Birds 'trapped illegally' in UK sold in Malta - BBC

Thousands of song birds are being illegally trapped in the UK and then sold in Malta, according to a BBC programme aired earlier this week.

BBC's Inside Out focuses on what it described as "surprising stories in familiar places".

Inside Out's Paul Ross went undercover to expose the illegal trapping and trading of British song birds.

Malta was described as a popular holiday destination, some of whose inhabitants swapped the traditional cat for a caged song bird as the family pet.

Rather than legally breeding song birds in captivity, many were choosing a far cheaper but altogether crueller method of replenishing stocks by importing them from Kent, the report claims.

"We consider Kent to be one of the major centres of this trade. We've had a number of convictions over the past few years involving hundreds of birds, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds," explains RSPCA officer Martin Daley.

The methods used by trappers to capture the birds can cause injury and distress, while almost half the birds get injured or die during transportation, the report says.

The so-called chardonneray trap uses a captured bird as bait: its song attracts a fellow bird to sit on the perch and trigger the trap.

Another method of trapping is the Japanese mist net, the use of which is only allowed with a licence.

Removing the birds from the net was a tricky business, but if a trapper was catching 20 birds at a time, then a handful would be considered an acceptable loss, the BBC said.

A further and even more brutal method involves the use of bird lime. The lime is painted onto trees and a caged bird or tape recording of birdsong is used as bait. When a bird lands on the branch, it gets stuck to the lime.

Faced with a strong hunting and bird trade lobby, the Maltese government was doing very little to curb the practice, the BBC said.

The programme also showed footage of the market in Valletta where locals were "very quick to stop open filming".

When contacted, Parliamentary Secretary George Pullicino said the British police had not sought any information on any illegal bird trade.

"In a small country like ours, the issue of hunting is always going to be in the spotlight," he said.

Admitting the government had not met its targets to curb all illegal practices, Mr Pullicino shot down comments that government was weak when faced with the hunting lobby.

"The facts speak for themselves. In the last three years, the number of those arraigned because of illegal hunting has more than trebled - to the extent that hunters now complain there is too much enforcement."