Regarding your article entitled Adrian Vassallo calls on police to investigate BirdLife regarding data protection (TMIS, 27 January) BirdLife Malta was acting in the public interest with regard to the recording of photographic and video evidence of suspected illegal activities following the observation of captive protected birds being kept by Dr Adrian Vassallo. There has, therefore, been no breach of the Data Protection Act, which allows the processing of personal data in the public interest, a fact that the Data Protection Commissioner previously clarified in a communication to BirdLife Malta in December 2011.
The video and photographic data in question were handed to the police and submitted as evidence in a public hearing of the case being prosecuted by the police against Dr Vassallo.
A court found Dr Vassallo guilty of keeping protected birds illegally. The Conservation of Wild Birds Regulations clearly states that a “captive bred” bird must be marked by a seamless closed ring in order to distinguish it from its wild counterparts.
It was the evidence provided by BirdLife Malta to the police’s Administrative Law Enforcement Unit (ALE) that led to the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Dr Vassallo in this case.
Your article reports Dr Vassallo, who claims he is being persecuted, as saying: “No trapping apparatus was found in my possession, neither have I been caught or seen trapping any birds.”
The photographic evidence presented in court, and eyewitness testimony as to the presence of alleged illegal cage traps next to Dr Vassallo’s rooftop aviary, has already been reported.
Dr Vassallo is then reported as saying: “Mepa officials have seen with their own eyes fledglings in my aviaries.”
Let me clarify: the only fledglings observed in Dr Vassallo’s aviaries by the Mepa investigating officer were those of Spanish Sparrows, which are notoriously prolific and adaptable breeders and one of Malta’s few resident breeding birds. No evidence was found of any of the other species in the aviary breeding.
To date, Dr Vassallo has not produced any documentation to support his claim that he legally purchased and imported from Belgium the parents of the protected birds in his aviary: bafflingly, neither the court nor the prosecution asked to see any such evidence.
Christian Debono
BirdLife Malta Conservation and Policy Officer