2025-01-20

LIVNO - In Bosnia and Herzegovina, many quails are killed by Italian hunters, and environmentalists are concerned that wildlife crime is rapidly growing out of control. A team of investigative journalists travelled to Bosnia and Serbia and busted an illegal hunting operation.

Every year, more than 150,000 quails, a potentially endangered migratory bird species, are killed in the Western Balkans. This accounts for around 3 percent of the total European population. Many are shot by foreign hunters, who are taking advantage of the rich biodiversity and weaker law enforcement in countries like Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.  

Italian hunters have been travelling to biodiverse rich hunting grounds on the karst fields around Livno in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Illegal devices –  imitating the sound of the birds repeatedly - are used to lure quails during hunting. The tape lures enable hunters and their dogs to kill hundreds of the animals all at once.  

The areas where Bosnian hunting agencies take their Italian customers are important breeding spaces for migratory birds and hunting is diminishing the European quail population, already under severe threat of climate change and air pollution. They also say that police officers, hunting inspectors and prosecutors are not doing enough to stop the illicit killing of quails.  

“In Italy there is a long-standing tradition of bird hunting. Most species that can be hunted here [in Livno] are protected in Italy. They cannot hunt in Italy, and they have a strong desire to hunt birds, so they look for destinations where they are allowed to do so. And that is precisely one of the reasons why they come to Bosnia,” explains one environmentalist.  

In turn, the police and hunting inspectors in Bosnia, say they try to stop the devastating environmental crime, but are hampered by a lack of evidence and low punishments.  

The lack of legal redress has a devastating effect on the biodiversity not only in the Balkans, but across Europe, says an environmentalist working to counter illegal poaching of quails: “A quail that someone kills in say Serbia is the same quail someone invested millions of euros in to protect in Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Scandinavia or the Baltic states. It is a migratory bird. If some farmers in Latvia or Poland receive subsidies from citizens who are taxpayers of the European Union to keep their meadows or fields clean and beautiful where these quails nest, and they are killed in poaching in Serbia, the whole system falls apart.”

Other than busting an illegal hunting operation involving Italian hunters with the police, the team also interviewed environmentalists, and spoke with law enforcement officials trying to stop the poaching of quails. In Italy, they also investigated hunting associations offering tours to Bosnia.

Photo: Ajdin Kamber

Team members

Vanja Stokic

Vanja Stokic is a human rights journalist, based in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Vanja Stokic

Ingrid Gercama

Ingrid Gercama is a freelance journalist, based in the Netherlands.

Ingrid Gercama

Gianluca Liva

Gianluca Liva is an Italian science journalist and science communicator.

Gianluca Liva

Ajdin Kamber

Ajdin Kamber is a journalist, videographer and freelance photographer.

Ajdin Kamber
Media

eTrafika

eTrafika is an internet portal created in October 2011 in Banja Luka.

eTrafika
Supported
€14,200 allocated on 04/06/2024
ID
ENV1/2024/454

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COUNTRIES

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Italy

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