As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday 26 July 2013

Egyptians Hunt Down Migratory Birds for Natural Viagra

It is a little known fact outside of conservation and hunting circles, Sherif Baha el Din from Nature Conservation Egypt told The Guardian, but Egyptian hunters will destroy thousands of migratory birds in the coming weeks as they make their way from Europe back to Africa for the winter.

Egyptian bird hunters trap thousands of migratory birds in a variety of different ways.

Some set up a wall of nets along the Mediterranean Sea to capture the common quail, others set up “shade traps” on the ground, complete with an electronic bird call device that lures the birds in to their senseless death, while others set up nets in trees.

On their long and perilous journey south, migratory birds will seek out acacia trees for rest, but they’ll find hunters waiting for them instead, who will shoot at everything in site, according to The Guardian.

Bycatch, which refers to birds accidentally called up in the murderous fray, are rarely spared even though some pubescent, unenforced laws in Egypt require such caution. As such, scores of shrikes and warblers and other birds will also die unneccessarily.

The European Golden Oriole is particularly vulnerable as hunters seek them out as “natural viagra” for residents of Arab Gulf countries that need a little help in the bedroom.

At one tree at an oasis somewhere in Egypt, Jonathan Franzen, who visited the country last year to report on threats to migrants across the Mediterranean for National Geographic, watched as hunters massacred approximately 5,000 golden orioles.

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