A sizeable proportion of these derogations are actually sought for scientific purposes, and the majority of those which involve the deliberate killing of birds are applied for specific reasons including public health, air safety and pest control, rather than simply the continuation of some hunting tradition.
The figures cited by the IVA campaign and displayed on some of its billboards – among other things, they note that EU member states applied some 5,000 derogations from the Birds Directive, and that the UK alone applied over 1,700 - appear to be based on 2008 figures, the latest year for which a report on Birds Directive derogations is available on the European Commission’s website.
The report notes that a total of 4,615 derogations were issued in 2008, although this number excludes France and Greece – who failed to submit national reports – so the 5,000 figure cited by the IVA campaign appears to be a reasonable estimate.
But one has to point out that practically no derogation – Malta’s own are a rare exception – covers a country’s entire territory, so the fact that EU member states issued an average of 171 derogations to Malta’s 3 does not mean that European hunters are allowed to hunt dozens of species the directive nominally forbids them to.
And in any case, only a minority of derogations are issued with the explicit aim of maintaining various forms of recreational hunting or trapping of birds.
Many derogations do not lead to killing or trapping of birds
The Birds Directive generally prohibits various activities relating to wild birds native to Europe, including their deliberate killing or capture, the destruction or damage of their nests or eggs, the taking of their eggs, deliberate disturbance and keeping them.
Only 24 species of birds may be legally hunted throughout the European Union without restrictions: 12 species of ducks and geese, four species of partridge, two species of grouse, the coot, three species within the sandpiper family and two species of pigeon.
A further 58 species may be hunted only in member states specifically indicated in the directive: 16 of them, including the common quail and the turtledove, may be hunted in Malta.
But the directive also states that species are not to be hunted “during the rearing season or during the various stages of reproduction,” further specifying that in the case of migratory species, hunting should also be banned “during their period of reproduction or during their return to their rearing grounds,” thus making spring hunting in Malta technically illegal under EU law.
However, derogations from the provisions restricting the hunting, capturing may be granted for six specific reasons listed in the directive itself.
Four of them seek to address possible threats caused by birds – derogations can be sought in the interests of public health and safety; in the interests of air safety; to prevent serious damage to crops, livestock, forests, fisheries and water; and for the protection of flora and fauna.
Derogations can also be applied “for the purposes of research and teaching, of re-population, of re-introduction and for the breeding necessary for these purposes.” In fact, BirdLife Malta itself has benefited from derogations to allow it to carry out bird ringing activities, which would otherwise be illegal since they involve the temporary capture of birds.
The last reason is the one which is used to justify the derogations permitting hunting and trapping in Malta: “to permit, under strictly supervised conditions and on a selective basis, the capture, keeping or other judicious use of certain birds in small numbers.”
Derogations may only be applied where there is no other satisfactory solution – Malta argues that the autumn hunting season is not a satisfactory substitute to hunting in spring, for instance.
Going through the United Kingdom’s 1,747 derogations in 2008 provides an indication of how derogations are used.
1,341 of them were applied for the protection of flora and fauna, of which 1,316 were applied in Scotland. The vast majority of these – 1,076 – simply involved scaring away birds, while 132 involved the taking of eggs and 79 involved the deliberate capture of birds.
A total of 142 derogations were applied for scientific purposes, 133 for the reasons of public health and safety, 33 to prevent damage to crops, livestock or fisheries and only 98 were applied for other reasons, and could thus be directly compared with Malta’s own hunting and trapping derogations.
Many of these 98 derogations allow for aviculture, falconry, sale and human consumption, including the traditional consumption of some 2,000 gannets in the isle of Lewis, in the northwest of Scotland.
The report states that in the UK, derogations allowing the killing of birds were mostly used in the interest of public health and safety (61 derogations), followed by the prevention of serious damage to crops, livestock or fishery (28 derogations), which means that fewer than 28 derogations are applied to allow for the hunting of birds without scientific or safety justifications.
The situation in Spain provides a more favourable example for pro-hunting advocates to use, although even in this case, the vast majority of the 352 derogations obtained in 2008 do not concern hunting or trapping.
But 248 of these were applied for the purpose of research and teaching, of which only one allowed killing – of 12 cuckoo chicks in a laboratory.
A total of 30 derogations were granted for killing or hunting 30,811 individuals of various species – including turtledoves – deemed to be pests to prevent damage or to protect other species of wild fauna.
The derogation report does suggest that in some cases, this justification can be spurious – it points out that this method of pest control has proven to be ineffective – but in any case, no such reason has been cited by Malta.
Only 25 derogations were applied for the “judicious use” of birds in small numbers, of which only one allowed hunting – of 3,252 song thrushes. On the other hand, 18 allowed the capture of various songbirds, in some cases during the breeding season.
Germany issued 588 derogations, of which “around two-thirds” were for scientific purposes and in the interest of public health and safety. Many derogations issued for scientific purposes concern the stuffing of animals which are found dead, while the latter mainly covers the destruction of nests of various species. The most derogated species for killing was the great cormorant, hunted due to its impact on fisheries.
In many cases – including where Germany, Spain and the UK are concerned – the EU’s report points out that none of the derogations appear to be in conflict with the provisions of the Birds Directive.
No such proviso is made in Malta’s case, and when it comes to another country which allowed spring hunting – Cyprus, which allowed farmers to hunt carrion crows and common magpies for pest control reasons – the Commission highlights that it was investigating the case.
Malta had not opened a spring hunting season in 2008, as it was facing infringement proceedings at EU level.
The resolution of the case, curiously, paved the way for the opening of further spring hunting season, even though the court ruled that Malta was in breach of regulations when it authorised the opening of a hunting season for quail and turtledove during the spring migration period in the years 2004 to 2007.