Pair arrested in Malaga province for stealing chicks of protected birds of prey from their nests

The Guardia Civil's Seprona nature protection service has arrested two individuals for stealing and illegally trafficking goshawk and common sparrowhawk chicks, both protected species, in Malaga province.

The investigation within operation 'Bétula' began after the police received various reports from the specialised falconry community alerting them to a group of people who, year after year, would raid forest areas to plunder chicks from nests.

These individuals had extensive knowledge of the species and travelled in a coordinated manner during the spring. Once they located occupied nests of the common goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) and the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), they climbed the trees and stole the chicks, always leaving some in the nests so that the birds could continue breeding there the following year.

To give a legal appearance to the illicit origin of these birds, included in the highest levels of protection of regional and international regulations (CITES convention), they used an authorised breeding facility.

There, the chicks were fitted with closed metal marking rings and false certificates and commercial transfer documents were made to pass off wild specimens as supposed legal births.

With this falsified documentation, the suspects introduced them into the commercial market. Since CITES regulations expressly ban the trade of these species from the natural environment, this allowed them to put the animals up for sale at very high prices.

Seprona teams carried out numerous surveillance devices, thanks to which they intercepted the suspects' vehicle, locating two sparrowhawk chicks, without rings or regulatory marking, hidden inside a backpack.

The police arrested two people and searched their homes and the breeding facility in question, where they found numerous documents and handwritten notes and sketches of the location of the nests.

The criminalistics service also took DNA samples from the birds in order to verify the lack of kinship between the stolen chicks and the breeding pairs of the centre.

The Guardia Civil organised a plan for the immediate reintroduction of the birds into their nests, with the collaboration of mountain rescue units.

The detainees, who have been charged with crimes against wildlife and document forgery, are at the disposal of the judicial authority.

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