The German-based bird conservation organisation Committee against Bird Slaughter (CABS) yesterday reported that a 50 kilogramme boulder was used to smash the windscreen of one of the committee’s rented vehicles in Delimara. No one was injured in the attack.

The incident, which occurred in the early hours of the morning, happened as two CABS teams, who were in the accompaniment of Administrative Law Enforcement (ALE) unit officers, were investigating reports of illegal hunting and trapping in the area.

CABS said that the attack, which is the latest in a series of acts of violence against bird conservationists in Malta in recent weeks, was definitely deliberate.

A spokesperson on behalf of CABS referred to the incidents of last week where the rear window of a BirdLife vehicle was shattered by a shotgun blast, while a few days later hunters attacked a foreign bird protection team and knocked a person of Italian nationality to the ground. In the outskirts of Imtahleb, anti-German slogans were sprayed in graffiti on rubble walls, with threats including “you Germans will pay for this”.

“We can only assume that this cowardly attack is an act of is revenge aimed at bird poachers,” committee spokesperson Axel Hirschfeld said yesterday.

On the previous day, CABS Bird Guards recorded the illegal firing of some 300 shots aimed at birds of prey and Turtle Doves to the east of Delimara. Police units alerted by CABS were able to effect the arrest of two poachers.

CABS said that yesterday morning the conservationists successfully filmed a poacher with a weapon in his hand and caught a Quail trapper red-handed in the area commonly referred to as Ta’ Lombardi.

ALE officers are investigating both cases.