[china guy]

Here's a shocker from my part of the woods - something I've been sitting on for the past 9 months!!!!
At Chengdu Airport the new runway has been surrounded by complete ring of mist nets - supposedly for bird protection. According to the airport website the runways are 3.6km long - that will give you a net running to almost 8 km in length!!!!! The picture was taken last march - you can see birds in the net. We haven't been back since - with the security patrols and local paranoia over terrorism, lurking on the edges of Chinese international airports with cameras is most likely highly illegal and not one of our favorite past-times!!!! We don't know if the nets are still up - but we strongly suspect they still are.
Those who read my posts know my usual course of action when confronted with a net - take action to destroy - but nets around airports are a far more difficult task. Forestry Protection Police and local NGO's are not wanting to get involved with the authorities who run international airports - since it's a 'legal' government birdnet - set in place with the misguided idea that this is the best way to prevent birdstrike!!!!
So what is the best way to tackle this horrible problem - anybody here know anybody who has the sufficient pull to advise the airport that there are alternative ways of keeping birds off runways, and that netting the area is regarded as so environmental unfriendly that it's a huge embarrassment for the airport - any ideas????


What a great campaign -

[Gretchen]

Hmm... seems there's someone who knows about airports, and might know how some really "modern" airports deal with birds ... Mike?

[Shi Jin]

That's a shocker of a report and photo from Sichuan.

I searched 飞机场 airport 捕鸟 bird-trapping and various combinations containing 网 net on the weibo of Chengdu Birdwatching Society 成都观鸟会 http://weibo.com/u/1133669242 and Chengdu migrant-bird protection group 让候鸟飞成都小分队 http://weibo.com/u/3070541625, but drew a blank. A key-word search of Sina Weibo also throws up nothing (but that doesn't mean that there wasn't stuff posted of course).

I think the best thing to do is to check with the local groups to find out what the situation is now (and, hopefully, when the policy changed).

If (God forbid) it's still going on, I sense that, because of the current mood and various other factors, it can be quickly stopped.

S.

[Shi Jin]

Here's the news for Friday, 16th November:

http://www.chinesecurrents.com/news.html

Thank you again for the many messages of support. I will try to get them all loaded onto the site by tomorrow.

Best regards from Beijing.

[china guy]

Hi Shi Jin - Roland informed the Chengdu Birdwatching society, which is also linked to the Chengdu Migrant Protection Group, last year. I don't think they are able to do much in this situation.

So I've gone off on another tack - found the contact site of the manager of Chengdu Airport - on the airport English language site.
http://www.cdairport.com/front_en/zjlxx.jsp

This is the message I intend to send:

Dear Manager - a rather disturbing picture, from Chengdu Shuangli International Airport, has appeared on the internet showing that the airport has set up kilometers of birdnets around its perimeter.
You can find the picture here, at Birdforum, the world's largest bird watching site that has 118,000 members

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.ph...1&postcount=26

The picture shows dead birds hanging in the nets. This has caused shock - it is very disturbing that wild creatures, some of which maybe rare migrants, are allowed to die slowly in such an appalling way. This is an environmentally destructive method of coping with runway bird problems, and it does not reflect favorably with an image of a modern, progressive international airport.
Are the nets are still in place - if so I would be happy to advise on methods of bird control that do not involve killing, in a slow and horrible way, thousands of birds.


Unfortunately the message won't sent - arggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh

I'll try again tomorrow - others are welcome to send a message

[Shi Jin]

Let's hope that the practice has been long-stopped.

If you would like me to arrange for the photo to be circulated on Sina weibo please let me know. I think it would horrify many people.

[Shi Jin]

All of the 13 Oriental White Storks in care continue to do well. The plan is to release them back into the wild tomorrow (Wednesday).

The details are here: http://www.chinesecurrents.com/news.html

Thank you again for your heart-warming comments in support of the volunteers who have made this possible.

So far 150 of them (those received by 7pm Beijing time, 11am GMT on Tuesday) have been loaded onto the site AND passed to the volunteers.

Please keep them coming!

[Shi Jin]

Great news.

At 10.25am local time today (2.25am GMT), all of the rescued storks took to the sky.

Details (as well as a dozen English-language news reports about the rescue mission and about the issues) are here:

http://www.chinesecurrents.com/news.html

If you would like to congratulate the volunteers who made this possible, you can also do so at the above.

Best regards from Beijing.

[FXM]

I'd like to congratulate the volunteers on here if I may. Great job. I'll do the same via the link.

[china guy]

Please circulate the photo - and ask if anybody has seen the same at other airports.

It could also be pointed out that the kind of birds the nets stop would never cause an aircraft accident because they were far too small - which further underlines their horrific pointlessness!!!!

[MKinHK]

Hi Gretchen

I've seen nets at other airports including Shenzhen - very depressing. HKIA certainly does not use nets

I'm trying to find out if I can do anything, but the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly ...

In the meantime publicizing pictures like Sid's is definitely the way to go.

Cheers
Mike

[Shi Jin]

Thanks Sid and Mike

I will circulate on Weibo and also copy the local groups.

I'll let you know what happens.

[Shi Jin]

On Wednesday, shortly after the successful release of the 15 Oriental White Storks that had been nursed back to health, another two storks were found to be in difficulty, more than 100 miles along the coast (in "Happy Island" county).

Sadly, one later died. The translated report from Friday's edition of the Jinghua Times at the link below has the details.

Although describing how the volunteer rescue teams rushed from Tianjin and Beijing to help, it doesn't mention that Nemo was, again, leading the charge.

http://www.chinesecurrents.com/news.html

[Shi Jin]

Good news.

Two people have been arrested in connection with the poisoning to death of 22 Oriental White Storks in Beidagang, Tianjin.

