PUBLISHED: 15:11,
Tue, Mar 6, 2018 | UPDATED: 15:25, Tue, Mar 6, 2018
Delicate
birds – including Britain’s national icon, the robin – were netted and had
their necks wrung by poachers operating on the UK’s sovereign base in Cyprus.
Ruthless
trappers cause carnage in the dense scrublands around the base by putting up
nets to catch birds migrating to Africa in autumn – and then selling their
plucked corpses on the black market as expensive delicacies in a trade worth
millions of euros.
Conservationists
revealed today how they are taking the fight to the poaching gangs,
dramatically reducing their bags and also seeing them get heavy sentences in
court.
Covert
operations mounted by investigators from the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds and Sovereign Base Area Police have reduced the number of songbirds
slaughtered illegally by 70 per cent.
Traditional
bird trapping on Cyprus was outlawed 40 years ago but has since spawned a
lucrative racket with criminal gangs selling the fragile corpses for a dish
known as ambelopoulia.
For
birds such as blackcaps, robins, nightingales, golden orioles and masked
shrikes, the demand for their flesh sees them trapped in fine nets, having
their necks wrung before being plucked and fried for a dish that sells for up
to £75 a plate.
As
ambelopoulia is banned on Cyprus, holidaymakers to island have little idea that
law-breaking tavernas are serving up the dish for locals.
Increased
patrols on the Sovereign Base and efforts to deter the trappers saw their bag
of 880,000 birds in 2016 decrease dramatically last year.
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