Original version

BBC World Service East Asia

Assignment

Factual

Investigations and journeys into the heart of global events from BBC correspondents.

No Master Brand

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC Afghan Radio

Assignment: Cyprus: The battle over songbird slaughter

Documentaries

News

A bird is entangled in a net used by poachers in Cyprus to trap migrating songbirds

07/12/2023 GMT

Cyprus: The battle over songbird slaughter

BBC World Service - Assignment, Cyprus: The battle over songbird slaughter

How killing migrating birds became a multi-million dollar criminal business

In Cyprus hundreds of thousands of songbirds are illegally trapped and eaten each year. How did a tradition became a multi-million dollar criminal business?

Cyprus is one of the main resting stops for songbirds as they migrate between Europe, Africa and the Middle East. For centuries, Cypriots trapped and ate a small number of migrating songbirds, as part of a subsistence diet. But over recent decades, the consumption of songbirds became a lucrative commercial business and the level of slaughter reached industrial levels . Millions of birds were killed each year as trappers employed new technologies to attract and capture birds. The methods used by the trappers are illegal under both Cypriot and EU law. In the last few years, both the Cypriot authorities and environmental groups have been fighting back, dramatically reducing the number of birds being trapped. But it remains a multi-million dollar illegal business which has increasingly drawn in organised criminal gangs. For Assignment, Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent sees the trappers in action, and meets those determined to stop the mass killing of birds.

Presenter: Antonia Bolingbroke Kent
Producer: Alex Last
Sound mix: Rod Farquhar
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Series Editor: Penny Murphy

(Image: A bird is entangled in a net used by poachers in Cyprus to trap migrating songbirds. Credit: AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Assignment

Cyprus: The battle over songbird slaughter

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East Asia

About BBC World Service