I thought it was a joke, that a couple of days ago a governmental job offering opened up asking for “experts” in the art of hunting birds to chase them away from Beirut’s airport in case they show up there.
It turns out that was nowhere near a joke, with the only farce being this semblance of governance that we have that, when faced with a problem and a clear solution, opts for the ridiculous measures instead because why not?
Although it’s been known that the situation at Beirut’s airport has been precarious for a while, the issue exploded a few days ago after an MEA flight had a near-miss with a crash because of those birds.
Since then, Lebanon’s government has been trying to scramble itself to action to try and fix what it can. Their solution? Well, look at the pictures below.
To put it bluntly: how ridiculous, short-sighted and utterly silly is our government to think that killing the birds is a fix to the problem?
For starters, those birds are innocent animals who are flocking to an area providing them with food and warmth.
Those birds are not the threat to your planes. The threat is the fact you decided to have a landfill against every single international standard 100 meter away from the airport and 9 meters away from the sea and are now surprised this has repercussions.
Those birds that are being massacred in a testosterone-fueled assault are yet another casualty of successive governments that 1) don’t give a rat’s ass about the environment, 2) have no idea what they’re doing and 3) will do anything to keep their corrupt practices in place.
The reason those birds are there isn’t because they woke up one day and decided they wanted to threaten the airport nearby. No, they’re there because we have a governing body that would do anything to keep its interests intact, including threatening the lives of thousands of passengers daily as long as it can keep the landfills and dumps from which it’s making money wherever they are.
The thing about those birds is that they will keep coming, no matter how many of them you kill, because of that landfill whose existence you’re trying to ignore.
The Lebanese government is killing those birds to make them pay for its failures. This is unacceptable and revolting and horrifying. And the worst part is? It’s paying those hunters for this “job” from our own tax money, instead of investing in an actual solution that won’t see us facing the threat of death every time we take off or land in this God-forsaken country’s only airport.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
Im incensed by this, so angry. Playing devil’s advocate here, how do we know these clearly amateur bird hunters (who should also be illegal but thats another topic) are paid by the government? I saw lots of tweets from random hunters who think its fun to go hunt now.
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Check the picture at the top of the post.
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I saw that but it doesnt technically mention shooting them. Its vague and obscure. Its just not evidence. But who cares the act is even worse if it was regular citizens.
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our government is letting it’s own people die do you think they would give a shit to some random animal ( saying lebanon is 3rd wold country is a compliment )
some countries in africa are in way poorer condition and the government is creating sanctuaries and parks to protect animals.
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I’m once again amazed that despite being on opposite sides of a not very peaceful border, both of our countries seem to grapple with similar issues a few years apart.
As a child, I was in a plane that made an emergency landing mid-takeoff, when a bird hit the engine. A few years later, they closed the landfill and turned it into a park (named after Ariel Sharon, make what you want of that) and the bird problem disappeared.
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yes we can transform the landfill into a zoo and we can display all our politicians in that zoo. The king of the jungle would be Nabih Berri but fortunately we will deprive him from food the same way he deprived millions of Lebanon of living a proper life.
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You must dig a lot deeper into this subject, and know that there’s actually no problem related to birds and the airport. In fact a big oil field is already discovered near Costa Brava and a certain politician is eager to be the main beneficiarie since no shares were allocated to him in the famous blocks settelment. All parties are going toward this direction of giving him this prize, and the bird issue is just a play to cover their tracks. Costa brava will be converted into an oil terminal. Another joke to be mentioned, some politicians already baught costal lands in north Lebanon at very cheap prices when the oil was first discovered, and i believe you do understand why.
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