Foresta 2000 ranger's rooms torched - BirdLife

A small farm in Mellieha belonging to Ray Vella, the Foresta 2000 Ranger and long time BirdLife member, has become "the latest victim of the serial attacks on birdwatchers in Malta," BirdLife Malta said today.

It said three rooms containing farming equipment and five rabbits were torched by unknown individuals early this morning.

Mr Vella who went to his field at Ta Penellu, Mellieha, around 7:30 a.m. saw the smoke as he approached his farm.

"He immediately realised that the hay bales that were stored at the entrance of his field as well as the three rooms used as storage were torched, destroying his farming equipment and killing four of his pregnant female rabbits that apparently got trapped and died of smoke in one of the rooms. Additionally oil was dumped in Mr. Vella's well, poisoning the fresh water reservoir in his field, and the wall of a second water reservoir was destroyed. Some trees were chopped and uprooted as well," BirdLife said.

The police confirmed that this was an arson attack, BirdLife added.

It said its conservation sites have consistently been the target of vandal attacks including oil dumped at Ghadira Nature Reserve, the destruction of the sign of the EU LIFE project at Rdum tal-Madonna and the chopping down of 3,000 trees and shrubs at the Foresta 2000 site in Marfa. A few months ago three cars belonging to BirdLife volunteers were also torched at Buskett.