139 shot protected birds were retrieved by BirdLife Malta in the first nine months of a 2020 which is already a record year for illegal hunting, the NGO said.
“With only nine months into 2020, BirdLife Malta has already retrieved more illegally shot protected birds than the last eight years”, the NGO said in a statement on Thursday.
Up until the 22nd of September, 139 protected birds were retrieved after being shot by hunters. A total of 618 birds have been retrieved since 2013, with 70% of these being found in the last four years.
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.”
“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”, Sultana said.
Birdlife said that this autumn, as also documented by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), their 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.
“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”, the NGO said.
BirdLife Malta Head of Conservation Nicholas Barbara said that “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.
“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”, Barbara said.
Protected Hobby with gunshot wounds observed at Buskett - Photo by BirdLife Malta
BirdLife Malta called on Prime Minister Robert Abela 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, they said, already has the knowhow and will to handle this remit.
BirdLife Malta also urged the general public to keep on participating in the #onthemove campaign reporting both bird sightings and illegalities or injured birds.
Top Image: Five illegally shot protected birds retrieved in the same day earlier this week.