Bird Massacres in Lebanon Inconceivable to Outsiders

Yesterday I meet an American friend here in Arizona. He was wondering about those bird-related posts I was sharing from Lebanon. He wasn't even sure what he was looking at in those photos. Then it dawned on me that the bird massacres there (and elsewhere) are so outrageous as to be simply incomprehensible to many people here. Americans used to strict hunting regulations simply can't imagine that this stuff can even take place elsewhere. (For the record, my friend is not a hunter but is familiar with the fact that hunting is strictly regulated here.)

So, a somewhat-brief explanation to my friends in the US is in order. Although there are real hunters in Lebanon who hunt legitimate game birds in season and legal numbers, there are also the "shooters". To call them poachers would be too gentle. Rather; they are wanton vandals, barbarians, who see some sort of inexplicable, insane, perhaps even orgasmic, pleasure in killing hundreds, even thousands, of birds regardless of species, endangered status, or time of the year. You name it; it gets shot. Songbirds of all types. Golden eagles. Pelicans. Storks. Egrets. Hawks. Falcons. Even owls. They then line up the victims, Daesh- (ISIS- or ISIL-) style, on car hoods or drape them on their bodies and pose for photos that end up on social media. The criminals often show off their muscles in these photos - as if raw athletic ability is required to perpetrate these massacres. Few of these birds are actually eaten (always a part of hunting ethics - waste is unacceptable). A few might get mounted; the rest are simply thrown away.

In the past, so-called hunting in Lebanon was virtually a requirement for manhood. Fathers taught their young kids to shoot songbirds with a BB gun. The caliber of the gun increased with the child's age. Manhood was measured by the larger size and numbers of birds killed. Regulations? What regulations?

With the relative lawlessness of post-2005 Lebanon, an unwilling government, and the explosion of social media, the bird massacres have worsened in recent years.

These "people" are completely ignorant of the ethics of real hunting, ignorant of the benefits of many birds in controlling insects and vermin, and are heartless of the misery they may be leaving behind when they shoot mother birds during breeding season.

But there's hope. The Lebanese government recently busted several vandals who had posted their exploits on social media; without the opportunity to post their "feats" online, there may be less of an incentive to kill so many birds in the first place. The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) is becoming active in Lebanon, monitoring and reporting lawbreakers. BirdLife International and their partner, The Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL), are coming up with educational programs, recruiting legitimate hunters and working with local governments to create "himas"; traditional community preserves where shared resources are protected and illegitimate bird shooting banned and locally enforced.

Dams Threaten to Drown Lebanon's Landscape

I have been following the controversy over the dam at Janneh in Lebanon lately. I hiked this beautiful spot in 1984. http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/360/363/363.7/fareed/lebenv38.html Janneh is Arabic for Paradise. The dam would destroy one of the most rugged, verdant, and historic spots in the country. There are signs it may be a geologically flawed plan, given the karst limestone prevalent in the country; it might even threaten Jeita Grotto, a prime tourist site and source of drinking water for Beirut. I looked around the Internet to find out more about it.

I found this about the dam at Janneh: http://www.arteliagroup.com/sites/default/files/projet/fichesPDF/en/water/eau_barrages_lbn_janneh_dam_ta_0.pdf

The companies involved in this project should be ashamed to have their names tied to it.

I came across the article below. Janneh is only one of some 54 – fifty-four! - dams that are being planned all over the country! http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/articles/meii/features/main/2011/10/31/feature-02

I am sure some might be acceptable, but I’m sure many others will do irreparable harm to the countryside.

And then I came across this jewel! http://www.grupposimonettisrl.com/mseilha-dam.html (Click on the image for a simulated photo of the dam and lake). A dam next to Mseilha castle! Did anyone even know about this? This is almost as bad as the one at Janneh. It would destroy the visual background of this historic castle (as if the war-era gravel pit near it weren’t bad enough) and drown a river lined with riparian (river) trees – important habitat for the few birds still left in Lebanon and other wildlife.

And, “No!” Minister of Energy and Water Resources Gebran Bassil, these projects won’t help tourism! When I visit Lebanon, I will avoid even setting an eye on the more obnoxious ones like the plague (if they’re ever built). Just as bad; every dam is going to require its own new enormous rock quarry or the expansion of an existing one.

Okay; I realize Lebanon is facing water shortages, made even worse by this past abnormally dry winter. But there are better ways to save water than to build dams:

- Fix Lebanon’s notoriously decrepit water-delivery infrastructure to prevent leaks.

- Create a culture of water conservation. Should we really be building dams so people can continue to hose down sidewalks and building entrances? Some options are low-flow toilets, aerators on water faucets, harvesting rain water off roofs for irrigation, fewer lawns…

- Continue building the small ponds so prevalent in the higher elevations. This would help meet the needs of farmers and reduce the demand for big dams.

