Subject: Fw: [EBN] POTGW 32/99 - Better late and short than never
Date: Aug 16 08:56:44 1999
From: Bob Mauritsen - Bluetooth at csi.com


Tweeters,

I got this from Eurobirdnet. I'm afraid that I've never heard
about such a thing, and it seemed weird enough to submit to
Tweeters. Apologies to those who subscribe to EBN for the
reposting or who are already familiar with "egging".

Bob Mauritsen
Green Lake
Seattle


>ENVIRONMENT
>I - THE EGGER STORY - PART II
>With a premonition that all was not in order, reserve wardens in the
>Havelland region of Brandenburg province decided last summer to
>investigate the Osprey nest on an electricity pylon, where the female
>had been sitting for 5 weeks. The cause of her immobility was soon
>apparent - she was sitting on 2 hand-painted hens' eggs! Her own eggs,
>valued by some as worth 10,000 DM each to collectors, were long gone.
>What appeared at first to the local ornithologists as an isolated if
>serious case of 'egging' soon took on a mind-bending dimension.
>Anonymous tips and a trail of at first seemingly insignificant clues
>led to a local geography teacher, Joachim K., whose house contained a
>hoard of 7,287 carefully organised and documented eggs of rare birds.
>From the house in Premnitz, 50 km West of Berlin on the River Havel,
>links to an 'egger' ring were followed up leading to the exposure of
>illegal collectors and middlemen who had clearly been in business for
>decades. Police activities throughout Germany led to the recovery of
>more than 54,000 eggs. Now in the hands of the Brandenburg authorities
>they are being thoroughly documented by the Environment Ministry in
>Potsdam.
>Joachim K.'s personal collection included Great Bustard (on his
>doorstep), Peregrine Falcon and Whooping Crane - card-indexed with date
>and location. Some of the records will fill important gaps in records
>of rare species, in one case indicating that birds were breeding long
>after their apparent demise in a particular area.
>The authorities expressed their astonishment not only at the scale of
>this little publicised environmental crime; but also at the
>ornithological knowledge and professional organisation of the 'eggers'.