Report: Birds Threatening Flights Safety, Hunted Down
Following the latest warnings that flights in and out of Lebanon's Beirut airport are at risk because of the large number of birds flying over a nearby garbage dump, reports said Saturday that hunters are shooting down the seagulls which angered environmentalist movements in Lebanon.
A Lebanese environmental movement condemned in a statement on Saturday what it described as the “extermination of seagulls."
It said hunters are shooting down the birds near the Costa Brava landill, adding that Lebanon is violating the Agreement on Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory waterbirds, LBCI reported Saturday.
The statement said: “Before the very eyes of the security forces, and at the beginning of the new term (of President Michel Aoun) and the new government (under PM Saad Hariri), who have vowed to preserve the environment, the seagulls in Costa Brava area are being exterminated at the hands of bird hunters which appeared in photos and videos circulated through social media outlets.”
“The said birds are worldwide protected from hunting, in particular the international convention for the protection of aquatic birds which was signed by the Lebanese State. Lebanon would be violating the international conventions as well as violation of the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea,” added the statement.
On Thursday, Lebanon has closed the Costa Brava landfill which lies at the foot of a runway at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in response to concerns that seagulls circling around the site pose a threat to aircraft safety.
Public Works Minister Youssef Fenianos had said that workers were installing ultrasonic noise makers to keep the gulls out of the flight path, after local media reported multiple bird strikes, citing unnamed airport workers.
Birds were seen around the landfill as planes touched down on the opposite end of the runway.
Since authorities opened the landfill last year, environmentalists have warned it would attract large birds, leading to catastrophic strikes if they were sucked into engines.
Lebanon has been grappling with a garbage crisis since authorities were forced to close an overused landfill serving the capital in 2015.
Photo from Twitter
Source: Naharnet, Associated Press
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