Illegal persecution of wild animals: alarming numbers in Austria!

Illegal persecution of wild animals: alarming numbers in Austria!

Neusiedl am See, Österreich - In Burgenland, concern for illegally persecuted birds of prey accumulates. A preventive search recently discovered around 20 animal carcasses, including field hares and deer, as well as mutilated bird remains. These measures should not only show the presence of the authorities, but also deter possible offenses, as Christina Wolf-Petre from WWF said. Karl Frauenberger, head of the environmental crime department, emphasized that it was important to act against the illegal persecution of protected species before becoming a serious problem. The legal framework is already available, and yet many offenses remain undiscovered and undeveloped, since the number of unreported cases is high, as shown in previous reports on wildlife crime.

alarming tendencies of wildlife crime

The nature conservation organization WWF has documented over 480 cases of illegal killings of domestic wild animals in Austria since 2000, with the main focus on birds of prey such as sea eagles. The extinction of species such as the bear or the lynx is also strongly endangered by such offenses. These killings are not only a crime against nature, but also a new building block in the threat of our biodiversity. Wolf-Petre warns that the high numbers of the documented cases are only the tip of the iceberg. This requires further measures to take the perpetrators responsible and to secure the existence of protected species. How wildlife crime in Austria remains a serious topic.

In Burgenland, sea eagles, imperial eagles and other birds of prey are particularly affected by illegal killings. The first preventive search of this kind could also be extended to other endangered species such as wolves and lynxes in the future. In the past, there have been cases of violated birds of prey, including the well -known imperial eagle "Artemisia", which was killed in the region. References to these punishable actions can be reported at Wildlifecrime.at, as recommended by the initiators of the search. Kleine Zeitung reported about The first searches and their goals.