 Modern animal rights activists, such as those from the Flemish Bird Protection Society, accuse trainers of "brainwashing" birds into singing more than is natural or healthy by playing looped recordings of finch calls, and that caging birds in the intentionally small and dark contest boxes is cruel.The finch is a popular aviary bird in many countries and it is forbidden in the European Union to catch birds in the wild, despite vinkeniers purporting that wild birds sing better than captive ones.Though chaffinch populations are currently not considered to be threatened, a 2002 court case at the Belgian Constitutional Court upheld a 1979 EU law banning the capture of wild finches.