BirdLife Malta has said that on Wednesday evening the Ornis Committee voted in favour of recommending the opening of a trapping season in Gozo and Malta for Song Thrush and Golden Plover this autumn.

The NGO added that it was the only organisation that voted against the derogation allowing trapping, while the Environment & Resources Authority (ERA) was not represented during the vote.

“This will be the second consecutive year that trapping will be allowed only for these two species following last year’s European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgement which ruled that Malta failed to fulfil its obligations under EU law when it allowed the trapping of seven species of finch,” said BirdLife Malta.

It argued that “the ECJ landmark ruling has direct implications on the trapping of any other species, especially when the same derogation – that of Golden Plover (Pluviera) and Song Thrush (Malvizz) – already is the subject of infringement proceedings against Malta by the European Commission.”Ornis, despite this also voted in favour of recommending to the Government on the adjusting the dates for the season to be extended to 10th January in the case of trapping of Song Thrush, said BLM.

Last year the season was opened between the 20th of October and the 31st of December for both species.

Ornis has also proposed another change this year, BirdLife said, which is that the mesh size is decreased to 34x34mm for Song Thrush, following complaints by trappers that Song Thrush were escaping from last year’s mandatory 45x45mm nets.

BirdLife Malta concluded by highlighting the point that “the vote passed irrespective of the fact that last year trappers declared catching the highest number of Song Thrush since 2012 when the derogation started been applied.”

Photographs by BirdLife Malta

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