The report is here: http://www.chinesecurrents.com/news.html

More good news is that there have been no more reports of poisoning there among the up to 350 Oriental White Storks and thousands of other birds that have migrated through the area in the past week.

The incident further along the coast, in Tangshan, that was reported one week ago (one Oriental White Stork died there) is still being investigated. No more deaths have been reported.

One final thing, the number of comments in praise of the remarkable work of the volunteers is stuck at around the 180 mark. If you have a moment, and haven't yet voiced your support, it would be great if you could help push the total over the 200 mark ;-)

Thanks to the volunteers, not only were 13 storks nursed back to health, but all the lure pools were found and made safe... before the arrival of 350 storks!

On behalf of Nemo and all of the volunteers, thank you so much for your support. It really does mean a lot.

[rockfowl]

More proactive stuff -
Migratory birds packed in crates saved by railway police - http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/74...cQt3k.facebook

[Frogfish]

Originally Posted by rockfowl

More proactive stuff -
Migratory birds packed in crates saved by railway police - http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/74...cQt3k.facebook

Well retro-active but good to see ! I loved Hunan when I was in the Zhangjiajie area and was shocked to see how widesprread, and largescale, bird hunting is in this area.
Also this report on hunting (which would surely have benefits for birds) : http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/747019.shtml

On another note I was shocked to find 4 nets in Shanghai yesterday when I stopped the car for a quick loo break. I tore them down and threw the bamboo poles in a pond. I was only able to save 2 birds as the others, luckily - if that is the right word to use in this context - just a few, had died already.

It looks like maybe the nets had been emptied and re-erected recently or maybe, as the migration season has ended, there are just fewer birds around.

I will post a fuller report, and photos, in the Shanghai Perambulations thread within the next two days. Anyone is welcome to use these as they wish.

[thrush]

I just read through some of the recent posts. Shocking. My modus operandi is to tear down the nets as soon as I see them--and I've seen many. I'll long remember the too silent forest in Mengsong, in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan, on the border with Burma. In two days of birding in the forest there last winter, the largest bird I found was an Asian barred owlet. Hornbills? Forget it. Long since hunted out. My group found a net with a fulvetta in it; the fulvetta must have just been caught, because it flew away vigorously when we untangled it. I tore down the net with such passion that I cut my finger deeply. As an indication of the scale of the problem there, consider that the leader of our party, a Chinese bird expert, was initially reluctant even to tear down the net, lest he "alienate" the locals, whose "support" he needed for his research; I "compromised" with him, merely tearing down the net, ripping it to shreds, and burying it on the spot, rather than (as was my initial idea) carrying it openly into town for all the locals to see.

[Gretchen]

Shi Jin, wanted to let you know, when I needed a topic for students to practice writing articles and editorials on, I decided to present them with the Oriental White Stork Incident. Your site was a resource I suggested to them - nice to have a one-stop location for them to get info - so it turned out to be a nice resource for more than one purpose. I think the 20 of them learned a lot about storks and bird protection - and hopefully won't all groan at the mention of storks in the future

Gretchen

[Shi Jin]

I'm just back to Beijng after a rather long and indulgent holiday in a well-known birding spot.

Despite the jet lag, I attended the Rang Houniao Fei conference in Beijing today.

It was a coming together of many of the key activists in the bird protection movement in China. Among the attendees were Li Feng, the Hunan photo-journalist who bravely exposed the Hunan shooting atrocities; Nemo, one of the Beidagang heroes who saved many Oriental White Storks; and Deng Fei, who does much great work for various charities in China, and is a powerful voice on bird protection issues.

I fervently hope that this event will be looked back on as the day that the national society for the protection of birds in China was officially launched.

With that in mind, here's wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

[thirudevaram]

Another distressing news from Jinshan district of Shanghai. I jus came across this in local forum. Who can put an end to this "Wild delicacy"? Even Yao ming and cheng long(Jackie Chan) are promoting to avoid the wild cuisine, the message has not reached many.

http://www.shwbs.org/swb/read.php?tid=7246

[Shi Jin]

Thanks Thirudevaram for posting photos of a vile practice.

On the subject of Shanghai, there is a very active local volunteer group that does great work in destroying many nets and making it harder for the people in the shots posted above to make a living.

But the main task is indeed education. As the ad campaign says, stop the buying and the killing will also stop.

[Jeff hopkins]

I spent the weekend birding with McMadd and Frogfish in the Poyang Hu area. On one of our walks, we actually saw a blackbird fly into a net. We rescued that bird and another, and destroyed the net as best we could. This is the first time I've enountered one of these things. What an awful practice!

Unfortunately, one other bird was already dead and a fourth probably was too damaged or stressed to survive even after we untangled it.

You do what you can.

JH

[Shi Jin]

Dusturbing news yesterday from Dongting Hu in Hunan province.

15 Bewick's Swans (among many other birds) were poisoned.

Details on my website: http://www.chinesecurrents.com/baohuniaolei.html

[Shi Jin]

Originally Posted by Jeff hopkins

I spent the weekend birding with McMadd and Frogfish in the Poyang Hu area. On one of our walks, we actually saw a blackbird fly into a net. We rescued that bird and another, and destroyed the net as best we could. This is the first time I've enountered one of these things. What an awful practice!

Unfortunately, one other bird was already dead and a fourth probably was too damaged or stressed to survive even after we untangled it.

You do what you can.

JH

Couldn't agree more Jeff... "You do what you can do".

You can see some overwhelmingly sad things here at times, but I take much heart from the young, local birders and their determination to make things a lot beter than they are presently.

[rockfowl]

An estimated 11.5 km of mist nets threatens waders including Spoon-billed Sandpipers! - http://www.birdlife.org/community/20...-site-in-china