                                                         Fr: Aigle de Bonelli
KILLED FOR KICKS:  This body of a Bonelli’s Eagle provides grim evidence of the impunity with which game hunters defy the law, and the perversity of a blood sport that thrives on public apathy. Forest rangers found the male raptor’s body on 30th December, five days after it was brought down while flying over the woodland-bound suburbs of Torrelles de Llobregat, a municipality in the province of Barcelona. The body had been riddled with 12 shotgun pellets.  

      The woodland trail where the body was first seen.    © Photographs: Júlia Olivella & Rosa Simón.      Courtesy of VIST AVUI   

A rambler found the bird lying dead on a trail in the woods shortly after it had been shot. Forest rangers were alerted, but when they arrived at the spot, the bird had vanished. After a five-day search the body was found, dumped in the thick of the forest.

Residents aware of the presence of the eagle said that only a few weeks earlier its mate had been shot and killed in the same area.  However, a few days before the male met the same fate, another female had turned up, and the two paired up. The fate of the solitary female is not known but fears for its safety have been raised by Catalan ornithologists and bird lovers.

         A magnificent example of a male Bonelli's Eagle: Photo by SAM MUGRABY, Courtesy of  Photos8.com

The Bonelli’s Eagle is an endangered species and its population has been declining throughout Europe. Only about 1000 pairs survive on the continent, of which around 750 are in Spain.  Once widespread in Catalonia, its numbers here have been reduced to just around 66 pairs. It is a protected species. Yet, although the killing of birds of prey has been outlawed for years in Spain, it has not stopped the country’s blood sport aficionados.

For many birds of prey, flying over woodland has become quite hazardous: apart from the threat of being shot down by hunters, they are likely to be electrocuted on power lines, lose their habitat to urban development, and be poisoned by the pesticides and insecticides increasingly being used in farming. -- Words: ABUL FAZIL