Cyprus jobless turn to illegal songbird trapping

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) - It's just before first light and the bird-catcher strings nets among the orange, pomegranate, fig and carob trees in his orchard. The sound of chirping emanates from inside a massive carob - a trick sent from speakers to attract tiny songbirds. By mid-morning, the man disentangles about a half-dozen blackcaps, snaps their necks with his teeth and drops them in a bucket.

For centuries, the migratory songbirds have been a prized delicacy among Cypriots. They are also an illegal one, as entry into the European Union forced Cyprus to ban the tradition of catching the creatures, some endangered, in nets or on sticks slathered with a glue-like substance.

Now economic crisis is luring many out-of-work Cypriots back into the centuries-old trade. They risk stiff fines and even jail time by supplying an underground market for the tiny songbirds illicitly served up in the country's tavernas - but they say it's their only way to make ends meet.

Served whole either boiled or pickled, the fatty birds are such an ugly sight on a plate that outsiders find it hard to fathom how there could be any profit to be made from them. For many Cypriots, however, the tangy-sweet taste of the birds is pure bliss.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130131/DA452R7O2.html

---

In this Nov. 3, 2012 photo, a man tries to free a bird caught on a sticky lime stick that poachers in Cyprus use to trap songbirds in his orchard in the Larnaca district of Cyprus. The small birds, called ambelopoulia in Greek, are considered a delicacy in Cyprus and poachers supply a lucrative market. Amid an economic crisis that has seen unemployment hit record levels on the east Mediterranean island, jobless people are turning to poaching to help them make ends meet. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

[XemaSab]

1. It's a huge problem there

And it's another area where the US has better wildlife protection laws than most other countries do.

[dipsydoodle]

2. That's horrible

[Nihil]

3. Bastards.

I can't believe the scum that I'm reading about these last couple of days.

[birdsrtasty]

5. BBQ BIRDS taste awesome

Please remember that peasants are eating these birds they are not killing them for sport. Anyone who keeps cats or dogs as pets has more to answer for than a peasants catching a couple of birds to make some soup or to get some protein. Cats were responsible for 800 billion bird deaths in a year. Cat and Dog food is a huge waste of resources. Raising livestock for meat to feed to dogs and cats to me is insanity.

[arcane1]

6. To be fair, peasants aren't the ones who eat something called "a prized delicacy"

That term is usually associated to something upper class people eat, no matter how nasty it tastes, because it's rare and expensive. The article specifically mentions the poaching aspect of this.

These peasants are selling these birds because they need money to buy food.

[Nihil]

7. Fuck you, troll.

Those "peasants" aren't eating the birds, they are catching them, killing them and *selling* them.

As for the mentality of a troll who signs up with a deliberately inflammatory name just to post on
this topic, just Fuck You.

[Democracyinkind]

8. You don't seem to know much about Cyprus.

It ain't hungry farmers that's the story here.

Signing up on DU with your username just to make this comment - very, very lame. What kind of person gets motivated to sign on here and write down the praises of Bird-BBQ when confronted with a story about poverty forcing people into poaching? Is this your pet cause?

[L0oniX]

4. ...until they are all gone. Then it's back to selling crack. n/t