EAZA European Carnivore Campaign 2008/2010

                    Living together

                      

A new campaign of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) is the eighth one and was launched on 17th September 2008 on the 25th annual conference of EAZA in Antwerp (Belgium). The campaign is focused on conservation of European carnivores.
This campaign is about us, about our continent, our environment, our wildlife.
Europe is our home, we all want to preserve its natural heritage.
European carnivores play important roles in our culture and folklore; we know of them from the fairy stories of childhood and the legends of our ancestors, they must survive to provide an on-going link with our past.
Our public is not aware of the many carnivore species that are living in Europe not even those in their own country.
The campaign is endorsed by the large conservation groups active in Europe:
Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (LCIE)
European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC)
Council of Europe.

Campaign targets and goals
The EAZA European carnivore campaign aims:
1. To make people conscious of the diversity of wildlife that still survives both in their own country and also in this crowded continent. Then to make them appreciate it, value it, be proud of it and want to preserve it.
2. To raise public awareness of the expansion in both numbers and range of a number of large carnivore species and of the steps needed so we can accommodate them in the future.
3. To draw attention to the way our life styles and activities can lead to the habitat loss, fragmentation and pollution which endangers the future of many of our rare and endangered carnivore species.
4. To explain why the presence of carnivores is a good indicator of the health of our environment.
5. To teach the public that conservation is needed at home and not just in the far
flung corners of the Earth and that environmental protection begins with them, their life styles and their attitudes.
6. The European Carnivore Campaign will also raise funds in support of various conservation programmes. The programmes which have been selected are distributed throughout Europe and cover a number of our indigenous carnivore species. All projects selected have a link to the campaign theme “Living Together”. To realise all these projects, the European Carnivore Campaign aims to achieve or better still exceed, the target of € 750,000.

European Endangered Dozen
Europe is home to a number of carnivores both large and small. It is impossible for our campaign to focus
on them all and so we have selected twelve of the more charismatic, threatened species as our campaign flagships. These “Dozen” of the 2008/2009 campaign are:

Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus)
Brown bear (Ursus arctos)
Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra)
Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx)
Eurasian wildcat (Felis silvestris)
European mink (Mustela lutreola)
Golden jackal (Canis aureus)
Grey wolf (Canis lupus)
Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus)
Marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna)
Polar bear (Ursus maritimus)
Wolverine (Gulo gulo)

Why a European Carnivore Campaign? (doc) 

Problems and solutions (doc)

The campaign has been extended and will run until September 2010. This was decided on the EAZA Annual conference in September 2009. To 12 European Carnivores were chosen 5 new flagship species – flesh eaters which do not belong to order Carnivore. Here they are:
Harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
Eastern Imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca)
Spanish Imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti)
European Black vulture (Aegypius monachus)
Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus)

More information you can find on the official campaign website: www.carnivorecampaign.eu