1 comment.50 international volunteers join BirdLife’s spring watch camp
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Spring Watch, BirdLife Malta’s international conservation camp, gets underway tomorrow, Sunday, the 15th of April, with 50 international participants joining Maltese birdwatchers to monitor spring migration of wild birds from Africa to their breeding grounds in Europe.
BL; said that the international participants include professional ornithologists and bird watchers as well as writers, artists and filmmakers coming from Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Poland, the UK and Ireland.
“The camp, timed to coincide with the peak period for spring migration in Malta, also runs concurrently with the large part of the spring hunting season which opened on Thursday 12th April.” Birdlife continued, “as well as recording observations of migrating birds for use in scientific studies, its teams will also monitor the spring hunting derogation, recording and reporting illegalities to assist the police in their efforts to enforce the conditions of the derogation.”
Birdlife said that “in the last two years, the occurrence of illegal hunting incidents in spring has increased concurrently with the reintroduction of spring hunting seasons after being banned in 2008 and 2009 due to an interim measure imposed by the European Court of Justice. Last April, during the spring hunting season alone, the number of illegalities recorded by BirdLife Malta and CABS (the Committee Against Bird Slaughter) reached 751, after the season length was increased to 15 days, from 6 days in 2010.”
“The Maltese Islands lie on the Central European Migratory Flyway, one of three main routes for migration of birds between Europe and Africa. To date 120 different species, including Flamingos, Spoonbills, Eagles, Kites and Storks, have been recorded flying over Malta (1) and using the islands as a resting and feeding spot on their migration,” Birdlife Malta concluded.
(1) BirdLife Malta Report: The international impact of hunting and trapping in the Maltese islands, Dr André F. Raine, May 2007.
Photograph by Aron Tanti shows a Montagu’s Harrier migrating through Malta in early April this year.
Take school kids on outings to watch birds,maybe the idea that birds are to shot at starts to fade away,otherwise nothing will change the disease that has grown out of proportions into the minds of Maltese people.