The dams would be a relatively short-term solution anyway. If they are built, the following needs to be done:

- Reforest watersheds feeding the dams and create nature preserves. Otherwise the bare soil will erode and quickly fill up the lakes. This is made even worse by the reckless bulldozing and soil dumping that’s so common in Lebanon. (Have you looked at Google Earth lately?)

- The forests will also absorb rainwater, reduce flash flooding during storms, and release stream water gradually during the dry season, so that it can be absorbed by the human population.

- Control bird hunting! Sounds like it’s unrelated to water, but it is! I read an article in the Audubon Society’s magazine a long time ago about the bird massacres of Lebanon. I have it buried somewhere and need to find it, but it analyzes how birds contribute to forest health and therefore erosion and the retention and gradual release of stream water during the dry season.

- Are they safe? Lebanon is like a limestone sponge. Will the water leak around the dam and cause erosion that would undermine them? What if there’s a sudden flash flood that overwhelms the dam? (See above about forests and watersheds.) Would it survive? In 1983, record flooding overwhelmed Lake Powell; Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona could barely release water fast enough, one of the spillway tunnels was severely damaged and rock started to crumble, and there was real fear the dam would give way, creating a catastrophic flood through the Grand Canyon and taking out Hoover Dam and others below, and destroying cities all the way to Mexico.

http://www.hcn.org/40years/blog/the-summer-the-dam-almost-didnt

I live in Arizona, which is experiencing a horrible drought dating back to the turn of the century. Extreme measures are being taken to conserve water and bank it underground for later use. The US went on a dam-building binge around the middle of the last century. Many are silting up, are not filling to capacity due to the drought, leakage and surface evaporation. Some of the smaller ones (the size of the average Lebanese dam) are even being torn down. This country has essentially given up on building huge dams, many of which were pork-barrel projects to benefit special interests such as politicians and construction companies.

Lebanon needs to think this one through before unleashing the bulldozers on its already-ravaged landscape.

EVENING NOISE IN BEIRUT

Since the end of the civil war over two decades ago, Beirut has become a major tourist destination, famed for a variety of cultural activities, upscale restaurants and nightlife. But every time I come to Beirut, I notice and am deeply annoyed by a different, decidedly downscale nightlife. Especially on weekends, a certain type of people take over the streets. They basically are a rowdier, noisier version of the cruising culture that used to exist in the US before gasoline prices and environmental consciousness both went up.

Thursday through Saturday night, the streets are alive with noise. People in souped up cars and loose mufflers gun their engines, squeal their tires, and roar down major streets late into the night. It's the same with bigger motorcycles. And then, there are the scooters. They buzz around in all directions, against traffic, and run red lights.

All this takes place in a city of tall buildings; the noise reverberates among them. And most of these buildings include residential flats, where people are trying to watch TV, carry a conversation, or sleep. Some of these buildings are hotels where people are probably appalled that all this is allowed. Even early Sunday morning, as this is being written, I can hear car engines gunning down a nearby thoroughfare, taking advantage of the absence of rush-hour traffic and marring the twittering of pet birds, wild birds, and doves.

Needless to say, pedestrians need to be extremely cautious and look BOTH ways, regardless of whether the light is green or red.

An entire generation has grown up in this culture of inconsideration for others. There is no reason why peace and quite can't be imposed. The Lebanese government has been able to prevent civil war from returning. It has managed to ban smoking in indoor public places fairly well (but with some loopholes - more on that in a future entry). It effectively imposed a hunting ban for several years (before it expired and hunting was allowed to return without regulation). It is truly a shame that it has not chosen to crack down on the noisy mayhem that descends on Beirut every three-day weekend. (Friday is a day off for may people here.) People are indirectly being told that it's okay to speed down streets, annoy other people in their homes, and generally behave like jerks.

For the sake of raising a generation with good manners and morals, it is time to crack down on this nonsense!

In-Your-Face Climate Change in Lebanon

Just before I arrived in Lebanon, I saw on Facebook photos of the country engulfed in a reddish haze. Around this time of the year, Lebanon occasionally gets heat waves from the deserts east of it, often accompanied by a dusty haze, and I thought it was just another one of those.

This time, as I found out after I arrived, it hadn't been just dust hanging in the air. It had been a full-blown sand storm from Africa (to the southwest) with high winds similar to the ones that plague Arizona, only from much farther away. At other times, Lebanon has been hit by unusually heavy rain that has resulted in flooding and even deaths. Heavy rain has become more common in September; in the past, there rarely would be more than a sprinkle or two late in that month as fall approached. A couple of years ago in September, one torrential front after the other passed over several days, dumping a total that probably exceeded Phoenix's average total for the entire monsoon season. And now, since I arrived in Lebanon on April 12, it has been raining, often heavily, every single day, wreaking havoc with my hiking plans. This is highly unusual for April, at the tail end of the rainy season, and would be considered a long streak even in winter. One plus - it has washed away the dust left over from the African storm.

