TIRANA: It is Albania's national image, but the eagle may soon handiest be discovered at the flag. The majestic chicken is threatened with extinction due to fashionable poaching of raptors.
On the aspect of a national highway, just 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the capital Tirana, a dealer gives motorists a common buzzard for an average value of 7,000-10,000 leks (55-85 euros, $65-100).
The buzzard is a safe species identical to the golden eagle.
But the person is not concerned as he shows the chicken with its wing wounded by way of a bullet and its talons tied.
"I didn't wound it. I was given it to sell. The buyers will keep it in a cage in a bar or a restaurant," he says.
Whether the purchasers wish to stuff them or to stay them in captivity, they may be able to to find these birds on the market in the street.
Of the 4 species of vultures that used to exist in Albania, "only one, the Egyptian vulture, remains and its population has been extremely reduced," says Mirjan Topi, author of Albania's first chicken guide.
So too the dwindling collection of golden eagles, a two-headed specimen of which features at the flag of this mountainous Balkan nation.
According to experts, some 25 years in the past there were between 100 and 200 couples of golden eagles. That quantity these days has been lower in half, "a dramatic decline", says Topi.
For biologist Taulant Bino, president of the Albanian Ornithological Society, the golden eagle "is on the road to extinction".
"Fifty years ago or even in the early 1990s, we could see it on every summit," he says.
On a world scale, the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) isn't classified as a threatened species, in step with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
But in Albania at the moment the place the place you're perhaps to peer a golden eagle is "stuffed in bars, restaurants or hotels", Topi says.
The thought is "to decorate the interior to attract customers, at the price of a sickening spectacle, in violation of the law, and in defiance of the state and institutions", the chicken specialist laments.
In the southern region of Orikum, a man in his 50s, who would handiest identify himself as Petrit, is happy with the eagle he purchased for 400 euros. He displays it in his bar subsequent to the national flag and different filled birds.
"It is more and more rare to find an eagle," he notes.
The state has threatened to close his bar if he continues to show off his trophy however Petrit isn't worried.
"I am ready to pay a fine, but I want to keep it."
And in the mountains of Prenish alongside the border with Macedonia, a hunter who gave his identify as Edmond seemed unfazed to be discovered with two buzzards he had just killed.
The 35-year-old defined that he plans to use the birds as ornament in his bar "to get more customers".
There has been a hunting ban in Albania since 2014. Authorities say it has curtailed a lot of the 2,000-Three,000 Italian hunters who're estimated to have killed more than 150,000 birds, together with hundreds of raptors during the last decade.
But they admitted, when contacted by way of AFP, that the ban's effectiveness is limited as it handiest imposes fines.
According to Ermal Halimi, a consultant at the issue at the ministry of tourism and atmosphere, there are plans to strengthen the law, together with "prison terms for all offences that contribute to the disappearance of protected animals".
But that is not the whole tale.
Another danger, possibly even more insidious, hangs over the raptors: the poisoned carcasses that shepherds leave in the field to give protection to their flocks from wolves.
"A single carcass is enough to kill several vultures if they find it before the wolf," says Nexhip Hysolokaj, an environmental skilled in the Orikum region the place in March, six eagles and vultures were discovered dead from poison.
Fines have by no means been issued over this tradition which shepherds seem to have no purpose of giving up.
"The sheep are the ones who feed us, they are our pride and wolves massacre them! We have no choice," says 83-year old Sado Xhelili as he guards his flock.
On the aspect of a national highway, just 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the capital Tirana, a dealer gives motorists a common buzzard for an average value of 7,000-10,000 leks (55-85 euros, $65-100).
The buzzard is a safe species identical to the golden eagle.
But the person is not concerned as he shows the chicken with its wing wounded by way of a bullet and its talons tied.
"I didn't wound it. I was given it to sell. The buyers will keep it in a cage in a bar or a restaurant," he says.
Whether the purchasers wish to stuff them or to stay them in captivity, they may be able to to find these birds on the market in the street.
Of the 4 species of vultures that used to exist in Albania, "only one, the Egyptian vulture, remains and its population has been extremely reduced," says Mirjan Topi, author of Albania's first chicken guide.
So too the dwindling collection of golden eagles, a two-headed specimen of which features at the flag of this mountainous Balkan nation.
According to experts, some 25 years in the past there were between 100 and 200 couples of golden eagles. That quantity these days has been lower in half, "a dramatic decline", says Topi.
For biologist Taulant Bino, president of the Albanian Ornithological Society, the golden eagle "is on the road to extinction".
"Fifty years ago or even in the early 1990s, we could see it on every summit," he says.
On a world scale, the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) isn't classified as a threatened species, in step with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
But in Albania at the moment the place the place you're perhaps to peer a golden eagle is "stuffed in bars, restaurants or hotels", Topi says.
The thought is "to decorate the interior to attract customers, at the price of a sickening spectacle, in violation of the law, and in defiance of the state and institutions", the chicken specialist laments.
In the southern region of Orikum, a man in his 50s, who would handiest identify himself as Petrit, is happy with the eagle he purchased for 400 euros. He displays it in his bar subsequent to the national flag and different filled birds.
"It is more and more rare to find an eagle," he notes.
The state has threatened to close his bar if he continues to show off his trophy however Petrit isn't worried.
"I am ready to pay a fine, but I want to keep it."
And in the mountains of Prenish alongside the border with Macedonia, a hunter who gave his identify as Edmond seemed unfazed to be discovered with two buzzards he had just killed.
The 35-year-old defined that he plans to use the birds as ornament in his bar "to get more customers".
There has been a hunting ban in Albania since 2014. Authorities say it has curtailed a lot of the 2,000-Three,000 Italian hunters who're estimated to have killed more than 150,000 birds, together with hundreds of raptors during the last decade.
But they admitted, when contacted by way of AFP, that the ban's effectiveness is limited as it handiest imposes fines.
According to Ermal Halimi, a consultant at the issue at the ministry of tourism and atmosphere, there are plans to strengthen the law, together with "prison terms for all offences that contribute to the disappearance of protected animals".
But that is not the whole tale.
Another danger, possibly even more insidious, hangs over the raptors: the poisoned carcasses that shepherds leave in the field to give protection to their flocks from wolves.
"A single carcass is enough to kill several vultures if they find it before the wolf," says Nexhip Hysolokaj, an environmental skilled in the Orikum region the place in March, six eagles and vultures were discovered dead from poison.
Fines have by no means been issued over this tradition which shepherds seem to have no purpose of giving up.
"The sheep are the ones who feed us, they are our pride and wolves massacre them! We have no choice," says 83-year old Sado Xhelili as he guards his flock.
Albania losing its eagle to rampant poaching
![Albania losing its eagle to rampant poaching]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
December 29, 2017
Rating:
