Wednesday, 9th April 2008 - 11:42CET
419 shot protected birds reported last year
"The tip of the iceberg" - BirdLife
BirdLife Malta said today that 419 protected birds suffering gunshot injuries were reported or delivered to it and the National Museum of Natural History last year.
A further 74 incidents of illegal hunting and trapping were recorded during the year.
“This high figure still does not represent the true scale of illegal hunting in Malta, This is the tip of the iceberg and many more incidents go unreported as many injured or dead protected birds are never found,” Andre Raine, Birdlife Malta conservation manager said at a press conference.
The figures are included in a report entitled Illegal Hunting and Trapping Report 2007 and a supplementary report dealing with protected birds delivered to the natural history museum in 2007 and the first two months of this year.
Dr Raine said the reports also illustrated the international impact of illegal hunting activity in Malta. Four foreign-ringed protected birds were reported shot in Malta last year, two from Finland, one from Sweden and one from Germany,.
“One can actually state that conservation efforts abroad are being shot down in Malta” said Dr Raine. “The grim results presented in these reports show in no uncertain terms that illegal activities are rife in the Maltese countryside. It is telling,” he said.
The three most common species with gunshot wounds reported last year were the Common Kestrel (Spanjulett) Marsh Harrier (Baghdan Ahmar) and Honey Buzzard (Kuccarda) in that order.
He said that the protected birds delivered to BirdLidfe last year originated from 48 locations around Malta and Gozo and illegal hunting was reported in 84 locations. The worst areas were the area around Laferla Cross, Mizieb and Nadur.
Picture: A Marsh Harrier which suffered gunshot wounds.
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Reading this article and the comments below make me curious on how birds are classified as protected and not protected by birdlife. Is it because they are in danger of extinction?
As far as I know nature is a complete ecosystem and if one of the links is lost or altered the ecosystem is disrupted.
So - in other words, Can one shoot down as many sparrows we see in our streets because they are considered not protected or what?
Shall we also shoot down or even poison pigeons .
In my opinion man is tampering too much with nature and causing havoc of many eco systems around the world on land and in the sea.
If one looks at how primitive tribes today hunt for food not for stuffing the animal , they do this with caution without excessive killing and respecting the species which will provide them with food for the future.
There was a time when lions were killed to make carpets, elephants and rhinos were killed for their tasks,crocs and snakes were slaughtered to make handbags and shoes from their skin, young seals for their fur.
All of these were tought of as being 'traditional' pass times!!
They are illegal today and so should bird stuffing (ibbalzmar) -whether protected or not.
The answer is simple: it's useless to try and argue with a particular section of a society.
And, to my mind, it's useless trying to bring sense on gun-wielding, often-violent, pseudo-macho hunters. Those who claim that there indeed are law-abiding hunters are simply doing like the ostrich and ignoring the stark facts, among which, that hunters will simply NOT be controlled unless hunting is totally curbed.
Unfortunately Bird Life activists are behaving as utter fundamentalists and this certainly is not doing any good. Maybe only just fueling the antagonism that already exists.
Maybe Mr Lino Farrugia would be good enough to tell us.
I admire this organization which does Stirling work amidst being constantly attacked (even literally) by senseless, selfish people who think its okay to kill living things for fun. Note, its not just birds! Go to some places at night e.g. Bahrija and you'll witness the rabbit hunting - Easy to notice: noisy jeeps with flood lights and turret guns doing illegal offroading.
Birds and the natural heritage belong to all. It's everyone's right to go out in the countryside and enjoy watching wildlife. Unfortunately in Malta this does not really happen because birds and other wildlife that are still alive are scared and disturbed by these selfish people. Just because no-one bothered about this selfishness for all these centuries, they expect that no one bothers now. Well sorry that most Maltese people are being a spoil-'sport' (pun intended!) but this behaviour has no place in this millennium.
We have our right to enjoy the wildlife. These creatures are not objects that belong to you by default. In fact they belong to nobody.
And if you don't care about killing birds, at least stick to the legal system. We have a democracy not an anarchy. No spring hunting? Tough luck. The people voted for EU policy.
How many times have we seen this same picture???!!!
Get your facts right!!!!!! before blabbing off!!!
Mr Micallef is perfectly correct and NO no lead is used its just a noise. And if you are so interested maybe you might want to know that the sound rings out every 30 seconds or so.
Purely to scare the sparrows
in my life, yet i am all for legal hunting. Then again how many hunters out there are ready to cooperate? How many hunters are ready to report their own friends when these kill protected birds? How can the FKNK control hunters all over the island when they couldn't even control that group of hunters singing "...viva il-Lejber..." and throwing bottles in a mass rally in Valletta last year? ....lets for a moment say that the E.U. allows spring Hunting to go on, how long would it be before it is stopped again because a couple of hunters break the law? its useless saying that the minority is committing these crimes.....unfortunately in the world we live in thats how the cookie crumbles...the media reports the mistakes of the minority ( which in the hunters' case seem to be countless) not the correct ways of the majority!!
The illegal hunting that takes place is a known by all. Perpetrated by small 'men' with big guns.
Shame on Malta
Wth the arguments and those of Mr. Temuge in a recent issue of The Times, if hunters are criminals, then the Maltese authorities should be banning a lot of things and activities in Malta, eg. Nightclubs because somebody pushes drugs there and Festas because a lot of fireworks are manufactured illegally.