How Packham faced up to the songbird slayers

WHEN three balaclava-clad thugs emerged from cars on a remote stretch of road in rural Cyprus, their message to activists was clear back off.

- From Steph Spyro ENVIRONMENT EDITOR IN CYPRUS

It was the latest act of intimidation linked to a man accused of being one of Europe’s most prolific bird killers.

Stelios Yiasemides, known locally as Akas, is allegedly behind the mass slaughter of up to 1,000 songbirds a day - a figure he denies.

He has been accused of fuelling the illicit trade of ambelopoulia, a banned but still coveted local delicacy of boiled or pickled songbirds.

An estimated 500,000 migratory birds, from thrushes and wagtails to hoopoes and owls, are trapped and killed on the Mediterranean island each year using fine-mesh nets or glue-covered lime sticks.

The practice has been illegal since 1974 but activists said enforcement remains virtually nonexistent and dangerous for those who try to expose it.

Days before the standoff with the masked men, a large 4x4 had come hurtling down a dusty mountain track with its tyres spitting gravel.

It tore towards a convoy of cars which included naturalist Chris Packham, his stepdaughter Megan McCubbin and campaigners from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter. The campaigners were heading towards Akas’s Farm in Maroni, near Larnaca.