Morocco to adopt Israeli method of extermination of birds

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

Morocco will be installing nesting boxes for owls, which will enable biological extermination in agriculture without the use of poisonous chemicals that are dangerous for people and the environment.

The man who started the initiative, Prof. Yossi Leshem, is a member of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, an ornithologist and a professor of Zoology at Tel Aviv University.

Joining in on the success of Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, Morocco will be installing nesting boxes for owls, which will enable biological extermination in agriculture without the use of poisonous chemicals that are dangerous for people and the environment.

Leshem said he met Prof. Imad Chirkawi, an ecologist and bird researcher, at a workshop of Mashav (The Center for International Cooperation) a few years ago. At this meeting, Leshem expressed an interest in leading the initiative in Morocco and the other Maghreb countries like Algiers and Tunisia.

This relation was strengthened after Israel and Morocco established diplomatic ties in December, and next week, Leshem will meet with his Palestinian and Swiss partners at the Dubai Expo to discuss the operative plans to bring the project to Morocco.

The Israeli national initiative of using owls and falcons as biological exterminators in agriculture began to take shape in 2008 in cooperation with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Tel Aviv University, and the ministries of Agriculture, Regional Cooperation and Environmental Protection, among other bodies.

So far, some 5,000 nesting boxes have been placed in the Golan Heights, Galilee, Hula Valley, Jezreel Valley, Beit Shean Valley, the Sharon region, Judea and the South.