Tuesday, January 18, 2011

More hunters than raptors in Central Italy

Sunday, during a 75-km of road-count in Central Italy (Tolfa Mountain) less than 20 raptors (Red Kites, Kestrels, Common buzzards) were observed while we met about 50 hunters...
Unfortunately in Italy there are about 700.000 hunters in Italy, that represent a huge impact on environment in some areas . Differently from other European Union countries, in Italy hunting - concerning species and dates - is increasing thank to the lobby activity of weapon industry and hunters associations.


Sunday, January 9, 2011

Winter road-count

We finished the winter raptors monitoring in Basilicata (Southern Italy) after more than 400 km of car transects. We counted about one raptor per km. Mostly Common Buzzards, Kestrels and an impressive number of Red Kites. We observed also some Northern Harriers (more than expected), Sparrowhawks, Black Kites, Marsh Harriers and one Osprey.
In the pictures below, a perched Kestrel and a typical road counter during a break.