BirdLife Malta today announced that the organisation’s Spring Watch volunteers have recorded over 800 illegal hunting and trapping incidences from the start of the camp on 10 April till yesterday morning.

“These initial results include only the reports by 6 spring watch teams and at this stage do not include the reports we receive from local birdwatchers and other sources,” said Nicholas Barabara, BirdLife Malta Conservation and Policy officer.“Other reports of illegal hunting coming from reliable sources to our office will be analysed at the end of the camp and as usual the reports from members of public who are not known to us will be excluded as we cannot verify those reports,” Mr Barbara continued.

“The majority of the illegal activities consisted of shooting after 3pm when hunting is not permitted. BirdLife Malta also received shot protected species including two Hoopoes, two Common Kestrels, one Marsh Harrier and one Cuckoo over the last 12 days. The organisation’s volunteers have also recorded a further 14 protected birds with injuries consist with gunshot injuries, such as missing feather and dangling legs,” Birdlife said.

BirdLife’s spring watch had around six teams working between 5 and 8 am in the morning and 3 and 8 pm in the afternoon each day. The organisation could therefore only cover around 10 percent of Malta and Gozo at any given time.

“Based on the data we gathered through our teams we can therefore estimate that the actual number of illegal activities, including the shooting of protected birds is many times higher than what we could observe. Considering the fact that the ALE had similar numbers to ours to check on over 5,600 licensed hunters, the majority of illegalities remain unrecorded,” concluded Mr Barbara.

BirdLife Malta also drew attention to a Spring Watch report which resulted in the ALE apprehension of a hunter caught in Mtahleb after 3pm, with four shot Quails which were not reported to MEPA. Birdlife said that another report resulted in the apprehension of a hunter in Mellieha with seven freshly shot Quail. Legal Notice 124 of 2011 issued by the government, that outlines the conditions for this year’s derogation, clearly states that the maximum permitted catch is four birds per hunter this season, while the conditions for licensing clearly state that all catch must be reported to MEPA by SMS.

“This case in fact demonstrates the main loophole in the derogation law as the bulk of statistics that will be given to the European Commission on birds killed by Maltese hunters depends on honest and diligent reporting by hunters – without any real checks put in place,” said Paul Debono, BirdLife Malta Executive Director.

“A spring hunting derogation that runs for almost three weeks but only permits almost two birds per hunter on average is a farce. The fact that the hunters barely objected to the quota on the number of birds they can kill as long as they were given around three weeks to shoot is precisely the reason why we suspect most of them will not be reporting their catch honestly,” continued Mr Debono.

Birdlife said that Spring Watch teams could only cover around 10 percent of Malta and Gozo on any given day and have so far recorded over 7,500 shots during the ‘legal’ hours since the opening of the season on 13 April.

“If our 5 teams have recorded 7,500 shots during the derogation hours, then its probably fair to say that the total shots are at least three times what we recorded. If the hunters have not reached the quota yet, as per the sms messages they need to send to MEPA, then Maltese hunters must be really poor shots,” charged Mr Debono.

BirdLife Malta also pointed out that the spring hunting derogation faces challenges other than the strict supervision condition; such as the conservation status of the targeted birds.

At a European level, both the Common Quail and the Turtle Dove are listed as Species of Conservation Concern. The European Commission document entitled ‘Guidance document on hunting under Birds Directive’ clearly states that derogations should not be applied to Species of Conservation Concern.

Speaking at the press conference, Veronika Ferdinandova, one of the Spring Watch volunteers and the Biodiversity Project Officer of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) at the organisation’s regional office in Belgrade said, “The way the authorities and the hunting lobby in Malta use the IUCN Red List category for Turtle Dove and Quail – which are listed as ‘Least Concern’ on a global level – undermines the impact of hunting of these species in Spring,”

“I would like to point out that the IUCN Red List categories and criteria were designed for global species assessment and do not reflect the population status of Quail and Turtle Dove in Europe,” continued Ms Ferdinandova.

“Therefore the misuse of IUCN Global Red List criteria for these two species should be avoided in the future as for derogations from the EU Directives the conservation status of these species within the EU is relevant and not the global IUCN criteria.” she concluded.

BirdLife stated that it will continue to cooperate with the CABS teams who arrived in Malta yesterday and draw up a joint report for the Commission at the end of the spring hunting derogation.

Photos: The Cuckoo was received by BirdLife Malta on the 19th of April after being shot. Photo by Fiona Burrows.

These shot Quail were confiscated by the police. Photo by Lars Soerink / www.vildaphoto.net.

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