At the Peak District National Park in England, Derbyshire Police recently revealed that peregrine falcon eggs have gone missing since early spring. They suspect that these valuable eggs were stolen to become part of a wildlife black market trade.
Peak District ceased operations since March due to the pandemic while volunteers stayed home during the lockdown. Most likely, said the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, that individuals or groups took this opportunity to roam around the park and go egg hunting.
PC Karl Webster, a rural crime officer, knows the potential worth of the falcon eggs and believes that the thieves are probably hatching them. 'There's a lucrative Middle Eastern falconry market allied to this country, an investigation two to three years ago confirmed that.'
Since 1960, peregrine falcon populations declined due to synthetic pesticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). After being listed in the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969, a restoration program in 1975 has allowed birds of prey to be removed from the endangered species list in 1999.
Jeffrey Lendrum
In 2010, Jeffrey Lendrum, a wildlife criminal faced charges of 30 months in prison for smuggling peregrine falcon eggs out of the U.K. 14 eggs were strapped to his body and bound in socks.
They had an estimated worth of $88,500 in Dubai's black market where falcons are illegally traded for falconry, their national sport. 11 eggs were hatched, protected, and are back in the wild. At the time, Judge Christopher Hodson quoted Lord Justice Sedly saying 'environmental crime, if established, strikes not only at a locality and its population but in some measure to the planet and its future.'
Lendrum had several more international offenses after smuggling other eggs, including more peregrine falcons, eagles, hawks, and vultures. Joshua Hammer, the author of 'The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird,' describes the crimes of Lendrum and the falcon black market, especially in the Middle East. However, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has confirmed that the falcon's chicks and eggs are still being illegally sold in the black market.
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Black Market for Falcons
Falcons have been trained hunters for thousands of years in the Middle East and remain a sport for many sheiks. Althought not all falcons are illegaly purchased, in the black market, an adult peregrine may be sold for up to $25,000. Hammer describes in his book that 'Some Arab sheiks are willing to pay $400,000 for a single white gyrfalcon, which is considered the most beautiful and rarest of birds.'
Lendrum's multiple cases were only a glimpse of an extensive, highly organized black market for the trade of wildlife falcons. He's 'not the only one who would go off to remote corners of Russia or Pakistan or any place you find wild raptors, and catch these birds and then smuggle them,' said Hammer.
Peak District had struggled to properly monitor the site during the strict lockdown in the past few months. David Savage from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust said that 'we began the season with great hopes and tried to keep an eye on them as much as we could, but unfortunately when we couldn't watch them 24 hours a day, they were taken.'
