In Depth:  Mr Peter Harris

Two men emerged and picked up the dead bird, probably destined to make a bedraggled trophy on a shelf somewhere. For many migrating birds of prey in southern Europe and the Middle East, that destination is almost as probable as the remaining woodlands of northern Africa. Estimates vary of the number of all kinds of birds who fall prey to hunters and trappers around the Mediterranean each spring and autumn, but it is probably over 20 million.

On this particular morning, at least, the eagle's demise did not go unlamented; there was an opportunity for A Rocha team members to explain to its hunters a little more of how the bird might have lived if allowed to continue on its way, and to ask them to consider whether they were happy with the idea that their grandchildren might never see the bird in the wild. That was a new idea, it seemed.