Birdwatch News Archive

White-throated Robin is one of the amazing buird species found in turkey, that have inspired Tristan to raise money and awareness of how the country's avifauna is under threat. Photo: Tristan Reid.

Man gives right arm to help Turkey's birds

Posted on: 17 Jul 2011

A travelling birder has come up with a novel scheme to raise money to save Turkey's threatened birdlife.

Tristan Reid had a fantastic birding trip to Turkey earlier this year. The country cannot fail to impress, with amazing culture and scenery and fantastic birds and all-round biodiversity. However, on his return, he was shocked to learn from Charlie Moores that the Turkish government had sold off all the waterways to private companies. There are currently in excess of 2,000 dams being built and a further 1,700 or more hydro-electric schemes planned. This will have a disastrous effect on the country's animals and plants, as well as involving the displacement of communities and detrimentally impacting on the ‘micro-cultures’ that make Turkey such a fascinating country.

Tristan was inspired to try to raise as many funds for Doga Dernegi (BirdLife International’s partner in Turkey) as he can, hoping that this will go some way towards helping the organisation in its work to protect the country's biodiversity. He hopes to raise funds by inviting artists to contribute works depicting some of the iconic birds of Turkey. Then he will have a montage of the artwork (totalling a minimum of 10 species) tattooed onto his right arm and shoulder. Following this dramatic procedure, he will then auction off the original artwork, with all profits also being added to the fundraising pot.

Read more about Tristan's project here.

You can make a donation here.

Alternatively you can donate via text message. Text VWFE83 followed by the amount (£1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10) to 70070 (all letters in the text must be in uppercase).

You can also follow Tristan's progress on Twitter at @givemyrightarm.