Legal Protection of the Boreal Owl (Aegolius funereus)
The Boreal Owl is protected in the Czech Republic under both national legislation and European Union law. Its conservation status is also assessed in scientific Red Lists of threatened species.
Protection under Czech Legislation
Under Act No. 114/1992 Coll., on Nature and Landscape Protection, as amended, and the implementing Decree No. 395/1992 Coll. of the Ministry of the Environment, the Boreal Owl is classified as a specially protected animal species in the category of strongly endangered species.
Protection under European Union Legislation
The Boreal Owl is listed in Annex I of Directive 2009/147/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the conservation of wild birds (Birds Directive). It is therefore among the species for which Special Protection Areas (SPAs) are designated as part of the Natura 2000 network, including selected sites in the Czech Republic.
Classification in Red Lists
In the Red Data Book of Endangered and Rare Species of Plants and Animals of Czechoslovakia, the Boreal Owl was classified as a species requiring further attention (Sedláček 1988). In the 2003 Red List of Birds of the Czech Republic, it was classified as Vulnerable (Šťastný & Bejček 2003). The species retained the same classification, Vulnerable (VU), in the more recent Red List of Birds of the Czech Republic (Šťastný et al. 2017).
Red Lists provide scientific assessments of species' extinction risk, and their categories do not necessarily correspond to the legal protection categories established under national legislation.
Author: Karel Poprach
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