Breeding female imperial eagle struck by nine shotgun pellets
BirdLife Austria calls for hunting law reform and improvements in criminal prosecution!
On Monday 7 June 2021, an imperial eagle was shot with shotgun pellets south-west of Tulln in Lower Austria.
Nine shotgun pellets in the breeding bird
The injured bird of prey was retrieved by alert passers-by and given initial treatment at the Owl and Bird of Prey Station Haringsee (EGS). The bird is a breeding individual from the Tullnerfelder Danube floodplains, and was forced to abandon its two five-week-old chicks to their fate. BirdLife Austria filed a criminal complaint and is calling for a reform of hunting law.
We assume this was a deliberate attack on an imperial eagle. The fact that the breeding female imperial eagle was shot with nine shotgun pellets and has left two five-week-old chicks behind in the nest is a serious threat to the fragile population of around 30 breeding imperial eagle pairs in Austria!
Matthias Schmidt, bird of prey expert at BirdLife Austria
A hotspot of bird of prey persecution
The district of Tulln is no stranger to illegal bird of prey persecution: in 2015, an imperial eagle was found poisoned here. In the same hunting territory, five common buzzards were already found dead in March.
Criminal consequences
Under §181f of the Criminal Code, shooting a strictly protected species such as the imperial eagle is a criminal offence carrying prison sentences of up to two years.
Although recreational hunters condemn such acts, our experience shows that the perpetrators are mostly licensed hunters. It is therefore counterproductive that potential suspects within the ranks of recreational hunters must give their consent before evidence can be examined.
Matthias Schmidt
High Number of Unreported Cases in Illegal Persecution
Illegal persecution is by far the most common human-caused cause of death for the imperial eagle. Between 30 and 40 percent of all imperial eagles found dead in Austria were shot or poisoned.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
