895 illegal hunting incidents recorded in Malta alone – BLM

Spring hunting derogation monitoring findings demonstrate widespread illegal hunting and illegality of season

On the final day of the spring hunting season, BirdLife Malta today presented the provisional results of its Spring Watch bird migration and spring hunting derogation monitoring camp.

“The evidence we have gathered in the last three weeks builds a strong case against the Government’s line that the spring hunting derogation has been strictly controlled and supervised, as required by EU regulations and as specified in Malta’s own framework legislation governing hunting,” said BirdLife Malta’s Executive Director, Steve Micklewright.

“Between 10th and 29th April, BirdLife Malta staff and Spring Watch volunteers recorded a total of 895 incidents of illegal hunting in Malta alone. This includes 53 incidents of protected birds being shot at or shot down by illegal hunters and 636 incidents of hunting outside legal hours,” he said.

Commenting on the number of illegalities recorded, Chris Debono, BirdLife Malta’s Conservation and Policy Officer, said, “this clearly shows that there are a lot of hunters out there who are not respecting the law and don’t think twice about shooting at protected species.”

The conservation organisation said that as of this morning it had recovered 20 illegally shot protected birds, representing 13 different migratory species, since the start of the hunting season- nearly double the number recovered in the same period last year.

“These birds represent only a small proportion of the total number of protected migratory birds shot and killed during the spring hunting season and have been found by members of public at locations around Malta and Gozo,” said Debono. “There is no way that, as has been suggested, only a few people are responsible for killing protected birds or that these are all of the birds that have been illegally shot.”

BirdLife Malta also monitored the police presence in the countryside during the hunting season., it said that the law requires that a minimum of seven enforcement officers for every 1,000 hunters be patrolling the countryside at any one time during hunting hours in the spring hunting season. “This equates to at least 66 officers during this season.”

“Spring Watch teams observed on average only seven officers patrolling in three to four vehicles during morning monitoring shifts,” said Debono. “The most we saw on any one morning was 19 officers in five vehicles- still a long way short of the legally required minimum.”

BirdLife has published a video on its YouTube channel, which gives a snapshot of the illegal hunting and trapping witnessed between 10th and 29th April. BLM said that the video “shows one incident in which poachers target a roost of harriers in Gianpula, going into the field where the birds were sleeping to shoot them as they lay on the ground.”

Mr Micklewright said that BirdLife Malta would be submitting a detailed report to the European Commission after further analysis of its findings, including a comparison between the number of shots recorded by monitoring teams in the countryside, with the number of SMS reports of kills submitted by hunters to MEPA.

In conclusion, Mr Micklewright urged the public to keep reporting illegalities after the end of the hunting season, “The birds don’t know the season is over and it is still possible that protected birds migrating through the islands might be targeted by poachers even though the season has ended. As of 3pm this afternoon, all hunting and trapping is illegal and should be reported to the police.”

Spring Watch 2013 spring hunting derogation: illegalities snapshot http://youtu.be/T12mtXTzhVw ^[1].

Photo shows Spring Watch volunteers on an afternoon watch – Photo by David Tipling.