ENVIRONMENT-SERBIA: Illegal Shipment of Dead Exotic Birds Discovered

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jan 2 2002 (IPS) - The so-called “Balkans birds affair” is rocking Serbia following the discovery of a five tonne cargo of frozen dead birds that were smuggled from the Balkans into Italy.

“Together with the Italian police we established that more than 120,000 frozen birds in the five ton cargo originated from Serbia,” says Aleksandra Tadic, head of the Society for the Protection of Wild Birds in Serbia. “We identified 83 protected species of small birds, including nightingales, starlings, larks, turtle doves.”

The operation of seizing the five ton cargo of frozen birds was undertaken at the Italian border with Slovenia in mid-November.

The Italian police acted following a tip that a freezer truck, allegedly containing hare from Bosnia and Serbia, was carrying something else. The concealed compartments at the bottom and the sides of the truck contained small birds worth at least 500,000 US dollars. Five Italians were arrested immediately.

The affair started rolling in Serbia too, where local wildlife activists tried to alarmed the public.

“This was the biggest quantity of dead small birds smuggled into an European country,” Tadic said at a press conference last week.

“We believe that this was the work of an organised group that has operated here for years. Serbian authorities did nothing to find out who stands behind the whole thing or arrested anyone,” she added.

Four of the five people arrested in Italy own agencies sending Italian hunters to Serbia and trade in frozen hare. The fifth owns a transport company. The investigation showed that they made a yearly profit of more than 1,5 million dollars in birds smuggling only.

“We know that small birds are regarded as delicacies,” Tadic says. “They are cooked or baked or turned into sauces.”

Wildlife activists say that poachers kill small birds in a brutal manner, in order to keep them fairly intact, as they are the size of a sparrow.

“They use nests or glue to catch the birds and kill them manually,” says Tadic.

Ecology experts warn that exterminating of large quantities of birds means violating the ecological balance in certain areas. Birds are part of a natural chain, as they feed on insects.

But Serbian authorities remained idle. Local authorities, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, say that the investigation is underway since November, but has revealed nothing so far.

“We are checking the situation all over the country,” Aleksandar Vasiljevic, assistant to the Serbian agriculture minister said at a recent press conference. “Serbia has 7,5 million hectares of hunting ground, 90,000 people registered hunters and we only 80 inspectors to work in the field.”

Serbia is well known for its preserved nature in the northern province of Vojvodina. Hunting licenses can be obtained from local hunting societies for only a dozen of dollars.

“For some people, it was fantastic business in the 90s,” says Jovan Milanov, a hunter from the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad. “Hunting resorts were happy to see Italians who spent a lot of money here hunting for weeks on and asked no questions.”

In the 90s, Serbia was under strict international sanctions due to the politics of its former leader Slobodan Milosevic. Lack of any contacts with the outside world enabled dozens of illegal operations, providing that Milosevic’s officials took part in profits.

Unlimited hunting for a dozen of dollars a week was a gold mine for many, activists say.

“The 90s saw the rise of the so-called “green” or “zoo” mafia in Vojvodina” says Aleksandar Pantelic from the Hunting Society of Serbia (LSS). “There was no control whatsoever on what a hunter did once he went into the fields or when he left. Now that things are back to normal, we expect both the Italian and our authorities to point the finger at those who were involved in the profitable business.”

After the change of Milosevic’s regime more than a year ago, the country was re-admitted to the international police organisations like Interpol and Europol. The November operation in Italy was the result of the re-established cooperation, Belgrade police officials say.

No matter how peculiar this affair might seem to people in Serbia, there are indications that the murky business was well organised here.

A journalist from the popular Belgrade Radio 202 station received anonymous phone calls with threats “to keep the nose out” from reporting on the Balkans birds affair. So far, the police has not found out who the callers were.