The merciless slaughter was uncovered when the Each day Specific visited Cyprus with TV naturalist Chris Packham
Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin in Cyprus (Picture: Jonathan Buckmaster/Each day Specific)
Cypriot hunters illegally killed greater than 720,000 songbirds final autumn, a charity has revealed. Blackcaps, Redstarts, Whitethroats and Willow Warblers have been among the many 726,000 birds caught utilizing mist nets and limesticks on the Mediterranean island. The Each day Specific joined Springwatch presenter Chris Packham, TV zoologist Megan McCubbin and the Committee In opposition to Hen Slaughter (CABS) to confront hunters in September final 12 months. The worldwide protection led to eight coordinated raids, with authorities issuing fines exceeding £137,000.
Though the general stage of trapping with almost invisible mesh nets in 2025 was simply 4% increased than the earlier autumn, there have been important variations within the ways used in comparison with earlier years. BirdLife Cyprus stated the findings present a direct hyperlink between the extent of enforcement motion by authorities and the quantity of trapping happening.
Learn extra: Chris Packham faces songbird slayers chargeable for as much as 1,000 deaths a day
Chris Packham and CABS saving birds from lime sticks (Picture: Jonathan Buckmaster/Each day Specific)
Tassos Shialis, BirdLife Cyprus’ campaigns coordinator, stated: “Our findings for autumn 2025 ship a really clear message. Constant, seen and focused enforcement works. When that deterrent presence weakens, unlawful trapping rebounds.
“Furthermore, the current arson assaults on vehicles of the Sport and Fauna Service are a transparent indication that unlawful hen trapping and poaching have was a profitable enterprise, and the regulation breakers is not going to hesitate to hold out assaults towards sport wardens and law enforcement officials.”
Cyprus is a crucial a part of the migration route for a lot of birds as they transfer between their breeding grounds in Europe to their over-wintering grounds in Africa.
Legal gangs use digital gadgets that imitate the calls of migratory birds to lure them into the trapping websites.
Sticks are sometimes then coated with glue that are set by trappers in bushes.
The lifeless birds are then bought on the black market to eating places in Cyprus to be used within the native and costly dish known as “ambelopoulia”, or for house consumption.
This unlawful enterprise is price within the area of 10 million Euros a 12 months, the Cyprus Sport and Fauna Service has estimated.
Within the Japanese Sovereign Base Areas, trapping with mist nets elevated by 55% in comparison with 2024.
This rise adopted a change in enforcement ways by the Sovereign Base Areas Police, who shifted from proactive evening patrols all through the trapping season to a extra reactive strategy based mostly on focused ambushes.
Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin (Picture: Jonathan Buckmaster/Each day Specific)
In sharp distinction, trapping with mist nets within the Republic of Cyprus fell by 47%.
BirdLife Cyprus believes the decline was partly due to focused enforcement motion towards three main organised trapping websites within the Larnaca district.
Jake Zarins, head of UK abroad territories programmes on the RSPB, stated: “The continued monitoring of unlawful hen trapping carried out by BirdLife Cyprus clearly illustrates the best methods of stopping such criminality is thru persistent and visual deterrents.
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“The efforts of the Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) police power over a few years have helped drastically cut back the incidence of hen trapping inside the SBA’s and the RSPB, while admire of this work, is eager to make sure that policing of those unlawful actions stays a precedence alongside different rising calls for for policing sources.”
To observe the Specific’s documentary into the slaughter of songbirds, go to this web page.
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