BirdLife Malta said yesterday that “on the eve of the opening of the hunting season”, it has started to receive illegally shot birds, including a night heron (kwakka) found in the gardens of the President’s Palace in Attard.

BirdLife urged the government to actively combat all forms of illegal hunting. The president of BirdLife Malta, Joseph Mangion said: “BirdLife Malta calls on the government to reinforce the Administrative Law Enforcement section (ALE) to ensure that the situation on the ground can be adequately monitored. Throughout the hunting season, BirdLife Malta will continue to pass on reports outlining all illegal hunting incidents and all injured birds received to both the ALE and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.”

Apart from the night heron, another two protected birds brought to the office were a common kingfisher (Ghasfur ta’ San Martin) and a grey heron (russett griz), both of which died. The grey heron was also recovered in Attard while the common kingfisher was picked up at Mellieha Bay. All these three species are protected. Apart from being protected species, they were also shot at out of the hunting season.

BirdLife said Maltese photographer Joe Zammit-Lucia, who resides in the USA, recently contacted it while on holiday expressing his concern about the ongoing illegal hunting in Malta and his wish to document illegally-shot birds.

Dr Zammit-Lucia visited the BirdLife Malta office and took photos of the shot night heron.