The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) has said in a statement that in the last 10 days teams from CABS have uncovered “large scale and widespread illegal trapping of protected songbirds on the coasts of Gozo and Malta.”
CABS stated that “a total of 18 cases were reported to the police who confiscated 15 sets of clap nets and approximately 50 live birds, including from sites in Gozo.”
“Five trappers were caught red-handed by the police and will be taken to court in due course,” it said.
“Another 13 poachers ran off when they saw the police arriving,” said CABS, adding that it is “optimistic that they will be subsequently identified.”
A video of the operation uploaded by CABS on Facebook today shows surveillance footage of trapping sites in Hal-Far, Mgarr, Xlendi, Qrendi, Dingli, L´Ahrax and Sannat.
“We have provided the police with our video footage which shows their faces and, in some cases, also the vehicle registrations of their cars,” said CABS Wildlife Crime Officer Fiona Burrows.
“Although 15 nets have been seized by the police, in three other incidents the nets were removed by the trappers before fleeing the scene. Live decoy birds were only seized when trapper abandoned them or if there was no visible ring,” she added.
“Unfortunately there was no bird expert or enforcement officer available from the Wild Bird Regulation Unit (WBRU) able to conduct proper and thorough checks of the ringed birds.” Burrows said.
Furthermore, CABS stated that “20 additional finch trapping sites which have been confirmed as recently active from both an aerial survey and field investigations have been reported to the police for further investigation.”
These also include three trapping sites installed on the rooftop of the historical Cottonera Lines in Vittoriosa.
According to CABS, “in one recent incident at Hal Far, after realising that he was being watched, a poacher exposed himself to the team and later tried to run a CABS member over with his car in front of the police.”
“There have also been several incidents of intimidation and threats made towards teams. A group of tourists were even chased by bird trappers on Dingli Cliffs who wrongly suspected them to be CABS members,” it said.
The eNGO said that “finch trapping is a controversial practice on Malta which was declared illegal by the EU courts last year.
CABS said that “following this verdict Malta has recently changed its legislation and banned finch trapping all year around.” But according to CABS “the government does not seem to be very eager to enforce the new rules.”
“If our teams can find 38 illegal sites in only 10 days this shows that the total ban only exists on paper,” CABS Press Officer Axel Hirschfeld said, adding that “Malta desperately needs an experienced, professional Wildlife Crime Unit to cope with its bird poaching problems.”
Photos by CABS: “Live decoy birds – Linnet – confiscated by the police on Gozo, and officers from the Gozo police dismantling an illegal clap net yesterday, 30th October; aerial photo of an illegal finch trapping site installed on the rooftop of the historical Cottonera Lines in Vittoriosa”