A man has been found guilty of destroying a swallow’s nest and harming the chicks inside, in what prosecutors say is Poland’s first conviction of its kind.
The accused, an inhabitant of Świebodzice, a small town in southwest Poland, knocked the nest, inhabited by western house martins, a type of swallow, off the corner of one of the windows of his second-floor apartment in August last year, despite it containing newly born chicks.
The incident was witnessed by a woman who handed over the chicks – one of whom had a broken leg as a result of the nest landing on concrete – to a wildlife rescue foundation, where they received veterinary care. She also notified the police.
Prosecutors charged and then indicted the man under an article of Poland’s animal protection law dealing with the abuse or killing of animals, an offence punishable by up to three years in prison.
The accused pleaded not guilty, claiming that he had thought the nest was empty. However, that claim was contradicted by the witness as well as experts, who said that house martin chicks are so noisy it would have been impossible not to notice them, reports local news service Swidnica24.
This week, it was announced that a court in the nearby city of Świdnica had found the man guilty, issuing him with a fine of 5,000 zloty (€1,160). Both the accused and prosecutors can appeal against the ruling if they wish.
Marek Rusin, district prosecutor of Świdnica, however, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the “verdict is satisfactory to us”. “On a national scale, this is a precedent,” he added, noting that this was the first time such a case had been decided in a criminal trial.
Jedna z pierwszych takich spraw w Polsce. Oskarżenie za zniszczenie gniazda jaskółek#PAPInformacjehttps://t.co/zXcL2kXcWD
— PAP (@PAPinformacje) January 9, 2024
The western house martin is known for its use of human-made structures, often building nests on balconies, windowsills and gaps in buildings.
Under Polish law, swallows’ nests cannot be destroyed between 1 March and 15 October. Even outside this period, they can only be removed from building sites or certain other specified areas if safety or sanitary reasons require it.
In addition to the regulations protecting nests, western house martins are a species protected by law. For this reason, it is prohibited to destroy their habitats and to deliberately frighten or disturb them.
The Dzika Nadzieja foundation that cared for the chicks after the incident says that all of them recovered fully and were later released into the wild.
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Main image credit: Michael Palmer/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
