Court stops the hunting of skylarks in Romania

The Brasov Court of Appeal has decided to stop the hunting of skylarks and three other species of birds in Romania in the 2019-2020 season, following the court action opened by the Alliance for Combating Abuses Association.

The Association attacked in court a controversial ministerial order that allowed the hunting of over 439,000 larks in this hunting season (2019-2020). The Brasov Court of Appeal decided to suspend the execution of the ministerial order’s provisions, the Romanian Ornithological Society (SOR) announced.

The judgment of the Court of Appeal is not final, but it is enforceable by law. It can be appealed at the High Court of Cassation and Justice.

The ministerial order set the hunting quotas for four species of migratory birds for the year 2019-2020, namely the Eurasian skylark, the redwing, the greater scaup and the common goldeneye.

The foreign hunters, mainly the Italians, are quite interested in the skylark, a bird species that was introduced in 1996 on the list of birds that can be hunted, SOR said. Ten years later, in 2006, the species became protected but only for one year. In 2015, following another campaign of SOR and the organizations of the Natura 2000 Coalition, the hunting quotas were halved.

Every year the Romanian Police catch larger or smaller groups of Italian tourists who hunt protected species in Romania and claim that they are actually hunting skylarks. Transports of poached birds leaving Romania are usually stopped on the Romania-Hungary route, but in recent years such transports have also been intercepted in Slovenia and Croatia, SOR explained.

(Photo source: Pixabay.com)