Birds poisoned, killed during migration

With winter approaching, hundreds of millions of migratory birds around the globe are moving southward again seeking a warmer habitat, a seasonal phenomenon creating spectacular views that can take your breath away.

However, it is also the season when bird hunters make illegal catches.

Volunteers with the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation have recently discovered migratory birds poisoned on some migrant routes across China.

On Nov 14, five migratory birds, including three wild ducks and two common moorhens, were found poisoned to death in Hanjiang River, Hubei province.

According to Zhou, the head of a migratory bird sanctuary in the Hanjiang River basin, those criminals usually hide poison in the preferred habitats of migratory birds and wait for the birds to swallow it. Then they will catch birds that are left behind or dead.

When the peak season for migration arrives, apart from paying attention to illegal fishing, he and volunteers also keep a close eye on the migratory birds that flocked to the riverside.

On Nov 19, an oriental white stork, a first-class national protected species, was found poisoned to death in Caofeidian, North China's Hebei province.

Over 2,000 oriental white storks have come to the Caofeidian wetlands this year, the volunteers said, although the exact number of birds poisoned to death remained unknown.

There are eight migration routes around the globe, three of which pass through China, namely, the East Africa-West Asia (West Line), Central Asia-India (Middle Line), and East Asia-Australia (East Line).

The longest is the East Asia-Australia route, which extends more than 12,000 kilometers and covers 22 provinces in China. It is also along this line that the hunting of migratory birds occurs the most.

The volunteers hope stricter punishment could be imposed on bird killers to prevent such tragedies from happening again and again.