BirdLife Malta today revealed that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) will be commissioning a last minute study on Turtle Dove and Quail migration in spring which is planned to start in only nine days. BirdLife said that it “received an invitation last Thursday evening from an environment consultancy firm appointed to carry out the study, giving BirdLife Malta a deadline until Sunday, April 1st to confirm its participation.”
BLM said that “the invitation comes as a surprise to the organisation, which was invited to participate at the last minute, without any prior consultation and without being provided any justification whatsoever for commissioning this study at the doorstep of possibly another spring hunting season in April 2012.”
“This study is one of a series of events that have highlighted the run-up of the 2012 spring hunting saga, with decisions being taken behind closed doors and without proper discussion and consultation at the Ornis Committee.”
“A phone call to the company’s director by BirdLife Malta on Friday revealed that the consultancy firm was approached by MEPA only very recently with a deadline to start the surveys on April 9th,” BLM said.
“MEPA has left almost no time to concerned parties to contribute to the methodology of the proposed study and take an informed decision before they can commit their resources,” said Joseph Mangion, BirdLife Malta President.
“Last year MEPA had commissioned the same consultancy firm to conduct a similar study in May, missing out on the peak migration periods of Turtle Dove and Quail in April.”
“MEPA’s so called study suggests that birds should be counted by a hunter, a BirdLife ornithologist and a third person. Yet, when it comes to the counts of birds shot or trapped, MEPA conveniently relies solely on hunters and trappers’ declarations. This alone shows MEPA’s double standards and its bias towards the hunting lobby,” continued Mangion.
BirdLife Malta stated that “the proposed Turtle Dove and Quail migration ‘study’ is to be based on the flawed methodology of the government study initiated in 2007 to justify its spring hunting derogations. The initial methodology had been devised by J.C. Ricci who has affiliations with the French hunting lobby and who produced studies with the aim of extending hunting periods for migratory species. Ricci’s methodology in 2007 was heavily criticized by some Ornis Committee members, BirdLife and the British Trust for Ornithology, one of Europe’s most respected ornithological organisations.”
“Furthermore,” Birdlife continued, “the Government study had also employed Giuseppe Micali as a monitor who represented hunting organisations in Italy. Following Ricci’s departure from the study in August 2007, Christos Thomaidis a Greek game biologist was entrusted with the study in November 2007. Despite the fact that the methodology and supervisors of the study had changed several times during the study period 2007 to 2009, Thomaidis produced a ‘report,’ which was released to the Ornis Committee in May 2011.”
“The report had a number of serious scientific flaws such as the change in methodologies, incomparable results, and lacked presenting raw data amongst others. Thomaidis in his report had also gone as far as deriving conclusions on Quail migration although he admitted that the Quail data was not sampled systematically. He also drew conclusions based on hunter’s bag counts although these were never verified. Hunters were paid to carry out the study whilst being allowed to shoot birds as they ‘counted’ them,” Birdlife said.
“We believe that MEPA is not interested in studying the importance of Malta for Turtle Dove and Quail migration. If this was the case, the employed methodology would have the backing of professional ornithological institutions, and would also consider studying the autumn migration of both species in order to analyse trends and difference in migration patterns,” concluded Mangion.
BirdLife Malta stated that “it distanced itself from the proposed study and expressed concern that such rushed and flawed studies were only being commissioned to fulfill reporting requirements to the European Commission for spring hunting derogations, rather than into evaluating Malta’s strategic importance for the migration of European birds.”
Photo by Lars Soeri shows four shot Quail from the last spring hunting season.