Batumi Raptor Count, or BRC, is a nature conservation NGO that works to monitor and conserve the 1,000,000+ birds of prey that migrate every autumn through the Batumi Bottleneck. I was heavily involved in the development of this project from 2012 until 2021, as a counter, board member and as president.

A young and forward thinking organisation, BRC has been operating from the Black Sea City of Batumi, in the Republic of Georgia, ever since 2008 when it has started the raptor-migration count covering the full autumn season. Although originally created as a monitoring organisation, after realising the scale of the hunting pressures that migratory birds face in the region, BRC’s mission has now expanded to that of a conservation and monitoring NGO.

BRC takes a novel approach to the conservation concerns of the region and strives to work with, rather than against, communities in order to achieve mutually beneficial goals. As part of this work we were promoting local guesthouses where visitors can watch the spectacle of more than 50,000 raptors migrating in a day while directly contributing to the local economy, and therefore, local appreciation of the raptors