In some of the world's most popular tourist destinations,
animals are being exploited for profit.
MAN SHOUTS, TIGER SNARLS
But British wildlife activists are fighting back.
The pool is tiny.
Using cameras and smartphones,
they are going undercover to explore and expose these practices.
My name's Ruth and I'm in Ayia Napa in Cyprus.
But I'm not a tourist. I'm a bird lover and film-maker.
And I'm here to investigate one of the biggest illegal
slaughters of wild birds in the world...
part of which is happening on British land.
I've heard that an estimated 15,000 birds can die in
a day on the British Army base.
So I want to see for myself what's going on...
..and meet the activists who are trying to put
a stop to this wildlife bloodbath.
More than a million British tourists visit Cyprus every year.
But that's not our only connection.
On the island, there's about 100 square miles of British land.
After independence, nearly 70 years ago, the British held on to
two military bases, and I'm heading to one of them.
I'm in the British Sovereign base, and I've come to meet up with
someone from CABS, but he's asked me to hide his identity.
We have a lot of, um, violence against us.
People smashing our cars, people attacking us,
it can be very dangerous.
What is it, what's going on here? What's the situation?
Well, people here are trapping the migratory birds that are
passing through Cyprus every spring and autumn,
in order to be sold in the black market, and the number of
birds killed every year are 2.5 million at least per year.
Which makes Cyprus one of
the deadliest places for birds in the world.
To catch birds in huge numbers, trappers use massive nets
and sonic decoys,
devices that play birdsong to attract them in.
Because Cyprus lies on the main migration route from Europe
to Africa, thousands are caught each day,
like robins and blackcaps, familiar birds in Britain.
The birds are then cooked up
in a traditional dish called Ambelopoulia.
This is the end product, the dead birds.
The black market trade in dead birds
is worth up to 15 million euros per year.
You can see how many trapping sites can be found
within the British bases.
And why is it so much worse in the British base?
I would say because people have understood that it is much
easier for them to go into the British base and trap there
than outside in the Republic.
For my first mission, I'm meeting up with the entire team from CABS -
about a dozen volunteers from all over Europe.
It's a problem across the whole of Cyprus.
But it's beyond belief in the British areas.
And I can't quite see why that is.
'The plan is to go out into the British base
'and search for illegal nets.'
What are we expecting to see?
Mostly nets, especially where we are going, it would be nets and decoys.
What are the chances that we will get caught by these people tonight?
Hopefully, we won't get caught!
What would happen if we did?
In the middle of the night, then there would be, I guess...
The military base covers 50 square miles.
It's open access for the activists, and the trappers.
To avoid getting caught,
we split into small teams and begin the search for illegal nets.
DOGS BARKING
LOUD BIRDSONG
Each of these massive nets can catch dozens of birds every night.
(This makes me feel sick.)
BIRDSONG
DISTRESSED BIRD CALLS
DOGS BARKING
One of the team spots lights approaching.
Before we leave the base, I set a camera trap next to
a net to try and capture illegal bird trapping.
Basically, we've had a night of walking around the British base,
and lots of us have rescued different birds.
Some of them brought them back to the car park
and they just released them.
It's great to see so many birds go.
I'm really, really, really cold!
But, um...
it's not so nice to watch the ones that are clearly in shock,
that aren't flying away.
That's really distressing. Those birds are so messed up.
OK, I'm just going to go up to the CABS team to find out
what happened to my camera trap,
because I gather one of the members of the team picked it up last night.
So, fingers crossed, they've got something.
This is it.
BIRD CALLS
Oh, you horrible man.
There's a dude who's just come along -
in fact, he's not a dude, he's a fucking wanker -
and he's taking these birds out of the net, he's putting them...
he's putting the net into a bag and he's taking it away,
and I think it's just... it's horrific.
Tonight, there's a big raid happening and the CABS people are
taking down every single net that's there.
BIRDSONG
DISTRESSED BIRD CALLS
While some of the activists take down nets,
the rest of us rescue birds back at the cars.
DISTRESSED BIRD CALLS I'm so sorry...
Sh, sh, sh, sh.
Can you see the bit I mean? Just at the top...? That bit, yeah.
I think he's too hot.
There you go.
It feels good to save even more birds,
but the mission has had much greater success.
The team have removed over 270 illegal nets from British soil.
It's another step towards stopping the slaughter.
They are laying them out at the moment so they can make
a good publicity photo with them.
I hope it works.
Because this is shocking.
All collected on British base land in Cyprus.
Madness.