Keep the Batumi Raptor Count flying high with your support!
| For seventeen years the BRC has conducted high-quality raptor migration counts. This long-term monitoring is critical to understand how bird populations are doing in our rapidly changing world. However, structural funding for monitoring schemes such as ours is very hard, if not impossible, to find. Over the past five years, we’ve successfully run our autumn counts mainly thanks to your generous donations, support from loyal sponsors like OSME and Kite Optics, T-shirt sales, donations from ecotourism operators, and last but not least the thousands of hours of unpaid work by over 500 volunteers from 44 different countries. This has enabled us to do monitoring work of extraordinary quality, delivering unique data to detect trends in the abundance, demography, and migration timing of otherwise poorly known raptor populations. Furthermore, we’ve always tried to be as open and transparent as possible by having open data-sharing procedures. This sets us apart from many bird observatories worldwide. Remarkably, everything we’ve done, we’ve been doing on a 100% voluntary basis. None of the BRC team members receive any remuneration for their service. This year, securing the count comes with the same deal as before: we need 30.000 EUR to run our 2026 autumn count. This covers our essential operating costs and ensures that volunteers from the Caucasus region (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) can participate free of charge. We aim to raise the needed amount before March 1st when we start preparations for the count. If we do not have the required amount of money by March 2025, there will not be an autumn count in Georgia in 2026. Nevertheless, given our large international base of supporters and followers, the many visitors we hope to see in Batumi next autumn, and the generosity of the birdwatching and nature conservation community, we believe it should be possible once again! Thanks to your generosity over the past year, we only need 11.000 EUR more to reach our target! If you are able to help, now is the moment to do so. The BRC is a 100% volunteer-driven nature conservation NGO that monitors the yearly autumn migration of 1.000.000+ raptors along the Batumi bottleneck in the Republic of Georgia. Since 2008, we’ve been delivering high-quality long-term counts that offer a unique tool to monitor the migration of raptor populations in the East African-Eurasian flyway. Our long-term efforts paid off in peer-reviewed publications of our open-access dataset and analysis of raptor population trends. We have already been able to detect ecologically meaningful trends for 8 key species. After realising the massive scale of hunting pressures these migrating birds face, the BRC expanded its mission to a monitoring and conservation NGO. We strive to work with the local communities to work on these conservation concerns to achieve mutually beneficial goals:We promote local guesthouses so visitors of our monitoring stations can witness the spectacular migration while contributing to the local economy.We created an educational program and learning materials about bird ecology and conservation.We run a flyway monitoring traineeship to offer (aspiring) migration count leaders from along the flyway a chance to learn and experience monitoring and conservation work at BRC and bring this knowledge back to their home countries.Across all projects, we use the common love for birds and raptors and hope to secure a safer passage for raptors along the Batumi bottleneck. Our work has already resulted in a decrease in illegal hunting in the local villages. On the crowdfunding page, you can find more details on how your money will be put to use. To already give some examples: on average, 200 EUR funds one day of counting. With 130 EUR you fund a one-week participation of a young conservationist from the Caucasus. So what are you waiting for? Please, help us circulate this message widely by sharing it with all your friends and family! The sooner we get our budgets together, the better our team can focus on organizing next year’s count. Instead of spending days behind our computers wasting time competing with other conservation groups for small grants, we can put all our efforts into producing important research and organizing valuable education and conservation work in parallel to the counts. Your donation makes a massive difference to us, and you know we’ll use it wisely! Warm wishes, Batumi Raptor Count team |
| Donate We have so far raised €19.000+ of €30.000 for the 2026 autumn count. |