Travel warning for Burgenland! | Animal Welfare Austria, 08/27/2023

2023-08-27 06:05:30

A travel warning for Burgenland applies to all snipe and quail: they will be shot here. Please take the alternative route via Lower Austria and Styria.

Burgenland/Vienna (OTS) – The referendum “For a federal hunting law” draws attention to the fact that Burgenland is the only federal state in Austria where snipe (since August 16) and quail (from September 1) are shot during their autumn migration – and calls for the deletion of these species from the hunting law.

The snipe (gallinago gallinago) is acutely threatened with extinction throughout Austria and the stocks of quail (Coturnix coturnix) are falling sharply, so that they are yellow in the BirdLife Austria traffic light list (“high priority for bird protection”).

Because of their courtship behavior, the common snipe is also called the “sky goat”. The male snipe performs spectacular swoops while spreading the outer tail feathers, making a sound that sounds like a goat bleating. Unfortunately, this bleating from the sky can only be heard very rarely in Austria, and the “Wattelschlag”, the song of the quail, is also becoming increasingly rare.

The main reason for this is habitat loss, but hunting also affects migratory birds. The breeding birds here run the risk of losing their lives in the hail of shelling, especially in the Mediterranean region, while in Austria it is mainly breeding birds from north-eastern Europe that are killed, where the population sizes are also declining. Unfortunately, Burgenland does not publish numbers of kills.

“As an Austrian, I find it shameful that Austria, because of Burgenland, is one of the countries in which snipes and quail are still shot,” says Rudolf Winkelmayer, representative of the referendum “For a federal hunting law”. “And the fact that this hunt is being carried out for no reason really knocks the bottom out. The hunting of snipe and quail must be banned as soon as possible throughout Austria, including in Burgenland. In the future, a federal hunting law should prevent such arbitrary solo efforts by individual federal states,” adds Winkelmayer.

There is no justification for hunting snipe and quail. They cause no harm whatsoever, and killing a bird for a few grams of meat cannot be a serious explanation. In addition, quail meat can cause severe poisoning if the quail has previously eaten plants poisonous to humans. The only “justification” left is the desire of a small number of hunters to kill these increasingly rare birds.

The referendum “For a federal hunting law” has formulated 14 principles that are to be implemented in a federal hunting law (https://bundesjagdgesetz.at/details.php). One of the 14 demands of the referendum, which formulate the principles for a federal hunting law, reads: Animal species that are endangered in Austria or beyond or are affected by severe population declines may no longer be hunted. The initiative, made up of AG Wild Animals, the ecological hunting association, animal protection Austria and the association against animal factories, is currently campaigning for declarations of support for the referendum, which all persons entitled to vote in Austria can make at any district or municipal office and around the clock online using a mobile phone signature.