With only nine months into the year, BirdLife Malta said that it has already retrieved more illegally shot protected birds than the last eight years, “with 139 protected birds retrieved up to the 22nd of September, after being shot by hunters.”

In a statement, BirdLife Malta said that 618 birds were retrieved since 2013, 70% of these in the last four years. “This means that Malta is facing its worst year for illegal hunting as the Government continues to give in to the hunting lobby.”

Commenting about this year’s autumn hunting season which opened on 1st September, BirdLife Malta CEO Mark Sultana stated, “when the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU) took over the enforcement of bird protection laws from the Environment & Resources Authority (ERA), enforcement deteriorated to being non-existent.”

He argued that, “to add insult to injury, last January Prime Minister Robert Abela moved WBRU – which is run by hunters and trappers – under the Minister of Gozo Clint Camilleri; a well-known pro-hunter and trapper. Malta has never experienced a government so much in favour of hunting and trapping.”

This autumn, as also documented by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), BirdLife Malta said that its Raptor Camp teams of volunteers have witnessed a “high disregard for the law and poor effectiveness from the newly rebranded Environmental Protection Unit (EPU) within the Police, formerly the Administrative Law Enforcement (ALE) unit.”

BLM stated that “this season the unit did not capacity build for the bird migration period with 15 officers to deal with 10,600 hunters. In past years this section had been beefed up with at least 40 police officers during the migration season of birds of prey, which are the most targeted birds.”

BirdLife Malta Head of Conservation Nicholas Barbara said, “CABS and BirdLife Malta are witnessing numerous illegalities, but the EPU officers are not. Illegalities such as the indiscriminate use of bird callers, shooting at protected species, hunting after the 7pm curfew, hunting after the 1pm curfew on Sundays and public holidays are now a daily occurrence.”

He added that, “calling for assistance by EPU in the last days meant waiting for the use of a single vehicle patrolling all of Malta. Our volunteers are also facing a lot of abuse and intimidation by hunters, with one particular incident in Girgenti documented and reported to the Rabat Police station – action should be taken shortly.”

BirdLife Malta has called on the Prime Minister to “boost the heavily under-resourced EPU police unit with immediate effect and to remove bird protection enforcement from a weakened and biased WBRU and transfer this remit to ERA which already has the knowhow and will to handle this remit.”

BirdLife Malta concluded by urging the public to keep on participating in the #onthemove campaign reporting both bird sightings and illegalities or injured birds.

Photos by BirdLife Malta: 1. Five illegally shot protected birds retrieved in just one day earlier this week 2. Protected Hobby with gunshot wounds observed at Buskett. Video Footage by BirdLife Malta, editing by Nathaniel Attard.

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