9 comments so far.Turtle Dove Trap Found & Hunter threatens to kill CABS member
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Yesterday was a busy day for CABS and the police on Gozo. In the afternoon the Bird Guards of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) found a massive illegal cage trap installation in the Wied-Ghasri between Zebbug and Gordan lighthouse with 11 Turtle Doves who had been recently caught. A joint AFM/ALE patrol, alerted by the birdwatchers, deactivated the trap, which was nearly 8 cubic metres in size, and confiscated the birds inside. The Turtle doves have been taken to Malta where they will be rehabilitated and released after the end of the hunting season. “The Turtle dove is one of Europe’s most threatened farmland birds. It is extremely satisfying to know that these eleven birds will soon be flying in the wild again”, CABS team leader Craig Redmond said.
Early on Monday morning a CABS team filmed two young hunters hunting too close to a residential area in Xewkija (Gozo). Both men have been identified by the police and will be taken to court.
In a separate incident on the same day, a CABS patrol car was blocked in by a hunter near Qala. The hunter approached the birdwatchers, violently shouting and swearing and pushing a female CABS member from Scotland. The man then threatened to kill the team leader of the CABS patrol but luckily the group managed to escape from the situation. Shortly afterwards, the same hunter stopped the CABS members as they were driving in Nadur and again threatened to kill them, swearing at the team leader to ‘go back to his own country´, not only a violent death threat but also a racial slur. Both incidents were reported to the Victoria police station whose officers identified and summoned the aggressor. He admitted to the charges and described himself as being ´frustrated´ because he did not manage to shoot a Turtle Dove that morning. After the man had apologised to the CABS team the birdwatchers abstained from pressing charges against him for the time being. “We told him that if any of our team members on Gozo are attacked or harassed again he will have to stand trial. It is now in his own interest to convince his hunting friends to let us work in peace in ensuring that birds can continue safely on their migration”, Craig Redmond said.
CABS also said that it received information from a local birdwatcher who confronted a hunter carrying a shotgun in the valley below Ta Gajdoru (Ramla Bay area, Gozo) yesterday evening at around 6pm, four hours after the 2pm curfew. When the hunter realised that he was being watched he ran off before the police arrived at the scene.
CABS operations on Gozo are conducted in cooperation with the Foundation Pro Biodiversity (Stiftung Pro Artenvielfalt).
These offences are clearly only the tip of the iceberg. The Qala hunter sounds totally insane and full of frustrated blood lust. It’s dangerous to think such lunatics are allowed to carry firearms.
But hasn’t anybody yet understood the sheer power over defenceless living creatures that having a gun gives a man. The strength, the force and last but not least, the phallic implications behind carrying a large weapon in public, exposed to view and demonstrating its owner’s supposed strength, manliness and power status,
I pity the so called hunter’s poor wives. That,by the way, and before the bleating starts, applies to all so called hunters not just the Maltese ones.
I am against hunting but Malta needs to get out of the EU and fast.
Why do you say that? Seen this? In 2014-2020, Malta will manage two operational programmes under EU Cohesion Policy. Of these, one will receive funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Cohesion Fund and one will receive funding from the European Social Fund (ESF) and possibly also ERDF.
Will you be voting for Malta’s EMP’s this year?
Its the EU’s funding that ruined Malta. This is what lead to Malta being over built. Its the EU that caused Malta to become tacky. Look at all the crime. If it wasn’t for the EU most of the people who did this would have never heard of Malta. If it wasn’t for the EU, we could still afford to purchase most things that went up. If it wasn’t for the EU, you wouldn’t have these foreigners who are pushing around Maltese people.
Eliza I don’t know whether to laugh or cry reading your comment. Are you serious saying that ‘its the EU’s funding that ruined Malta’ ???
Eliza, when did you last live in Malta/Gozo and when did you last visit?
It seems that you have absolutely no idea what it’s like here now and can’t even relate your comments to the article in the news (which was shooting not the EU.)
Perhaps you should stick to making comments in ‘The New York Times’ instead of the ‘Times of Malta’.
Without EU money Malta would be sinking fast!
If you love it so much why don’t you live here?
Absolute rubbish, development is privately funded. EU finds are not used for that. Can you see Malta from New York?
You blame the causes of crime on immigrants? Who crucified cats? Who stabbed their wife in Xaghra? Who embezzles public money? Who fixes electricity meters?
You say we but don’t live here!
@Peter;@Ray;@Mick and other contributors to this site and other media – please make allowances as some of the older subscribers may be suffering from dementia. Laugh with them not at them and treat them gently and kindly.