EUROPE'S ANIMALS ARE FUCKED SAY WORLD WILDLIFE FUND (ESPECIALLY IN POLAND)
But what's even more disturbing than Poland's couldn't-give-a-toss attitude are the WWF figures on Europe's wildlife. When I was a kid, which despite now being 40 wasn't that long ago, it was the tiger, whale and possibly elephant that you had do worry about. Not any more according to the WWF.
They estimate that 50% of all of Europe's mammals face extinction and are now endangered, while the figure is 33% for fish, reptiles, amphibian and plants.
When 15 new countries including Poland joined the EU, a project called Natura 2000 was set up to preserve 18% of the land in them so that economic expansion didn't destroy wildlife.
While less than a fifth of land doesn't sound like a lot, the Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski moaned this week: "it is practically impossible to build anything because of Natura 2000". Which sounds unlikely. Poland have set up just 70 of the 142 protected sites that was asked of it, and has failed to protect 85% of the ones it has set up.