Press release from RSPB and BirdLife Cyprus:
Number of songbirds illegally trapped on UK military base in Cyprus falls more than 70%
- Latest report estimates a fall of 70% in the number birds illegally killed on British military base in Cyprus last autumn.
- The reduction is due in large part to work by RSPB Investigations and the Sovereign Base Area Police using covert surveillance methods to catch trappers in the act, leading to stronger court sentences.
- Killed songbirds are sold via the black market to restaurants in the Republic of Cyprus for diners to eat, with criminal gangs earning millions from this illegal activity.
- The UK Government needs to ensure invasive tree removal operation continues if this success is to be sustained, whilst Republic of Cyprus must crackdown on black-market restaurants which still serve songbirds.
Over 260,000 songbirds, such as blackcaps and robins, are estimated to have been illegally killed on a British military base in Cyprus last autumn, according to a new report by BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB. However, this number was down from 880,000 the previous year, a reduction of more than 70%.
This decrease in illegal hunting is due to the work undertaken by the RSPB, working with the Sovereign Base Area Police to deter trappers. By increasing patrols and following through with prosecutions coupled with heavier sentences hunters now face a double deterrent.
The songbirds are illegally trapped and killed to provide restaurants with the main ingredient for the local and expensive delicacy of ambelopoulia– a plate of cooked songbirds. Organised crime gangs are driving this illegal activity on a huge scale and it is estimated they earn millions of Euros every year from the songbirds they kill on British territory.
Birds are trapped using nets placed between acacia bushes, and speakers playing bird calls are used to attract birds down as they migrate. In 2016, RSPB Investigations worked with the SBA Police to covertly film some 19 trappers, at seven sites, catching and killing birds. All were prosecuted, with fines up to 6,600 Euros and several jail sentences suspended for three years, meaning automatic imprisonment if caught again during this period. More men were caught in 2017 and cases are ongoing.
Martin Harper, RSPB Conservation Director, said, ‘The reduction in the numbers of birds being illegally killed is a direct result of on-the-ground work by RSPB and Sovereign Base Area staff. The enforcement and the severity of sentences is also adding to the risks that would-be trappers take. We now need to finish removing the remaining non-native acacia bushes to make sure that there are no longer places where trappers can hide their nets. This is the long-term solution needed for these migrant birds.
The Sovereign Base Area authorities should be congratulated for making use of a wide range of criminal and civil sanctions, such as exclusion orders and vehicle impoundments, to ratchet up the pressure on the bird trapping community, and undertaking the removal of the irrigation infrastructure.’.
Martin Hellicar, Director of BirdLife Cyprus, said, ‘Now is the time to re-double efforts and make sure we see a permanent end to large-scale trapping and the massive impact it has on our migrant birds. Increased and consistent enforcement action must be taken against law-breaking restaurants.‘.
Small-scale trapping of songbirds for human consumption in Cyprus was practised for many centuries, but it has been illegal on the island for over 40 years, after being outlawed in 1974. Enforcement against restaurants serving ambelopoulia has been almost non-existent in the last few years, yet as the key driver of this illegal activity it is crucial that urgent action is taken by the Cyprus Government as well as by the MoD.
ENDS
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That is excellent news. I did write to by MP last year asking him to urge the MOD to act more strongly at the Sovereign air base to stop this massacre. Hopefully with the efforts of so many others this has helped. There is a fair way to go yet to stamp out this wicked practice but looks like the first steps are being taken.
Well done to the RSBP… and the Sovereign Base Police!
Keep up the good work:-)
No one’s saying this is not great work but issues like these will never be truly solved by painting them only in black and white as we do. This is not killing for sport, it’s killing animals for food. From their perspective it’s a foreign culture telling them how to live their lives and they have a point. You seem to gloat in the criminal aspects, making no reference to the ordinary islanders’ culture. Don’t they have a right to their culture? Our culture kills for food so why can’t they? Why do we get to be the boss of everyone? The UK consumption of wild sea fish is huge, putting much of oceanic wildlife under threat. What’s the difference? Is everyone of the people who support this going to stop eating seafood? Like I said, not so black and white. In the long term, we have to start to look at the issue through their eyes, get them on board and we’ll create a more sustainable solution (and take away the need for criminal involvement in the process).
Stephen – I’m not sure who ‘you’ is – since this is a press release issued by two organisations.
Apart from that, you also seem to have missed the word ‘illegal’. This birdcatching is illegal under UK law on those pieces of ground and anyway under EU law. So it is more black and white than you seem to have appreciated.
Almost everything bad in the world was part of someone’s culture once.
I don’t disagree with the issue, just this blog piece. It feels like a patronising egotistical rant about a single aspect of what is a much more sophisticated issue. Obsessed by brainwashing the reader with the word ‘illegal’ (seriously, how many times does the writer need to patronise us with it?). Ultimately who cares? They don’t. Governments don’t. We all do illegal things – like speeding – but like to bring the word up when it suits us. It’s about what’s right and what’s wrong. And he/it (press release?) fails to even mention (or if he does, it’s lost) the real moral problem with the issue – that of the horrific and cruel methods they use to catch the birds. THAT is what he should have pushed and THAT is what will get locals and the rest of the world onside. And the culture aspect is relevant. Whether you like it or not, their perception is of an arrogant outside culture playing God with another. Mark’s piece made no distinction between this issue and, for instance, the shooting of raptors in the Mediterranean. This (lazy?) attitude, if widespread, will lose the campaign invaluable local support. So I urge you to take more care, Mark. Also, who’s eating the birds in the restaurants? Just more criminals I suppose? No, locals and others enjoying their culture. I don’t like it but telling them what to do won’t solve the problem long term. I know because I live in one of these cultures. It’s not just about this issue, it’s about all issues like this where arrogant provocative attitudes prevail and simply try to manipulate others in to taking their side rather than following a much harder but ultimately more fruitful path of seeing and dealing with the truth. For instance, what’s the relevance of whether they’re sold as delicacies or not? That’s just marketing, isn’t it? it’s still food. Could it be to create the perception that it’s all for posh people just to gain support? Look, of course, I’m all for saving birds but I would just appeal to this blogger because lazy attitudes I think can do the cause way more harm than good. “Almost everything bad in the world was part of someone’s culture once.” Seriously? I really don’t want to be rude but that should go in a fortune cookie and it just makes me think the author views himself as a guru, to be set apart from the rest of us. So, do you think all those bad things were solved just by telling people what to do? No communication? Understanding? Empathy? Here’s one for you then: Think longer, work harder, do better.
Stephen
You seem incapable of noticing that it is a press release. It’s not me writing.
“I don’t like it but telling them what to do won’t solve the problem long term.”
Cop out.
” This is not killing for sport, it’s killing animals for food.”
No, it’s killing animals for profit. This isn’t subsistence hunting we’re dealing with here. It’s slaughter, on an industrial scale, to supply the lucrative restaurant demand for “delicacies”, which are flogged off to gullible tourists as a traditional local dish.