A 40-year-old Swede was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison by a judge in Hudiksvall, Sweden, on Monday, for illegally catching a record number of 13,000 wild birds.
A spokesperson confirmed this. The resident from the Hudiksvall area caught the animals between 2005 and mid-2010 in the Gävleborg province. He kept a record of it on his computer. When regional officials came to investigate after multiple tips, they discovered hundreds of eggs and 400 animals, dead and alive, in the garage and a storage shed near the man’s house.
The Swede took, among other things, eagle owls, woodpeckers, geese and owls from the forests, but has said that he never wanted to do them any harm. He released many birds after a “rehabilitation period”. The convict is now locally known as the greatest Swedish poacher ever. | © 2011 Marcel Burger for ANP News Agency (original published in Dutch on 17 October 2011)