Raptors play a critical role in the local ecosystem as rodent control in an area prone to frequent vole, rat, and mice infestations in reaction to favorable conditions brought on by agricultural practices such as cropping intensification, increased irrigation, and cultivation of green herbaceous plants in places without other predators, competitors, or parasites. These rodents have provoked serious crop damage and health problems with the population decline of raptors. Raptors additionally are “biodiversity indicators,” animals whose population health and size can be used to directly track the health of an ecosystem and its inhabitants [1]. 

Anna Giordano has been a member of the Italian League for the Protection of Birds (LIPU) since she was only 6 years old. As such, it was a huge shock to her when, at 15 years old, she saw poachers shoot 17 birds out of the sky from cement bunkers while they were migrating over the strait [2][3].  In response, she organized yearly international surveillance camps protecting migrating raptors during the spring.  Volunteers from around the world came to Messina to gather statistical data on the birds and catch poachers. They set out before dawn to find and confiscate electronic decoys that poachers hid in bushes to attract birds.  She also began demanding police, forest rangers, and local authorities to act, but was not taken seriously. 

Furthermore, many people were openly hostile toward Giordano for challenging men in such a macho society and because they believed she was a threat to the beloved practice of hunting itself [2][8]. Hunters retaliated with threats and intimidation. In 1986, hunters firebomb her car, which she barely escaped. There were also other incidences where her house was broken into, someone mailed her a dead falcon with a note on it saying “your courage will cost you dearly,” and she and other young people monitoring the migration were shot at. These violent threats got the point through to the police how serious the poaching issue was, and from then on, they began helping with tracking the poachers [2][3]. Once local authorities started cooperating, her efforts to stop poaching became successful quickly, cutting down the 5,000 annual deaths to 200 [2]. In 1984, observers around the Straits of Sicily counted 3,100 raptors flying over the area and heard 1,900 gunshots during the April and May migrating season. In 1995, 25,000 birds passed over the same locations and only 30 shots were heard [3]. 

Despite such efforts to protect the birds, in August 1997, hunting lobbyists successfully pressured Sicily’s regional government into passing a law lifting many hunting restrictions. This law violates both national and European legislation [2]. Giordano began fighting it in court in addition to filing complaints, protesting, writing articles and public open letters in the news, spreading the word on television, and more. Instead of being considered crazy people, the Italian public began sympathizing with the cause. Regardless of weak legislation, all bunkers are now no longer used for hunting. The International Camp she organized began demonstrating ecological tourism as a good alternative to poaching contributions to the economy, and Messina is now a popular birdwatching spot [9]. At 35 years old, Giordano obtained a PhD in natural sciences specializing in ornithology and became director of the Trapani and Paceco Nature Reserve and a World Wildlife Fund rehabilitation center [2, 3]. Thanks to her ornithology expertise, she knew when and where flocks would arrive and strategically placed watch volunteers to make the poachers even less effective than ever before [6]. Her team is a vital frontline defense, now backed up by a new government task force catching and prosecuting poachers starting in 2017 [10]. 

In 2012, Giordano also fought plans to build a bridge in Messina that would seriously damage the coastline and fill the strait with chemicals and dredge. Car pollution and traffic would further threaten birds, mammals, and fish nearby [4]. More about this case can be found here: https://ejatlas.org/conflict/the-bridge-over-the-strait-of-messina