Here's my guess of what's happening; I did not go online to research it. Lebanon lies at the east end of the Mediterranean and gets its storms from the west. As this inland sea warms up, there is extra evaporation. All that water has to end up somewhere. The mountains of Lebanon intercept it and bring it down as rain. It also could be due to shifting wind patterns. If it is true that global warming may result in more rain at either end of the winter season, that is actually good news, as it will shorten the fire season and nourish vegetation that might get stressed over the increasingly hot, dry summers. Perhaps Lebanon will luck out with climate change and not suffer the fate being predicted for Arizona and the American southwest - a hotter AND drier climate and huge wildfires that, by some long-term forecast, may end up decimating most of Arizona's Ponderosa pine forests.

Many people here who might have casually heard of global warming/climate change agree that "the weather is changing". Hotter, more humid summers are a big complaint by many Lebanese. No one complains about the idea of global warming/climate change being some United Nations or leftist conspiracy to deny "our God-given right" to drive, pollute, ban urban sprawl, and otherwise live a wasteful lifestyle.

As this goes online, there is more thunder and refreshing rain outside.

Smoking Culture on the Wane in Lebanon

I am happy to report that tobacco ads have totally disappeared from the thousand of billboards of Lebanon. They were banned in 2011, and just a handful were still around then when I visited Lebanon, so it was no surprise now; still, it leaves a satisfying feeling. Also, there did not seem to be anyone breaking the smoking ban inside the airport, unlike what I observed on previous trips.

On Saturday, I was invited to lunch at La Piazza near Downtown Beirut. After 1 PM, people poured in until the place was essentially full. And yet, no one lit up cigarettes. On the way out, I saw a no-smoking sign, and complemented the servant who was seeing us out on this. I would later feel like a fool for doing that when a friend reminded me that the Lebanese government had banned all indoor smoking in public places! (I even raved about it on Facebook at the time!) There was an outcry at first and forecasts of businesses shutting down, just like there had been in Arizona a few years earlier when voters snuffed out smoking in restaurants, bars, and other indoor places. And, just like in Arizona, people got used to it and then welcomed it. Not only did it not hurt business; it just attracted non-smokers who might have otherwise stayed home.

My friend told me that the law is actually being enforced quite well by the government; a remarkable achievement in a country where laws are routinely broken. You can report a rogue smoker to the restaurant manager, and he can call the police. Many people have been busted and fined. People can still still smoke; you see them out on the street by restaurants, smoking in the sun, heat, and traffic. People can still smoke at restaurants with outdoor seating. I noticed that ashtrays inside have no cradles for cigarettes; they're for pumpkin seed shells, nut shells and such; the ones outside do have cradles.

I never thought I'd ever see this in Lebanon. After all, my school yearbooks from the late 1960s and early 70s feature ads by Marlboro, Winston, Kent and such! Both teachers and older students routinely smoked on the campus. It took years, even decades, for smoking to be marginalized in the US. Hopefully Lebanon is going down the same path; just faster.

Next on the agenda is a hefty tax increase on tobacco; it was part of the law but has yet to be implemented.

Now, if only the same can be done with the mayhem that passes for bird "hunting" in Lebanon...

Scared Birds of Lebanon

I went on my first trip from Lebanon to Europe when I was 12. I was really fascinated that you could sit down at a restaurant outdoors, and little songbirds would come hopping over begging for crumbs right at your feet! You could extend a hand and they'd eat bread crumbs right out of it! You'd also see them cleaning up leftovers on a nearby empty table. Here in Arizona, you'll see them hopping among people waiting at the bus stop or eating crumbs on your patio.

In Lebanon? Songbirds (those that are left) are something you only hear most of the time. You might get a glimpse of them making a dash between trees, hoping to make it in one piece. While I don't have scientific proof, I really believe the population of songbirds in Lebanon has been genetically modified by Lebanon's vicious bird shooters. In other words, the birds with genes that made them unafraid of humans were shot out of the trees decades ago, leaving the shy ones.

It's truly a shame that kids growing up in Lebanon don't get to see a living songbird up-close and perhaps get a chance to feed it a few bread crumbs. The body-count "hunters" have stolen that experience from them. If kids see a bird close-up, it's likely dead and dangling from the belt of a shooter or fried on a skewer.

(Note that in most countries, songbirds are NOT considered to be game birds suitable for hunting.)

Feeding the birds in London's Kew Gardens, 1972

STOP Shooting Birds in Lebanon on Facebook

Atrocities against birds in Lebanon have been going on for generations. But now the Internet has made it possible for the world to witness the horrors. Our allies in the fight against the massacres are... the bird mass killers themselves! They post all these photos on social media, showing off their extreme brutality against Nature, which we in turn post on this Facebook page! They are the providers of photos used in posters and educational campaigns. The bigger the number or the greater the ecological value or rarity of the birds they've shot, the better! "You shot three pelicans? Well, I shot FOUR eagles!" And the carnage continues while the rats, mice and other pests rejoice...

The comment above was posted today on the “STOP Shooting Birds in Lebanon” page on Facebook. Please check it out and I hope you’ll join the campaign!

A body-count bird "hunter" - 263 dead birds!