In 2014 Ray Mears was invited to a private UK screening of the independent film Emptying the Skies. The documentary highlights the great threat that is currently faced by migrating songbirds, which are being killed in vast numbers as they fly across southern Europe. Due to their status as a French culinary delicacy, millions of small birds are being poached each year, fetching large sums of money on the black market.

Based on a widely republished article for The New Yorker by best-selling novelist Jonathan Franzen, Emptying the Skies aims to raise awareness of this devastating environmental tragedy and the journey of those risking their lives to stop it. This squad of pan-European bird-lovers are waging a secret war against the poachers, disrupting illegal trapping to free as many birds as possible. Continue reading →