Five committee members injured by hunters in Greece
17.04.2025
Yesterday, a CABS-team was viciously attacked by hunters on the popular Greek holiday island of Zakynthos. The conservationists had identified several poachers on the Keri Peninsula who were illegally shooting migratory birds. During the check, 15 men, some of them masked, suddenly appeared and attacked them without warning. A Slovenian employee had his nose broken, an Italian employee suffered a severe leg wound, two female British volunteers and a bird conservationist from Switzerland suffered bruises and scratches. Police quickly arrived on the scene and have already questioned the first suspects; three committee members have been taken to the hospital but remain in good spirits. Read todays full Press Release by following the link here.
Illegal turtle dove hunting in Malta
16.04.2025
Contrary to current EU law, Malta has once again authorised spring hunting for quail. However, the majority of hunters seem to have little interest in comparison to high flying birds. Instead of hunting on foot in fields - the typical resting habitat of quails - they take position in high hunting towers and shelters in groves where turtle dove come to roost. It is evident that many Maltese hunters shamelessly exploit the quail hunting season to target endangered turtle doves. To make matters worse, the government in Valletta has declared that the turtle dove may also be shot from 21 April, regardless of its EU-wide protection in spring.
More on our anti-poaching operations in Malta here.
Three bird trappers caught & convicted in Cyprus
14.04.2025
During our spring bird protection camp in Cyprus, our team on the ground have caught the third bird trapper of the season. The young man had set up a net in Famagusta district to catch blackcaps – the sought-after species which is eaten as a delicacy. Two other notorious bird trappers were also caught by game wardens with 56 limesticks and electronic decoys as a direct result of our field investigations. Since heavy penalties were introduced in Cyprus in 2017 for the use of limesticks and nets during the spring migration, we have seen a sharp decline in bird trapping. If bird trappers are caught trapping outside of the hunting season, they face hefty fines often well in excess of 8,000€!
Czech stork shot down in Lebanon
11.04.2025
A team from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) has recovered an injured white stork in the east of the Lebanese harbour city of Tripoli. A vet confirmed the suspicion that the animal had been illegally shot - unfortunately the bird had to be euthanised due to the severity of its injuries. The stork was wearing a Czech ring with the number YK026 and had been ringed on 28 May 2022 in Bor u Tachov (near Pilsen/Plzeň) in Bohemia. Just a few days earlier, another stork from Germany equipped with a transmitter had also gone missing in the northern Lebanon Mountains.
Find out more about our work to protect storks passing through Lebanon here.
Lebanon: Golden eagle released - watch new video
07.04.2025
A Golden Eagle which was being illegally held in a concrete enclosure in Beirut is back in the wild. After several weeks of treatment, the bird was deemed fit for release by our team vet and set free in the mountains of Shouf Biosphere Reserve Reserve. Staff from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), together with our Lebanese partners from Middle Eastern Sustainable Hunting Centre MESHC Anti-Poaching Unit and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon, watched in awe and admiration as the magnificent bird spread its wings and started its new life in freedom.
Action against illegal finch trapping in Malta and Gozo
26.03.2025
Our ongoing bird protection camp across the Maltese archipelago has been running for three weeks now. Our Bird Guard teams have been busy scouring the countryside investigating finch trapping sites with clap-nets which despite being illegal, unfortunately continues to be a common phenomenon every spring. Finch species are popular cage birds in Malta and are also sold for profit on the black market. Follow our reports to police, so far 24 sets of clap-nets have been removed, more than 50 finches have been confiscated and transferred to a government vet and 10 trappers have been caught and will be summoned to court in due course.
Lesser spotted eagle shot down in Lebanon
31.04.2024
During a patrol in Terbol in northern Lebanon, a CABS team, together with our partners MESHC Anti-Poaching Unit and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL), filmed a hunter shooting several times at birds of prey flying overhead and killing a lesser spotted eagle. He gave up the search for the bird after a short time and left the scene before the police arrived. However, our team was able to recover the bird - all the evidence, including photos of the perpetrator and the licence plate number of his vehicle, will now be handed over to the public prosecutor's office in Tripoli.
We have published a video of the incident on our YouTube channel.
Rampant illegal trapping across Malta and Gozo
02.04.2025
The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) have published an interim report of their field operations against illegal bird trapping this spring. Although trapping is completely prohibited in spring, CABS teams were able to film a total of 19 poachers and reported them to the police. A total of 40 sets of clap nets, 10 electronic bird callers and 85 live finches were seized during the operations. Among the trappers reported is also an old ‘acquaintance’ of CABS who was reported in 2019 for illegal trapping, exposing his private parts and to run over our team with his car. CABS teams will be present in Malta and Gozo until the end of the bird migration season in May.
Read our full press release here.
Start of our spring operations in the Mediterranean
15.03.2025
In the Mediterranean many poachers are preparing their trapping sites now. That's why we are starting our spring bird protection camps. We will start in Malta, where we will take action against bird-trapping. In Lebanon, we started watching over stork roosts a few days earlier. On the Greek island of Zakynthos, we will be deploying teams for the third time to combat the widespread illegal spring hunting. Further campaigns will take place in northern and southern Italy and in Cyprus. By mid-May, we will have carried out a total of 9 missions with around 80 volunteers. Updates on the individual bird protection camps can be found regularly on our social media channels and on our website.
Your donation makes the difference!
Your donation will enable us to fund our campaigns and bird protection camps throughout Europe, to keep up the fight for migratory birds. CABS is almost exclusively financed with private donations, from nature and animal lovers, as well as foundations and nature conservation associations. In order to stay independent, we do not receive public funds and we refuse business sponsorships. CABS is recognised as non-profit, thus, donations are tax-deductible. For a donation of 25 € or more, you will receive a donation receipt at the beginning of the following year.
