The government once again appears to have walked the tightrope and struck what it considers to have been a delicate balance between what it is being demanded by Brussels and that which is being demanding by the country’s inexplicably influential bird hunting and trapping lobby.
Today, the disputed autumn trapping season starts and it will be rather slim pickings for Malta’s trappers given the two species allowed to be trapped, and the bag limits being imposed. That is because there are just over 1,500 registered trappers who will all be vying for a quarry of just 5,700 (700 golden plover and 5,000 song thrush) over a 10-week period.
Simple arithmetic puts the legitimate quarry at under four birds per trapper for the whole of the 10-week period. One would be hard-pressed to imagine that the effort would hardly be worth anyone’s while, but, of course, how their time is the trappers’ prerogative.
But it must be said that the situation also gives plenty of leeway to plenty of abuse.
Finch trapping has been ruled out this year and the only trappable species will be golden plover and song thrush, the trapping of which are already subject to European Union infringement proceedings, which could, in turn, land Malta once again before the European Courts of Justice Justas the trapping of finches had done.
Malta had, last June, been found guilty of having illegally allowed the trapping of seven species of finches since 2014. And yet the government persists in allowing such trapping, risking very likely court action.
The current government applied derogations to allow for the trapping of finches since it was first elected – for the seasons of 2014 through to 2017, when it must have known full well that those derogations were non-starters.
One derogation applied to the trapping of seven breeds of finches, which the ECJ ruled as illegal, and the other is applied in order to allow the trapping of song thrushes and golden plovers, which is still the subject of European Commission infringement proceedings.
When Malta joined the EU the government agreed to gradually phase out the trapping of finches over a five-year period during which a fully-fledged captive breeding programme was meant to have been developed but never got off the ground. It was made illegal in 2009, however, in 2014 the practice was reintroduced. In September 2015, the European Commission announced it would be taking Malta to the European Court of Justice over the matter.
The EU directive clearly states that there is only a limited scope for any derogation “from the requirement of strict protection where there is no other satisfactory solution”. Such scope includes reasons in the interests of public health and safety or air safety, to prevent serious damage to crops, livestock, forests, fisheries and water, and for the protection of flora and fauna. A derogation can be applied in the interest of research and teaching, repopulation, reintroduction and for the breeding necessary for these purposes.
Malta’s case, it was found, fit none of these bills.
There are, however, some caveats introduced this year aimed at limiting the illegalities.
For starters, trappers will be required to use larger net mesh sizes to avoid the capture of smaller birds, finches and the net mesh size has been increased from 30mm to 45mm. Will all trappers go out and purchase brand new nets this year?
Another new condition is that nets must be taken away or covered up at night time after trapping hours, and the possession of an electronic bird callers has bow been made illegal instead of being merely prohibited. These lures have been a scourge and several hundreds of them had been found over past hunting seasons and anyone caught using them will be immediately struck the trappers register.
Moreover, trappers will only be able to register one site per head and only have a maximum of two nets.
This is all well and good but now comes the tricky part: enforcement. After all, the government’s credibility, and its rule of law in a manner of speaking, is on the line, illegal hunting is illegal and citizens simply cannot be allowed to run rampant and flout the law of the land with impunity as they have been allowed to do for so long when it comes to hunting.
The government must set an example, it must enforce the law and not allow the bad apples among the hunting and trapping community to make a mockery of the laws of the land.