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Petros Karadjias / AP
A bird is entangled in a net used by poachers to trap migrating songbirds in the Larnaca district of Cyprus. Small birds, called ambelopoulia in Greek, are considered a delicacy in Cyprus, and poachers supply a lucrative market.
Petros Karadjias / AP
A man tries to free a bird caught on a branch covered with a sticky substance that poachers in Cyprus use to trap songbirds in his orchard in the Larnaca district.
Petros Karadjias / AP
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.
By Menelaos Hadjicostis, The Associated Press — 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. Read the full story.
Editor's note: Images taken on Nov. 3, 2012 and made available to NBC News today.
Petros Karadjias / AP
A man, who didn't want to be identified because he is breaking the law by poaching, releases a bird that was trapped in a net in his orchard in the Larnaca district.
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How much meat do you think they're going to get off of a bird that weighs 3 ounces before being processed? Like, a tenth of an ounce?!
How do you order your meal?!
Waiter.... I'll take 600 deep fried ambelopoulia and a tossed salad on the side...
WTF!? Ridiculous. What a shame..... Scumbags...
A delicacy? Really? Does your food really have to be so "special" ? Beyond pathetic. As a wildlife rehabilitator the majority of cases I see are the result of human interference and cruelty. If only people knew what a gift it is to be so close to these creatures and hopefully help them back to freedom or at least to a less painful and dignified death if their injuries are beyond repair. I'm reminded every day how much humanity sucks.
You know what I consider a delicacy? Turkey. Except there's enough meat there to make sense of hunting it, killing it, cleaning it and cooking it and with the added benefit that you only have to kill one to last several meals. Tiny songbirds don't provide you with enough protein to allow your brain to function normally....apparently.
Seems faintly like good ole China and some of the weird things they clamor for or even Japan. Its always some defenseless creature against mankind.
I hope everyone of the people who are doing this end up someday trapped by some type of device man intended for something else and no one helps them escape, see how they feel after that one.
Better yet,
These poachers should be caught and sent somewhere there are cannibals and drop these idiots off there to wonder around, lets see how the shoe fits when its on the other foot!
Anybody that would eat a songbird is just a plain sorry excuse for a human. And for the morons that say that's all they can find to make a living, perhaps they don't deserve to live.
I wonder how many people that will complain about this also promote wind turbines? Kind of ironic if they do. Wind turbines are killing thousands of birds and bats every day.
I think wind turbines are stupid idea. Nuclear is the way to go.