Each year, across the Mediterranean, hundreds of millions of songbirds and other migratory birds are killed for food, sport, profit, and fun as they try to make the treacherous journey across the sea and desert.
The slaughter is substantially indiscriminate and its scale unsustainable. The impact is heavy on already threatened species and populations which are already badly impacted by the destruction their breeding habitat. Much of the killing is done on nominally protected perseveres. The methods used to kill, including gluey “limesticks” in berry trees, vast mist-nets stretched along coastlines, shotguns, snares and many variety of traps_ are largely illegal and unmistakably cruel.
David Guttenfelder ©The Associated Press on assignment for National Geographic
