A happy story of a chicken hawk
“The hen hawk’s nest has been saved!” – PTPI representatives rejoiced on Facebook, stating that after the extremely heated debates about the cutting down of Lithuanian forests in the social space, they decided to pay attention to this topic this week and share their experience about protecting the nests of predatory birds in Lithuanian forests.
“There were various stories, a number of nests were saved by the efforts of our team, unfortunately, some were illegally cut down, but more on that another time.
This time let’s talk about a success story. In the spring, our team searched for nests near the city of Pagėgiai, a nest was discovered in a spruce, the owner was not yet clear, after checking the nest again in the summer, the whole family of hen hawks was observed, but the spruce in which the nest was located was marked for felling.
We decided to write an official letter to the Ministry of the Environment, the State Forestry Service, the Department of Environmental Protection and the State Service of Protected Areas. After sending the letter to all the authorities, such a letter will never be ignored. Thus, an answer was received from the State Forestry Service that the logging permit has been adjusted and logging will not be carried out in the nest protection zone. A peregrine falcon nest entered into the system of protected species (SRIS) has a protection radius of 100 meters, which is equal to about 0.8 ha of forest,” the institute’s employees write.
They also urged those who know where the nests of black storks, eagles, hen hawks, wasps are, to write to them, as this provides opportunities to protect both the nests of these rare birds and several hectares of forest.
Not so successful story of the eagle
On Tuesday morning, the institute shared a second story, which it says is not as happy as that of a family of hen hawks.
“The famous eagle, which we cured and which is already successfully “holidaying” in Africa, has another story for you, it’s true, this one is quite sad and once again shows the sensitive problem of deforestation in Lithuania.
About everything from the beginning. The nest of this little screech eagle was found and entered into the SRIS system in the fall of 2022. When we went again in the spring to check if the nest was in place and if the eagles had returned, we saw that right next to the nest was full of stumps, and the forest floor was destroyed by heavy machinery. We urgently appealed to the State Forestry Service to find out why logging was done just 25 steps from the eagle’s nest, although the Forestry Logging Regulations state that logging (except for sanitary purposes) is prohibited within a radius of 100 meters around the nest of the little screeching eagle.
We received a response from the State Forestry Service that an investigation has been launched into a possible official misconduct, but we do not have information about further decisions, but we will definitely share when we have it,” the institute’s employees say.
This eagle, as specialists say, is related to history in such a way that during the research it was noticed that the little screech eagle is still staying in the area near the crossing, so it was decided to put a GPS transmitter on it (then it turned out that the eagle was injured, it was cured).
“The data from the transmitter showed that the eagle spends the day, hunts, spends the night near the clearing and defends the territory from other eagles, which means that the nest is precisely for this bird. However, the eagle did not occupy the old nest, most likely, it did not like the crossing, we hope that when it returns next year, it will find a suitable place for its nest, and we will make sure that the new nest is protected”, the institute assures.
Discussions on deforestation
This time, the discussions about the felled forests were caused by the work in the forests of the Verkių Regional Park, and there was outrage that clear cutting is being carried out here – healthy trees are also being cut in addition to sick spruces.
An even bigger storm was caused by the comment of the State Forestry Office, in which the office called the organizations raising questions “hostile”.
After such a statement, the office was flooded with a wave of criticism, well-known public figures, naturalists, as well as the Minister of the Environment and the Lithuanian delegated European Commissioner expressed their opinion.
Read here: After the phrase about “hostile” organizations, the Forest Office was flooded with an avalanche of criticism.
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2024-08-31 09:48:08
