• email article
  • print article
  • small text sizemedium text sizelarge text size
  • comment on this article

Birdwatchers report decline in illegal hunting

A turtle dove killed last Monday.

The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) said it had seen a "clear decrease in illegal hunting" during a 10-day bird watch camp that ended last week.

"It was an unbelievably pleasant experience to watch the passage of birds of prey, turtle doves and song birds without them having to run the usual gauntlet of shooting," CABS president Heinz Schwarze said.

The committee said many birds of prey, herons, swifts and song birds made the most of Malta's favourable climatic conditions, stopping en route to their breeding grounds in Europe.

Among the birds seen were several nightjars on the Mtarfa Ridge, a flock of more than 100 whinchants near Baħrija, two peregrine falcons and an Eleonora's falcon near Dingli Cliffs.

Some eight Montagu's harriers, 15 marsh harriers and 23 red-footed falcons were also seen, together with honey buzzards, night herons, Alpine swifts, kestrels, little egrets and more than 80 golden orioles.

The situation with regard to illegal hunting and trapping had clearly improved when compared to previous years, said Mr Schwarze.

But the camp also had its dark side, with CABS observers registering more than 1,300 shots and photographing hunters carrying weapons. He described this as worrisome.

Despite the ban on hunting and trapping, the bird watchers still witnessed a number of episodes. Just last Thursday they came across a trapper catching song birds with clapnets and the police later seized 18 live decoys, including short-toed larks, redthroated pipits and four ortolan buntings, which are an endangered species throughout Europe.

The following day a person was seen trapping quails at the north of Mellieħa, and again the police managed to seize nets and 10 live decoy quails.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday team members came across a cuckoo at Laferla Cross which had been shot and wounded. Attempts to rescue the bird were futile since the CABS members were told by two people to leave "their land".

  • Google Bookmarks Del.icio.us Facebook Blogger YahooMyWeb Digg Reddit Stumbleupon
  • email article
  • print article
  • small text sizemedium text sizelarge text size
  • comment on this article

Comments

Patrick Gauci (1 week, 2 days ago)
Birdwatchers saw a number of migrating birds as stated in article but where are the birds seen nesting and breeding. As stated by Birdlife, now that Spring Hunting is banned these birds migrating will stop to malta and breed. Where are these? Only one occasion was reported that a pair of Moore Hen paired at Simmar. According to a bird breeder in Kennedy Grove this pair of Moore Hen where in his pond where every year they breed and since they where frighted by a pair of his Swans they went to Simmar where they bred. If according to Birdlife the Banning of Spring hunting more birds will breed in malta I don't know where these birds are now! who knows? Maybe they continued in their migration?

The whole thing is that with Hunting and without hunting no birds will breed in Malta not as stated by Birdlife.
J. Borg (1 week, 3 days ago)
Doesn’t the Animal Welfare Legislation allow the reasonable ‘trespassing’ onto private property to assist a wounded animal/birds?
And if so, would anyone impeding such initiative, be exposing himself to prosecution under the same Act?
Can anyone well versed in the law clarify this matter pls…
Fabian Borg (1 week, 3 days ago)
Birdwatchers report a decline in illegal hunting and still they managed to put their hands on a Turtle Dove. I need to join these guys to check how they managed or at least let them teach my dog !!

All the hunting taking place with the legal season being closed must be called poaching.
The shots fired are less than usual as law abiding hunters are left at home, or out in their fields without a gun, and are deprived of the chance to practice their hobby which was legal until last year.
This leaves an open road to all those who choose to abuse of the situation. There will never be a situation where poaching is stopped for the same reason why other crimes won`t. Humanity has its bad side and it always finds a way.
The real losers in this are those who always obeyed the law as they cannot risk losing their clean conduct or afford wasting money in court cases.

anthony cassar (1 week, 3 days ago)
according to CABS the so called bird watchers(bird watchers take photos of birds not of illegal hunters !) saw about 500 birds in 10 days and heard 1300 shots. if one considers that the maltese hunters are accused of killing tens of thousands of birds one wonders what were the birdwatchers doing ?
Anthony Formosa (1 week, 3 days ago)
How come birdlife is not showing us the usual, dead Herons, Harriers, Kestrels etc etc, now we turned to turtle doves, and perhaps soon you'll start to show us sparrows, what makes us believe that this dove was shot and not a normal death?, Did you know that several birds do not make their migration to their destination for various reasons? How many pigeons or sparrows has one noticed dead on our roads? Plenty, does anyone realize why? of course not, and we don't need to know, just blame it on hunters.

Poll

Who would you like to win the MLP leadership election?

  • George Abela
  • Evarist Bartolo
  • Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca
  • Michael Falzon
  • Joseph Muscat


View results

Fun Stuff


Play Sudoku