“An Autumn Without Quails”, an investigation by journalists Muhammad Abu Laila and Alia Abu Shahba, won the Cairo Climate Talks Environmental Journalism Awards for the year 2023, in cooperation with the German Embassy in Cairo.
This investigation reveals that weak monitoring and inspection amongst several authorities, increases subsistence poaching and the use of criminalized methods against migratory songbirds. This has exposed them to extinction, despite Egypt’s commitment to International Conventions to preserve them, as it is the world’s second most important route for migratory birds.