Roofvogelvervolging in Nederland in 1997

Poisoning incidents (N=159), illegal trapping (N=10), shooting (N=9) and nest destruction (N=62) are mainly confined to the sandy soils of the eastern Netherlands (Fig. 1), where the community is mainly agricultural. Main methods of killing are poisoning (especially with parathion and aldicarb; Table 2) and destroying nests (or its occupants/contents); the latter is mainly aimed at Goshawk and Common Buzzard, although even the rare Montagu’s Harrier was affected (Table 3). It is calculated that in 1997 at least 480 nests were destroyed country-wide, based on the proportion of destroyed nests (N=62) among submitted nestcards (N=2571, i.e. >10% of the Dutch raptor population consisting of 20,000 pairs). These data confirm that raptor persecution is common practice throughout The Netherlands, but especially in areas where high raptor densities coincide with small-game hunting and traditional views of the role of predators. Other causes of death, based on findings from the public and excluding illegal activities, included traffic (mainly Common Buzzard), window panes (mainly Sparrowhawk) and exhaustion (Table 4).