A million raptors over Batumi and 39 violations in the season’s first month

According to AFP, Georgia’s Environmental Supervision Department recorded 39 hunting violations in the region in the first month of this season. The report does not say how many of them involved birds of prey. The department says it patrols around the clock. Bart Hoekstra, co-chair of Batumi Raptor Count and a researcher at Utrecht University, says the rugged hills around Batumi make shooting hard to police. The figure of 39 comes from the AFP text: by 18 October we could not find an official statement from the department about it.

The report recalls a 2013 University of Antwerp estimate: about 9,000 raptors are shot in the corridor every autumn. AFP calls it the latest reliable estimate. Harriers are the most vulnerable because they fly low.

Hoekstra says shooting near the count stations has fallen, but it may have moved to places no one is watching. Hunters approached by AFP declined to comment. For the researcher, losing rare species is especially hard, because there is nothing you can do about such a loss. Count coordinator Mitra Daneshvar calls the shooting heartbreaking.

The season’s millionth raptor was counted on 27 September. It was logged by count coordinator Mitra Daneshvar from Iran. According to Batumi Raptor Count, 54,406 birds were counted at the two stations that day. Black kites (Milvus migrans) and Steppe Buzzards (Buteo buteo vulpinus) dominated the streams. The Steppe Buzzard is a subspecies of the Common buzzard.

Among the Black Kites that day was an exceptionally pale, almost white bird. The organisation has not published an exact season total, only that it passed one million. According to AFP, European honey buzzards dominate early in the autumn, followed by Black Kites, Steppe Buzzards and Lesser Spotted Eagles. On 4 October, 239,735 raptors were counted in a single day, the second-biggest day in the count’s history.

After breeding, raptors from Russia, Eastern Europe and Kazakhstan fly south, mostly to Africa. They ride warm air rising over land and avoid crossing the sea. In Adjara, the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains squeeze this route into a narrow corridor, and clouds over the mountains push the birds towards the coast.

Hoekstra calls Batumi the third-largest raptor migration site in the world. Volunteers count from sunrise at the Sakhalvasho and Shuamta stations. They split the sky into sections so that no bird is counted twice. Records have been collected since 2008 and help researchers track populations on the breeding grounds.

According to AFP, this year’s autumn count nearly stopped when fundraising stalled. An anonymous donation of 15,000 euros saved it. Hoekstra fears that hunters could return if the funding dries up.

Ruslan Lomadze, 45, who runs a guesthouse in Sakhalvasho, tells AFP that birdwatching tourism is the area’s main source of income. He says hunting has declined as ecotourism has grown. The 2026 count runs until 21 October. The film “From the Sky” about poaching in the corridor and other stories from the season are in News, and migrating species are on the birds hub.