CHAPTER 4 - BIRDS
from PART II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
Summary
“But for the treaty and the statute there soon might be no birds for any powers to deal with.”
(Justice Holmes, United States Supreme Court, 1920)Background
Man's recognition of the need to protect birds goes back many centuries, although man's reasons for protecting them have changed over the years. Birds were originally valued as a source of food, as controllers of insect pests and as sport hunting targets. In 1907, O. Herman claimed that the preservation of birds for gentlemen's sport had been a tradition in Germany since the thirteenth century and that the Lords of Europe's great grain region in Hungary had long understood the value of birds “against the perpetual insect foe”. More recently, increasing importance has been attached to their ecological and aesthetic qualities.
Since so many species of birds are migratory and cross international borders during the course of their migration, it is not surprising that numerous international agreements have been concluded to promote their conservation. Several of these treaties cover more than just birds, and they are considered later in this book. This chapter examines ten legal instruments – three multilateral European treaties, a European Economic Community Directive and six non-European bilateral treaties – which are all concerned exclusively with birds. The main objective of the earliest treaties was to prohibit the killing, capturing or trading of insectivores and birds of obvious agricultural value. Numerous other birds, particularly birds of prey, were considered “noxious” and unworthy of protection.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- International Wildlife LawAn Analysis of International Treaties concerned with the Conservation of Wildlife, pp. 62 - 87Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985