A song of salvation

Some things are very nice on toast – avocados, say, or Gentleman’s Relish. Others are beyond the pale, and these include songbirds. Yet hundreds of thousands of little migratory birds are illegally trapped to be eaten each year as they try to pass through Cyprus. Now police on British military bases on the island have thwarted criminal poachers’ operations by using drones with night-vision apparatus. Half a million robins and blackcaps a year have been saved. The Servicemen were spurred into action by a plea from the Prince of Wales to stamp out the “barbaric slaughter”. The Prince is entitled to make such recommendations and his initiative has been strikingly successful: it has struck at organised crime, given Servicemen a fulfilling training objective and preserved the warble and trill of whole flocks of songbirds.