Surfbirds News: BirdLife International Archives
Red-footed Falcon
??? listed as Near Threatened by BirdLife - have been found shot at Phasouri in Cyprus, a well-known poaching “black spot”. The finding has appalled conservationists throughout Europe, and has led to BirdLife Cyprus renewing calls for action on the issue.
On the morning of Friday 5 October farm workers at the Phasouri citrus plantations found the Red-footed Falcons laying dead or wounded among the orange trees. Two piles of empty shotgun cartridges lay at the centre of the massacre site. Of the 52 falcons recovered, six were wounded and forty-six had died.
Red-footed Falcon ?? Kit Day
Red-footed Falcon is a colonial species that nests and migrates in group. The species is strictly protected in the EU as it has suffered severe declines in its main, eastern European breeding range in recent decades.
BirdLife Cyprus reports that this incident is by no means the first time illegal shooting has resulted in the killing of birds of prey and other migrants, such as Bee-eaters Merops apiaster, at Phasouri on the Akrotiri peninsula of Limassol. "This terrible situation has dragged on for the past few years without the authorities taking appropriate action to stop it,” said Mike Miltiadous, Research Officer of BirdLife Cyprus. |
