Field protection
Standing patrols at nest sites, dens and stopover wetlands during the months an animal is most likely to be killed. Camera traps, night shifts and a radio link to the local police.
Europe protects these animals on paper. We do the part that happens outdoors.
Pangaea Continental patrols nesting and denning sites, builds criminal cases against poisoners and traders, and gets injured animals out of the field alive. Fourteen countries, twenty-nine people.
Why we exist
Protection that only exists in a directive is not protection.
The Habitats and Birds Directives list hundreds of species that nobody in the EU may kill, capture or trade. Enforcement is left to member states, where it competes with everything else a police force has to do. We fill that gap: we work with rangers, landowners, vets and prosecutors, and we pay for the parts of a case nobody budgets for. The toxicology report. The translation. The six months of waiting.
Last year, in the field
2,140Patrol days at nesting, denning and migration sites
61Criminal files handed to prosecutors, 38 still open
412Animals recovered alive from traps, nets and baits
14Countries with a standing team or partner
9,300 haHabitat under a signed protection agreement
27Vets, rangers and lawyers on call
We take the cases that fall between a directive and a police force.
Wildlife crime is low priority almost everywhere, and the files show it: no forensic budget, no specialist, no translator when the suspect and the evidence sit in different countries. We are usually the only party that stays with a case from the first dead bird to the verdict. That work is slow and unglamorous, and it is most of what we do.
What we do
Four kinds of work, one purpose.
Casework and prosecution
We collect and preserve evidence to a standard that survives a courtroom, pay for the toxicology and ballistics regional forces cannot, and stay with the file until there is a decision.
Rescue and release
A vet on call in every region we work. Animals out of nets, snares, glue traps and poisoned baits, treated and returned to the wild where the law and their injuries allow.
Habitat agreements
Long-term deals with farmers, foresters and hunting estates. Money and labour in exchange for leaving a strip, a wood or a wetland alone.
Where we work
Six species, and everything living alongside them.
Carpathians and Bialowieza
European bison
Fewer than 8,000 alive. We monitor the free-ranging herds in Romania and respond when animals stray onto farmland, before somebody else decides how to handle it.
Andalusia and Extremadura
Iberian lynx
Back from 94 animals, and still dying in snares set for something else. We clear traps, prosecute the people setting them and pay for the road underpasses that actually work.
Alps, Carpathians, Iberia
Grey wolf
Legally protected and routinely poisoned. Most of our criminal casework starts with a wolf carcass and a toxicology bill nobody wants to pay.
Balkans and Pyrenees
Griffon vulture
Vultures die of whatever the last animal was poisoned with. We track baiting patterns and run the feeding sites that keep birds off contaminated carcasses.
Danube basin and the Netherlands
Eurasian otter
Killed on roads and in illegal fyke nets. We map the black spots, get the nets pulled, and push for the culverts that keep otters out of traffic.
Romania and Ukraine
Delta wetlands
A third of our work happens here. Sturgeon poaching, bird trapping and drainage in one place, plus a border that criminals use freely and investigators do not.
If you have seen something, tell us before the trail goes cold.
Poison degrades, nests fail and carcasses disappear. A short message today is worth more to a case than a full report in a month.
Contact the office