An Audouin's gull, a threatened species, was found with gunshot injuries at the Valletta breakwater early this week, BirdLife Malta said yesterday.
The juvenile was taken to a vet but had to be put down due to the extent of its injuries.
Europe holds 75 per cent of the global Audouin's gull population, with the majority of the breeding colonies located in Spain. "There are no records of Audouin's gull breeding in Malta, so this bird must have fledged from its nest a few months ago in one of its European breeding colonies," BirdLife Malta conservation manager André Raine, said.
"This bird represented one of the summer's successful offspring and would have added to the European population of this threatened species," he said.
Over the last two months, BirdLife said it had received reports of illegal killing and trapping of protected birds including a number of species breeding on the island. They include a shot marsh harrier, which was handed over to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority for rehabilitation on May 13, two yellow-legged gulls, a little bittern, a European hobby and a short-eared owl.
It said it had informed Mepa about such cases, including this last case.
The number of protected shot birds we received during spring has declined drastically compared to previous years, thanks to the spring hunting ban, BirdLife reported. It said its members have witnessed a colony of collared doves in Gozo being targeted and several illegal cage traps for turtle doves scattered throughout the countryside.
"The rabbit hunting season has been used by some hunters as a loophole to illegally shoot at birds," Dr Raine claimed. BirdLife said it has informed the police ALE section about the ongoing abuse but its response since early June has been very limited as most ALE officers are assigned almost exclusively to other duties including beach patrols.
"The first ban on spring hunting will surely have conservation benefits for breeding birds on both an international and local level. However, as this latest incident shows, there are some hunters still breaking the law during the critical months of the breeding season. Even if only a minority of hunters illegally shoot or trap the breeding birds this summer, they will put an end to many of the breeding attempts by some of the rarer breeding species of Malta," Dr Raine said.