One of the most outrageous poaching incidents in Greece has come to light on the island of Lesvos. A total of 32 Corncrake Crex crex were found, having been attracted by means of illegal equipment and killed by poachers.

The Corncrake is a globally threatened species, protected by the European Birds Directive. There are currently many projects targeting its conservation in countries in the North and West of Europe, nearly all of them involving BirdLife Partners.

Game wardens on the island in the municipality of Ayiasos were first to discover the incident on September 22th 2007. The finding was later confirmed by the President of the Hunting Association of Archipelagos.

Mr. Kostas Papakonstantinou, member of the Hellenic Ornithological Society (BirdLife in Greece) states that: "most worrying is that, based on many testimonies that were made public recently, this incident is just the tip of the iceberg and Corncrake poaching in central and southern Lesvos is a very frequent phenomenon."

"This case exposes Greece as a country which lacks basic actions for the protection of wild birds and generally nature, and a country with inability to act and lack of will." —Xenophon Kappas, Manager of The Hellenic Ornithological Society

Charges have been pressed against the three poachers by the Forest Department of Lesvos and their licences, guns and the rare birds, have all been confiscated.

The Hellenic Ornithological Society praised the game wardens for discovering the incident and stressed the need to combine stronger enforcement actions with better education programmes for hunters on the issue of species identification of birds.

The Hellenic Ornithological Society is following the situation closely, stressing that this incident could serve as a good example of the effectiveness of proper law enforcement in future.

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